Trump ‘not white supremacist’

Two days after the New Zealand mosque massacre in which 50 people were slaughtered by a white nationalist targeting Muslims, President Donald Trump’s acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said the president is ‘‘not a white supremacist’’ – even as Trump took to Twitter to praise a Fox News host whose commentary has been denounced by critics as Islamophobic.

In a manifesto distributed on social media, the Australian man arrested in Friday’s attack at two mosques in Christchurch, said he considered Trump ‘‘a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose’’ – although he said he did not admire the president’s leadership style or policymaking.

On the campaign trail and as president, Trump has made derogatory references to Muslims. He told an interviewer in 2016 that he believed ‘‘Islam hates us,’’ and in one of his first official acts, announced a measure targeting immigrants from Muslim-majority nations that set off months of court battles.

In a now-familiar scenario, White House aides and allies were in the position yesterday of attempting to distance the president from previous remarks criticised as racially insensitive or worse – at the same time that Trump was again expressing similar sentiments.

Mulvaney, on Fox News Sunday, expressed frustration when asked about the positive citation of Trump in the alleged shooter’s manifesto.

‘‘The president is not a white supremacist. I’m not sure how many times we have to say that,’’ he said.

In a separate interview on CBS’ Face the Nation, Mulvaney, also discussing the New Zealand attack, said: ‘‘I don’t think anybody could say that the president is anti-Muslim.’’ In the Fox interview, he said it was wrong to link the accused attacker’s ideology to the previous comments of Trump or others.

‘‘This was a disturbed individual, an evil person,’’ Mulvaney said of the shooter.

‘‘And any attempt to try to tie him to an American politician of either party probably ignores some of the deeper difficulties that this sort of activity exposes.’’

Around the time that interview was being aired, the president posted on Twitter a vociferous defence of Jeanine Pirro, a conservative Fox News host who was condemned by her network after she questioned whether the first allegiance of Rep. Ilhan Omar – a Minnesota Democrat who is one of three Muslim lawmakers in the House of Representatives – was to Islamic law or the US Constitution.

On Saturday night, local time, Pirro did not appear in her usual weekend time slot on Fox.

Yesterday, Trump, in Twitter posts, urged viewers to rally around Pirro and another Fox host, Tucker Carlson, who has been under fire after old audio emerged of Carlson calling Iraqis ‘‘primitive monkeys’’ and also making lewd remarks about teenage beauty contestants.

‘‘Keep fighting for Tucker, and fight hard’’ for Pirro, the president exhorted his Twitter followers. ‘‘Your competitors are jealous.’’

‘‘I don’t think anybody could say that the president is anti-Muslim.’’

Mick Mulvaney, President Donald Trump’s acting chief of staff