11 November 2016, 16:33 GMT
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Merkley noted that Bannon, before serving as chief executive of Trump's presidential campaign, ran the right-wing news website Breitbart.
"Donald Trump needs to forcefully denounce the hateful actions and efforts to intimidate people that some of his supporters are undertaking and rescind the appointment of Steve Bannon," Merkley stated.
"Bannon has boasted that he made Breitbart News ‘the platform for the alt-right,’ which is the politically correct term for the resurrection of white nationalism," Merkley added.
The senator added that Trump’s stated goal of seeing Americans united is undercut by the weekend hiring of Bannon and by the president-elect’s failure to speak out against incidents of intimidation against minorities by people identifying themselves as Trump supporters.
