President-elect Donald Trump, left, stands with Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus. Photo / AP
Donald Trump named his top two advisers yesterday, signalling an aggressive agenda and setting up what could be a battle within the White House between the populist, outsider forces that propelled his winning campaign and the party establishment that dominates Washington.
Trump, the United States President-elect, named Reince Priebus, the head of the Republican National Committee, as his chief of staff. In appointing Priebus, 44, Trump has brought into his White House a Washington insider who is viewed as broadly acceptable by vast swathes of the party, and he signalled a willingness to work within the establishment he assailed on the campaign trail.
But he sent an opposing signal by tapping Stephen Bannon, his combative campaign chief and former head of the incendiary Breitbart News, as his chief strategist and senior counsellor. Bannon, 62, has openly attacked congressional leadership, taking particular aim at House Speaker Paul Ryan - who recommended Priebus for his new job.
"I am thrilled to have my very successful team continue with me in leading our country," Trump said in a statement. "Steve and Reince are highly qualified leaders who worked well together on our campaign and led us to a historic victory. Now I will have them both with me in the White House as we work to make America great again."
The announcement came as Trump highlighted some of his first priorities in an interview on CBS's 60 Minutes, vowing to "immediately" deport up to 3 million immigrants in the country illegally after he is inaugurated and to simultaneously repeal and replace President Obama's Affordable Care Act.
Trump's top two advisers could help him achieve different objectives. Priebus could help Trump notch early legislative victories in a Republican-led Congress and ingratiate himself with the insiders he claims to loathe but who dominate his transition team. A longtime lawyer and Wisconsin political operative, Priebus will work to smooth over residual friction from a campaign during which a number of Republicans refused to endorse Trump, reversed their endorsements or stepped away from him after a 2005 tape surfaced in which Trump is heard saying that he could force himself on women because he was a "star". Bannon will be the other voice on Trump's shoulder: He helped shape Trump's message on the campaign trail and relishes combativeness. The former navy officer and investment banker has said the campaign was the American version of worldwide populist movements such as the British vote to sever ties with the European Union.
The Southern Poverty Law Centre, a hate-watch group, blasted the choice of Bannon. It called him "the main driver behind Breitbart becoming a white ethno-nationalist propaganda mill" and cited Breitbart headlines that included a call to hoist the Confederate flag weeks after shootings at a black Charleston, South Carolina, church and another that said that political correctness "protects Muslim rape culture". Bannon once called Breitbart "the platform of the alt-right", a conservative movement that has attracted vocal support from white nationalists, among others.
Trump surrogate Newt Gingrich blasted the idea yesterday that Trump's campaign catered to the alt-right, calling it "garbage".
In a statement, Bannon said he and Priebus had a "very successful partnership" on the campaign trail. "We will have that same partnership in working to help President-elect Trump achieve his agenda."
Priebus gave a preview of some of the Administration's policy priorities. "I am very grateful to the President-elect for this opportunity to serve him and this nation as we work to create an economy that works for everyone, secure our borders, repeal and replace Obamacare and destroy radical Islamic terrorism. He will be a great president for all Americans," Priebus said.
The personnel announcement comes as the contours of the Trump Administration are starting to take shape and as he and his team pivot from campaign rhetoric to the nuts and bolts of governing.
Trump and his advisers continue to paint a mixed picture of what the Administration will look like, and they have been giving answers often at odds with Trump's campaign rhetoric, which included pledges to fully repeal the Affordable Care Act and get Mexico to pay for a wall along the southern border, and crowd chants of "Lock her up!" about his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.
On undocumented immigrants, Trump said on 60 Minutes that his Administration will "get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers, we have a lot of these people, probably 2 million, it could be even 3 million. We are getting them out of our country, or we are going to incarcerate. But we're getting them out of our country; they're here illegally."
The remarks are another sign of retreat from Trump's vows throughout much of the presidential campaign to remove all of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the country. By focusing on criminals only, Trump would be mirroring current Obama Administration priorities, and experts say his numbers are highly inflated.
Trump also built his campaign around a pledge to build a wall along the US border with Mexico, but he said yesterday that he would accept the plan of some congressional Republicans to build a fence in places - something he told MSNBC in February would be acceptable because of natural barriers.
Trump again said yesterday that he will probably keep in place parts of the Obama healthcare law, including provisions that allow children to stay on their parents' health plans until the person turns 26 and prevent insurers from refusing coverage for pre-existing conditions. He said his Administration would work to repeal and replace the law simultaneously; he said in a different interview on Saturday that the law might simply be amended.
"And it'll be great healthcare for much less money. So it'll be better healthcare, much better, for less money. Not a bad combination," he told CBS' Lesley Stahl yesterday.
Trump has said that he would appoint Supreme Court justices to overturn the Roe v Wade decision legalising abortion and, in Vice-President-elect Mike Pence, he will be bringing one of the nation's most anti-abortion politicians into the White House.
When asked by Stahl if he plans to appoint a justice who will overturn Roe v Wade, Trump said whomever he names will be "very pro-life" and that "if it ever were overturned, it would go back to the states".
Trump also said he is "fine" with same-sex marriage being legal.
Trump's team also yesterday continued to tangle with the Senate Minority Leader, the Democrat Harry Reid, who said in a statement on Friday that Trump has "emboldened the forces of hatred and bigotry in America". Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said Reid should be "very careful about characterising somebody in a legal sense." Conway said she was not suggesting Trump would sue Reid but that she is "calling for responsibility and maturity and decency for somebody who has held one of the highest positions in our Government."
Reid's office swung back in a statement: "Instead of rising to the responsibility of his office, Trump is hiding behind his Twitter account and sending his staff on TV to threaten his critics."
Donald Trump is making sure his opinions are being heard, returning to Twitter and using his first televised interview as President-elect to tell Americans fearful of a crackdown on minorities not to be afraid.
The Republican billionaire - whose shock election on a populist and anti-immigration platform has spurred days of protests - told demonstrators they have no reason to fear his presidency.
"Don't be afraid. We are going to bring our country back," he said in the interview with CBS's 60 Minutes.
"But certainly, don't be afraid. You know, we just had an election and sort of like you have to be given a little time."
When asked of reports of racial slurs, harassment and personal threats against African-Americans, gay people, Latinos and Muslims and others by some of his supporters, Trump said he didn't hear it but that he "hates" to hear that.
"I am so saddened to hear that. And I say, 'Stop it'. If it - if it helps. I will say this, and I will say right to the cameras: 'Stop it'," he said.
Meanwhile, after Trump tweeted with fierce abandon and at all hours during the presidential campaign, some wondered whether he would feel restrained by last week's presidential election victory and give his thumbs a rest.
But it seems won't be any time soon.
He fired off his latest Twitter barrage yesterday on a range of topics, from nuclear proliferation to his primetime interview, to his disdain for a longtime media nemesis.
"Wow, the @nytimes is losing thousands of subscribers because of their very poor and highly inaccurate coverage of the 'Trump phenomena'," he wrote in one tweet yesterday, taking aim at election coverage by the New York Times, a favourite target.
"The @nytimes sent a letter to their subscribers apologising for their BAD coverage of me. I wonder if it will change - doubt it?" he wrote in a separate tweet to his nearly 15 million Twitter followers.
In another tweet he noted that he had received congratulatory calls from former presidents George W Bush and his father, as well as Jeb Bush, who he defeated in the primaries.
"Jeb Bush, George W and George HW all called to express their best wishes on the win. Very nice!"
Trump, who has credited the role of social media in his shock victory, had indicated he would scale back on his Twitter use as president.
"I'm going to do very restrained, if I use it at all," Trump said on 60 Minutes.
But he trumpeted the virtues of a tool that allowed him to bypass the mainstream media in getting his insurgent message to voters.
"I think that social media has more power than the money they spent," the billionaire said.
- addtional reporting: AFP
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