President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday reached out to the Americans who have taken to the streets to protest his election, assuring them they have nothing to fear, AFP reports.
His comments came in an interview with CBS's "60 Minutes," which was taped Friday and aired in full Sunday.
Setting aside strident campaign tones, the 70-year-old Trump assumed a gentler manner in the interview, saying he was "saddened" by reports of harassment of Muslims and Hispanics, and calling on the perpetrators: "Stop It."
"I just don't think they know me," the President-elect said of the thousands of protesters who have massed in streets below his Trump Tower headquarters in New York with signs that read "Not our president."
Told that many Americans are scared of his presidency, Trump replied, "Don't be afraid. We are going to bring our country back."
Trump made clear he intends to aggressively push a right-wing agenda, pledging to name justices to the Supreme Court who are anti-abortion and pro-gun rights.
"The judges will be pro-life," he was quoted by AFP as having said, adding, "In terms of the whole gun situation, they're going to be very pro-Second Amendment."
On immigration, Trump reaffirmed his signature campaign pledge to build a wall on the border with Mexico, although he conceded parts of it may be just a fence, and also said as many as three million undocumented immigrants with criminal records would be deported or incarcerated.
"What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers," he said.
"We have a lot of these people, probably two million, it could be even three million, we are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate," added Trump.
Hours before the interview aired, Trump made his first high level appointments, naming the CEO of his campaign Steve Bannon his top strategist, and top Republican Reince Priebus his White House chief of staff.