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ByLaurieKellman TheAssociatedPress WASHINGTON Twoweeksafterhiselec- tion victory, President- elect Donald Trump be- gan backing off campaign promises Tuesday, includ- ing his hard line on cli- mate change and his vow to jail "Crooked Hillary" Clinton that had brought thunderous "Lock her up" chants at his rallies. A top adviser said Trump is now focused on matters that are essential in setting up his adminis- tration, not on comments he made during the heat of the campaign. After a year blasting The New York Times, Trump submitted to an interview with reporters and editors at their Manhattan office. Among the topics covered, he: — Pushed back against questions about conflicts that could arise due to a lack of separation between his government post and his many businesses, de- claring that "the law's to- tally on my side, the pres- ident can't have a conflict of interest." — Took his strongest stance yet against the "alt- right," a term often used as code for the white suprem- acist movement. Though members are celebrating his victory, he said, "It's not a group I want to en- ergize. And if they are en- ergized, I want to look into it and find out why." — Spoke positively not only of fellow Republicans in Congress — "Right now they are in love with me" — but also of President Barack Obama, who he said is "looking to do ab- solutely the right thing for the country in terms of transition." Trump, who left late Tuesday to spend Thanks- giving at his estate in Flor- ida, also continued to work to populate his incoming administration, officially asking GOP presidential rival Ben Carson to head the Department of Hous- ing and Urban Develop- ment, according to a per- son familiar with the offer who spoke on the condi- tion of anonymity because the person was not autho- rized to discuss the delib- erations publicly. Carson is expected to respond after the holiday. Adviser Kellyanne Con- way said earlier on MSN- BC's "Morning Joe" that Trump is "thinking of many different things as he prepares to become the president of the United States, and things that sound like the campaign aren't among them." His interview comments on a possible prosecution of his former foe Clinton stood in stark contrast to his incendiary rhetoric throughout the campaign, during which he accused her breaking laws with her email practices and angrily barked at her that "you'd be in jail" if he were president. "I don't want to hurt the Clintons, I really don't," Trump said in the inter- view. Sympathetically, he said, "She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways." Though he declined to definitively rule out a pros- ecution, he said, "It's just not something that I feel very strongly about." Trump had vowed throughout the campaign to use his presidential power to appoint a special prosecutor to probe his Democratic rival for both her reliance on a private email server as secretary of state and what he called pay-for-play schemes in- volving the Clinton Foun- dation. Adviser Conway signaled to congressional Republicans earlier Tues- day that they should aban- don their years of vigorous probes of Clinton's email practices and her actions at the time of the terror at- tacks in Benghazi, Libya. "If Donald Trump can help her heal, then perhaps that's a good thing," she told reporters at Trump Tower in New York. But some of his conser- vative supporters strongly disagreed. If Trump's appointees do not follow through on his pledge to investigate Clinton for criminal vio- lations he accused her of, "it would be a betrayal of his promise to the Amer- ican people to 'drain the swamp' of out-of-control corruption in Washing- ton," said the group Judi- cial Watch. And Breitbart, the con- servative news site whose former head, Stephen Ban- non, is now a senior coun- selor to Trump, headlined its story about the switch with "Broken Promise." FBI Director James Comey has declared on two occasions there is no evi- dence warranting charges against Clinton. Justice Department investigations are historically conducted without the influence or in- put of the White House. As for global warming, Trump has repeatedly questioned the idea, sug- gesting at times that it is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese to hurt U.S. man- ufacturers with environ- mental regulations. But on Tuesday, he said he would "keep an open mind" about pulling the United States out of the landmark, multi-national Paris Agreement on cli- mate change — he'd said in the campaign he would yank the U.S. out — and he allowed, "I think there is some connectivity" be- tween human activity and climate changes. Trump, who has yet to hold the traditional news conference held by a pres- ident-elect in the days af- ter winning, said his own businesses are "unimport- ant to me" in comparison to the presidency, but he also said he now believes he could continue to run them at the same time if he wanted. There have been con- cerns raised about con- flicts of interest since many of the businesses are sub- ject to government actions in the U.S. and abroad. But he said he would be "phas- ing" control over to his grown children, although "in theory I could run my business perfectly and then run the country per- fectly. There's never been a case like this." Earlier Tuesday, it was confirmed that Trump's charity had admitted it violated IRS regulations barring it from using its money or assets to bene- fit Trump, his family, his companies or substantial contributors to the foun- dation. According to a 2015 tax return posted on the non- profit monitoring web- site GuideStar, the Don- ald J. Trump Foundation acknowledged that it used money or assets in vio- lation of the regulations during 2015 and in prior years. The tax filing, first reported Tuesday by The Washington Post, didn't provide details. On another topic, the president-elect, who has been criticized for be- ing slow to denounce rac- ist acts done in his name, said, "I disavow and con- demn" a recent "alt-right" conference in Washing- ton where some attendees raised their arms in a Hit- ler-like salute while chant- ing "Heil Trump." But he defended his appointment of Bannon, whose links to the movement have drawn widespread criticism from Democrats. PRESIDENT-ELECT TrumpbeginsbackingoffcampaignvowsonClinton,climate MARKLENNIHAN—THEASSOCIATEDPRESS President-elect Donald Trump waves to the crowd as he leaves the New York Times building following a meeting, Tuesday in New York. NEVERGIVEUP UNTIL THEY BUCKLE UP. 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