Donald Trump signalled Tuesday his campaign trail dismissal of the threat of climate change may have been hot air after all, saying he was \u2018open minded\u2019 on supporting global accords.<\/p>\n
The US president-elect emerged from cabinet-building talks in his Trump Tower headquarters and travelled ten minutes across town to The New York Times to give a wide-ranging interview on his plans.<\/p>\n
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He disavowed \u2018alt-right\u2019 activists who hailed his election as a victory for white supremacy, distanced himself from calls to prosecute Hillary Clinton and defended his global business empire.<\/p>\n
And he appeared to soften his pledge to pull the United States out of accords such as last year\u2019s COP21 Paris Agreement, that binds countries to national pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019m looking at it very closely. I have an open mind to it,\u2019 he told New York Times executives and journalists over lunch at their headquarters, according to the paper\u2019s own account.<\/p>\n
Campaigning ahead of November 8, Trump repeatedly told crowds of rustbelt and southern voters \u2014 factory workers, coal miners and oilmen among them \u2014 that he would tear up international climate agreements.<\/p>\n
As far back as 2012 he had tweeted: \u2018The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive.\u2019<\/p>\n
Now elected and due to become president on January 20, when he was confronted by Times columnist Thomas Friedman he admitted there may be a link between human industry and global warming.<\/p>\n
\u2018I think there is some connectivity. Some, something. It depends on how much,\u2019 he said, adding he would nevertheless remain concerned about how much green measures would \u2018cost our companies.\u2019<\/p>\n
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Nazi salutes<\/p>\n
The New York Times sit-down, which followed a reportedly hostile off-the-record clash with TV network chiefs on Monday, appeared to represent a perhaps temporary truce with the hated media.<\/p>\n
Trump regularly \u2014 as recently as earlier Tuesday \u2014 insults the \u2018failing New York Times\u2019 in tweets, but distanced himself from threats to toughen libel laws and engaged cheerfully with the paper.<\/p>\n
\u2018I do read it. Unfortunately,\u2019 he admitted. \u2018I\u2019d live about 20 years longer if I didn\u2019t.\u2019<\/p>\n
He also, under repeated questioning, denounced the so-called alt-right, after leaders of the movement met in Washington at the weekend and celebrated his victory with Nazi salutes.<\/p>\n
He insisted, somewhat controversially, that his sprawling global business empire does not represent a conflict of interest for a president \u2014 at least not according to lawyers he has consulted.<\/p>\n
\u2018The law\u2019s totally on my side, the president can\u2019t have a conflict of interest,\u2019 he told the paper.<\/p>\n
Trump also said that he was reconsidering his position favouring the authorisation of torturing detainees after sitting down with retired general James Mattis over the weekend to discuss naming him as secretary of defence.<\/p>\n
He reported that he would \u2018love\u2019 to clinch a deal to end the intractable conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, but on the bloodshed in Syria, Trump was more vague, saying \u2018we have to end the craziness that\u2019s going on.\u2019<\/p>\n
Trump gushed in his admiration for President Barack Obama, whom he will replace in the White House, telling the paper, despite the aggressive tone of his campaign, he had been honoured to meet Obama. And he stepped back from threats to prosecute his defeated rival Clinton.<\/p>\n
During the campaign, Trump had accused Clinton of illegally destroying email records to cover up wrongdoing and alleged fraud at her charitable foundation \u2014 as his fans chanted \u2018Lock her up.\u2019<\/p>\n
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Special prosecutor<\/p>\n
Trump was asked by The New York Times whether he stood by a threat, made to Clinton\u2019s face in their second debate, to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate her.<\/p>\n
\u2018I think it would be very, very divisive for the country,\u2019 the president-elect admitted.<\/p>\n
In common with his predecessors, the Republican billionaire has been in no hurry to name a cabinet, leaving the reporters gathered unde<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Donald Trump signalled Tuesday his campaign trail dismissal of the threat of climate change may have been hot air after all, saying he was ‘open minded’ on supporting global accords. The US president-elect emerged from cabinet-building talks in his Trump Tower headquarters and travelled ten minutes across town to The New York Times to give a wide-ranging interview on his plans. Advertisement He disavowed ‘alt-right’ activists who hailed his election as a victory for white supremacy, distanced himself from calls to prosecute Hillary Clinton and defended his global business<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4097,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4096"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4096"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4098,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4096\/revisions\/4098"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}