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Foxman Calls on Trump Himself To Condemn Alt-Right

Abe Foxman, the former national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), on Monday called on President-elect Donald Trump to personally condemn the racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric espoused at a white nationalist conference that took place in DC over the weekend the same way he rebuked unpleasant comments made by the cast of ‘Hamilton’ on Saturday.

A video published by The Atlantic shows parts of a speech delivered by Richard Spencer, a prominent white nationalist within the alt-right movement, at the National Policy Institute’s annual conference to celebrate Trump’s victory.

“Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory!” Spencer declared as some raised their hand in a Nazi salute. He also bashed journalists covering the 2016 presidential election. “One wonders if these people are people at all, or instead soulless golem,” Spencer said in a reference to a Jewish fable, using a Nazi-era propaganda term to describe the mainstream media – “lugenpresse.”

Trump’s transition team spokesman Bryan Lanza said in a statement, “President-elect Trump has continued to denounce racism of any kind and he was elected because he will be a leader for every American. To think otherwise is a complete misrepresentation of the movement that united Americans from all backgrounds.”

But Foxman said the laconic statement on behalf of Trump might not be enough since Trump has made it a mission to personally respond to attacks or criticism leveled at him on his own social media platform.

“President-elect Trump needs to specifically condemn and distance himself from the racism and anti-Semitism spewed there,” Foxman told Jewish Insider. “If he takes the time and effort to personally criticize SNL or the “Hamilton” episode, then certainly this event deserves his personal attention and voice.”

On Saturday, after Vice President-elect Mike Pence was greeted with boos at a New York theater, and the cast of Hamilton delivered a message to the incoming administration after the play, Trump took to Twitter to rebuke the cast and those who jeered Pence. “The Theater must always be a safe and special place,” Trump tweeted. “The cast of Hamilton was very rude last night to a very good man, Mike Pence. Apologize!”

“I watched parts of @nbcsnl Saturday Night Live last night. It is a totally one-sided, biased show – nothing funny at all. Equal time for us?” Trump tweeted on Sunday, hours after SNL mocked his transition work.

Trump’s former campaign manager Kellyanne Conway insisted on Monday that the president-elect has already condemned hate crimes and anti-Semitism in the past. “He has addressed it many times. Same question, different week,” Conway told reporters in the lobby of Trump Tower. “He’s told people to cut it out. He said that on ‘60 Minutes’ in front of 32 million people. And he has said that he’ll be the president of all Americans. But, honestly and respectfully, I think that we can use your help in that.”

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