Earlier, another poster declared Trump was venerated by white supremacists: “What Dems, all leftists and pundits do not understand is that TRUMP is patriots’ and Western/American Heritage’s CHAMPION.”

To Alcindor, Trump repeated two more times how racist the question was. But he also never flatly denounced white supremacists. They were overjoyed, calling the press conference “glorious,” and “beautiful” on 4chan, with one commenter writing: “I am honestly in awe of this man as a leader.”

“It doesn’t take an overt slur for these individuals to basically become emboldened and to recognize and be excited by policies that they see would further their goals,” said Keegan Hankes, a senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project.

“When they hear the President say things like, ‘I’m not a racist,’ they turn around amongst themselves and say, ‘He just has to say that for practical reasons,’ ‘he just has to say that basically to get himself cover, to do the things that we want him to do,'” Hankes says.