the dueling visions of donald trump as president-elect bubbled up once again on sunday, keeping alive the question of exactly what type of leader the manhattan billionaire will be when he takes office in january. trump has largely taken the high road since winning the presidency last week in a historic election that few predicted. beginning with his victory speech in the wee hours of wednesday morning, trump has repeatedly promised to unify a badly divided country after a campaign marked by an unprecedented amount of ugly rhetoric. he has mostly stayed away from the type of personal attacks he so happily lobbed at adversaries and critics throughout his upstart bid. story continued below but flashes of the old trump have continued to surface, as they did on sunday, even as he works to come off as presidential. in between celebratory posts to twitter announcing the fence-mending phone calls he<u+2019>s received from former gop foes, trump took time to complain about the new york times<u+2019> coverage of him and needle the newspaper for missing the movement that catapulted him into the white house. <u+201c>wow, the @nytimes is losing thousands of subscribers because of their very poor and highly inaccurate coverage of the <u+2018>trump phenomena,<u+2019><u+201d> trump wrote on sunday morning, adding in a subsequent post that <u+201c>the @nytimes sent a letter to their subscribers apologizing for their bad coverage of me. i wonder if it will change <u+2014> doubt it?<u+201d> from there, trump took a much more pacifying tact on twitter, announcing that he had received congratulatory phone calls from mitt romney, jeb bush and former presidents george w. bush and george h.w. bush. he characterized the four phone calls, all from prominent republicans who did not support his white house bid, as <u+201c>very nice!<u+201d> by louis nelson trump also announced a congratulatory phone call from john kasich, the ohio governor who stubbornly refused to endorse trump and did not attend the republican national convention even though it was held in his home state. but the president-elect quickly dipped back into attack mode on twitter, writing that <u+201c>the @nytimes states today that djt believes more countries should acquire nuclear weapons.<u+2019> how dishonest are they. i never said this!<u+201d> trump has previously said that nations like japan, south korea and saudi arabia should all have nuclear weapons. the president-elect also shed some light on his approach to what was a foundational issue for his white house run: immigration. during an interview scheduled to air sunday night on cbs' <u+201c>60 minutes,<u+201d> trump stayed away from the hard-line stance he took during the gop primary, that he would deport every undocumented immigrant currently in the united states. he told cbs reporter lesley stahl that he will first seek to deport only those undocumented immigrants with a criminal history, a group trump estimated to number 2 million or 3 million. <u+201c>what we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers, where a lot of these people, probably 2million, it could be even 3 million, we are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate,<u+201d> he said. <u+201c>after the border is secure and after everything gets normalized, we're going to make a determination on the people that they're talking about who are terrific people." trump<u+2019>s team of high-profile surrogates also made the rounds sunday, walking the same tightrope as the president-elect, balancing bombast with trump's clear desire to win over at least some of those on the other side of the political aisle who did not support him in the election. agriculture by helena bottemiller evich appearing on cbs<u+2019> <u+201c>face the nation,<u+201d> longtime supporter newt gingrich said trump must <u+201c>swing for the fences<u+201d> in his first 12 months in office, warning him to have a <u+201c>very, very aggressive first year<u+201d> because <u+201c>the swamp doesn't want to be drained. and the swamp will just suck you in if you let it.<u+201d> but gingrich also said trump must seek bipartisan support for his package of proposals once he takes office, recommending that he partner with incoming senate minority leader chuck schumer on a massive infrastructure project. seeking such cooperation would ensure that trump<u+2019>s legacy will be protected against the kind of undoing that many of president barack obama<u+2019>s initiatives are likely to face once trump takes control of the white house, the former house speaker said. <u+201c>i think it's very important that trump try to have as many democrats as possible help him do this,<u+201d> gingrich said. <u+201c>because one of the lessons of the obama years is: if you do things that are big on a purely partisan basis, they're not stable. i mean, i think trump wants to change america to make it great again for a generation. not just for eight years.<u+201d> talking about the washington swamp that trump so famously promised to drain, the president-elect<u+2019>s former campaign manager, kellyanne conway, told <u+201c>fox news sunday<u+201d> that his supporters should pay no attention to the fact that the presidential transition team has been stocked with exactly the type of political insiders he railed against in his stump speeches. familiar faces like gingrich, former new york mayor rudy giuliani, new jersey gov. chris christie and sen. jeff sessions (r-ala.) all serve as vice chairmen of the trump transition team<u+2019>s executive committee, and a collection of lobbyists have already begun advising the real estate mogul. but trump<u+2019>s supporters have no reason to worry, conway said, proclaiming: <u+201c>the gravy train is about to have its wheels blown off and its engine completely ripped from its bearings.<u+201d> <u+201c>look, these are people who are talented and have done this before. you can't just appoint novices; you have to have people who know what they're doing, but at the same time moving forward this is an administration that's going to run very differently than typical washington,<u+201d> she said. <u+201c>finally, the voters got what they wanted, what they've been begging for for 30 years, which is give us the opportunity, give us a person who actually represents the outsider, non-washington, business-experienced type of profile, somebody who goes to washington owing nobody anything.<u+201d> 2016 by politico magazine giuliani, who last week called protesters demonstrating against trump<u+2019>s election on college campuses across the country <u+201c>crybabies,<u+201d> said sunday on abc<u+2019>s <u+201c>this week<u+201d> that the president-elect<u+2019>s team is sympathetic to their concerns. he said trump has a clear mandate by virtue of his commanding electoral college win, regardless of the fact that democratic nominee hillary clinton won the popular vote, because <u+201c>the constitution of the united states doesn<u+2019>t change the powers of the president based on the number by which you get elected.<u+201d> the former new york mayor, widely rumored to be under consideration to become either attorney general or secretary of homeland security, said protesters have banged on his car window as he arrived at trump tower in the days since the election. he called on those demonstrating <u+201c>to please respect the democratic process<u+201d> and praised president barack obama and clinton for their graciousness in defeat. still, he said they should do more to speak out against those protests that have turned violent, for which giuliani said there should be zero tolerance. <u+201c>i think we understand [protesters'] frustration. we certainly don<u+2019>t want to make it worse. i think they<u+2019>re exaggerating the fears of a donald trump presidency because they<u+2019>re coming off a campaign where they<u+2019>re very disappointed,<u+201d> giuliani said. <u+201c>i<u+2019>m sure our supporters would have been very disappointed had donald trump not won. and i just hope it calms down.<u+201d> by bill scher by thomas wright by joshua zeitz by jack shafer
trump walks tightrope between cordial and combative - politico
louis nelson louis nelson helena bottemiller evich jack shafer