Donald Trump says pledge to jail Hillary Clinton played 'great before the election' but now 'we don't care'

President-elect was responding to chants of 'lock her up' from supporters on his 'Thank You' tour of US

Donald Trump has told supporters that his pledge to “lock up” Hillary Clinton had "played well" ahead of the US election but he now doesn't care about it.

Speaking to fans at a "Thank You" rally in Michigan, the US President-elect was talking about arrival of Ms Clinton, her husband Bill and the Obamas in the state in the last few days of the race as they tried to shore up the supposed “blue wall” of normally safe Democrat states in the Mid-west.

The crowd then began to jeer and shout “lock her up” – a chant heard frequently heard on the campaign trail.

During the campaign, Mr Trump made frequent attacks on “Crooked Hillary” over her alleged misuse of her private email as Secretary of State and unproven accusations about the finances of the Clinton Foundation.

During one rally, he even suggested gun owners – or “those Second Amendment folks” – should assassinate her if she became President.

But instead of joining his supporters in the calls to prosecute her, the former reality star told the crowd in Grand Rapids, Michigan: “That plays great before the election ... nah, we don’t care."

The Republican ruled out prosecuting Ms Clinton in the days after the election, saying it was “no longer something he felt so strongly about” and he did not want to hurt the family.

He told the New York Times: “Look, I want to move forward, I don’t want to move back. And I don’t want to hurt the Clintons. I really don’t."

This is not the first campaign promise Mr Trump has now backtracked on since his election last month – he has already admitted his infamous “big, beautiful wall” on the Mexican border is likely to be a fence.

Corey Lewandowski, Mr Trump’s first campaign manager, claimed that it was only the media who took what he said so literally during a debate at Harvard University in the weeks after the vote.

He said: “This is the problem with the media. You guys took everything that Donald Trump said so literally.

“The American people didn’t. They understood it. They understood that sometimes — when you have a conversation with people, whether it’s around the dinner table or at a bar — you’re going to say things, and sometimes you don’t have all the facts to back it up.”