NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump may take a victory tour to states that elected him president, an aide said Saturday, as boisterous protests unfolded outside the tower where he holed up with members of his transition team and fielded calls congratulating him.
While he’s announced Vice President-elect Mike Pence is in charge of the transition and GOP chief Reince Priebus is his White House chief of staff, Trump must identify other people for top White House jobs and Cabinet posts.
Kellyanne Conway, who was Trump’s campaign manager and is almost surely in line for a prominent job in his presidency, said when asked if he’d take a victory tour soon, she said: “It’s possible. It’s possible. We’re working on the schedule.”
She described his days as “meetings, phone calls, conversations, interviews. What you would expect from a normal presidential transition.”
In one gesture of normalcy, Trump pledged to be “very restrained” in the White House with his use of Twitter, “if I use it at all.” But he did not sound convinced that he could leave it behind, when asked in a “60 Minutes” interview broadcast Sunday. Some of Trump’s most inflammatory comments, in a campaign loaded with provocation, came in his late-night tweets.
“I have a method of fighting back,” Trump said of social media. He said Twitter is “tremendous” and helped him win races in states where he was vastly outspent. He said he thinks he’s proved that social media can be more powerful than money.
Nigel Farage, head of the “Leave” movement that won Britain’s vote to exit the European Union, met with Trump over the weekend. Trump frequently linked his campaign to the Brexit movement.
“It was a great honor to spend time with Donald Trump,” Farage said of his hour-long meeting with Trump, according to a statement from his UK Independence Party. “He was relaxed and full of good ideas. I’m confident he will be a good president. His support for the U.S.-UK relationship is very strong. This is a man with whom we can do business.”
For Trump, who ran on a pledge to “drain the swamp” of Washington insiders, the transition team is strikingly heavy on those with long political resumes.
Another apparent contradiction emerged Friday as Trump, who repeatedly vowed to achieve the repeal of President Barack Obama’s health care law, said he would be open to maintaining portions of it.
Christie was a loyal adviser to Trump for much of the campaign, offered a key early endorsement and came close to being the businessman’s pick for running mate. But Trump ultimately went with Pence, Indiana’s governor and a former congressman with Washington experience and deep ties to conservatives, to take the transition forward.
Christie will still be involved in the transition, joining a cluster of other steadfast Trump supporters serving as vice chairmen: former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions.
In addition, three of Trump’s adult children — Don Jr., Eric and Ivanka — are on the transition executive committee, along with Jared Kushner, Ivanka’s husband. Kushner was an influential adviser in Trump’s campaign.
The children’s inclusion raised questions about Trump’s ability to sever ties between the administration and the sprawling family business — after the billionaire repeatedly said during the campaign that his grown children would not follow him to Washington but instead run the Trump Organization.
Trump told The Wall Street Journal that after speaking with Obama at the White House, he was considering keeping the provision of the health law that allows children to stay on their parents’ insurance policies until they turn 26. He said previously he may also keep the prohibition against insurers denying coverage because of patients’ existing conditions.
Presidents-elect don’t often appoint their running mates to lead their transition team. Trump and Christie grew apart through the last stretch of the campaign.
Pace reported from Washington.
