Donald Trump's picks for top posts alarm minorities

Washington: President-elect Donald Trump’s choices for leadership posts threaten national unity and promise to turn back the clock on progress for racial, religious and sexual minorities, civil rights leaders and others said on Saturday after his nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions for attorney general.

Comments attributed to Mr Trump’s picks, also including alt-right architect Stephen Bannon as senior adviser and chief strategist and former Army Lt. Michael Flynn as national security adviser, serve to embolden everyday Americans to lash out at members of minority groups, they said.

Mr Sessions, of Alabama, was denied a federal judgeship in 1986 after hearings in which he was accused of making racially charged remarks as a U.S. attorney. According to transcripts, he was accused, among other things, of joking that he thought the Ku Klux Klan “was OK” until he learned they smoked marijuana, and of calling a black assistant U.S. attorney “boy.”

Mr Bannon led the Breitbart website, which has been condemned as racist, sexist and anti-Semitic. In a 2011 radio interview, he said conservative women infuriated liberals because they “would be pro-family, they would have husbands, they would love their children,” contrasting that against a slur for lesbians.

Meanwhile, vice president-elect Mike Pence was booed at a performance of the award-winning Broadway musical “Hamilton,” whose cast called for Mr Trump’s incoming administration to work on behalf of all Americans.

Mr Trump has demanded an apology. “The cast of Hamilton was very rude last night to a very good man, Mike Pence. Apologise!” he tweeted.