US president-elect Donald Trump says he's proud of the way he and his team ran their US election campaign, although he's described it as "double-sided nasty".
In a CBS interview broadcast on US television on Sunday, Trump also said that he would "think about" appointing a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server when she was secretary of state, but didn't want to "hurt" her.
Trump first threatened an investigation during the second presidential debate on October 9.
When asked by a CBS News correspondent whether he would seek such a move now that he had been elected, he said, "I'm going to think about it."
"I don't want to hurt them (the Clintons). "They're good people."
Trump promised a "definitive answer" on the issue the next time he appeared on the program.
The interview was recorded on Friday, just three days after the US presidential election in which he defeated Clinton after a long and often bitter campaign.
"They were tough and I was tough," he said, adding that he wished it had been "softer" and "more on policy." Nevertheless it was a "tremendous campaign," he said.
Asked to confirm a report that he had gone "completely silent" early on Wednesday when the result was clear, he said, "I've done a lot of big things. I've never done anything like this."
In the interview, Trump said his administration would move immediately to deport or incarcerate millions of undocumented immigrants who have criminal records.
"We are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate them," he said. Only then would Trump's administration make a decision on the status of the remaining millions of undocumented immigrants in the country, who, he said, were "terrific people."
The president-elect also said he would keep his promise to build a wall along the US border with Mexico, but said part of it could be a fence.
Asked about his use of the social media platform Twitter, Trump said he would make "very restrained" use of it as head of state.
Trump also told CBS he had no objection to same-sex marriage, which a Supreme Court decision last year legalised.
The billionaire businessman also said he would not accept the $US400,000 ($A529,840) annual salary paid to the US president when he took office.
Earlier on Sunday, Trump announced the appointment of Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus as his chief of staff, and Steve Bannon of Breitbart News as chief strategist and senior counselor.
Share
