GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- Donald Trump waded back into election politics Friday, a full month after he won the presidency, thanking Michigan voters and prodding Louisiana Republicans to turn out for today's Senate runoff election and protect the party's 52-48 advantage in Washington.
RELATED ARTICLE
http://www.arkansas…">Monday ruling set for recount in Pennsylvania
Trump regaled supporters in Grand Rapids with a lengthy list of his victories in a string of battleground states, including Michigan, which had not backed a Republican presidential candidate since 1988.
"They forgot about you people," Trump said of his Democratic opponents. "In four years, they're not going to forget. But it's not going to work because you're not going to forget."
Trump introduced Betsy DeVos, his choice for education secretary, who hails from western Michigan, and announced that Andrew Liveris, the chief executive of Dow Chemical, would lead a national manufacturing council. Liveris told the audience that Dow would soon locate a new research-and-development center in Michigan.
[TRUMP: Timeline of president-elect’s career + list of appointments so far]
In Louisiana, the president-elect addressed a large crowd at an airport hangar, and at one point he tossed his trademark "Make America Great Again" hat to a supporter.
He noted that he'd been named Time magazine's "Person of the Year" and asked the crowd if the magazine should go back to its former "Man of the Year."
In private, people close to Trump said he was expected to name yet another Goldman Sachs executive to his White House team. Trump's National Economic Council is to be led by Gary Cohn, president and chief operating officer of the Wall Street bank.
Major decisions remain for Trump, most importantly his choice for secretary of state. The deliberations have become a source of tension within his transition team, with Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said to be backing Mitt Romney while other advisers oppose the idea of selecting the 2012 GOP nominee, given his fierce criticism of Trump during the campaign.
Exxon Mobil Corp. Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson has emerged as the leading candidate for the job, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday, citing unnamed transition officials. The report said Trump has not made a decision. The president-elect is set to announce his choice next week.
Trump announced that Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, withdrew his name from consideration.
Giuliani had been named by transition officials as one of the contenders to be the nation's top diplomat but has decided to remain in the private sector, according to a statement Friday from Trump's transition office. He withdrew from consideration during a meeting with Trump on Nov. 29, the statement said.
"Rudy would have been an outstanding member of the Cabinet in several roles, but I fully respect and understand his reasons for remaining in the private sector," Trump said in the statement.
Kellyanne Conway, a top Trump adviser, said Friday on Fox News that the list currently includes "a very diverse group." In addition to Tillerson and Romney, she mentioned Alan Mulally, the former CEO of Ford Motor Co.; former CIA Director David Petraeus; Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn.; former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton; and U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif.
She also said "Mayor Giuliani is still in the mix," an assertion at odds with the announcement that he took himself out of the running earlier.
Critics raised questions about how Giuliani's fiery temperament would fit the role of a diplomat. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee who is wary of foreign entanglements, raised concern about the former mayor's work for foreign governments and companies and his history of giving paid speeches after he left the New York mayor's office in December 2001.
Priebus said in the transition office's statement that the former mayor "was vetted by our team for any possible conflicts and passed with flying colors."
Louisiana Runoff Today
On a busy Friday, Trump also spoke by telephone with Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who broke with protocol during the campaign to publicly endorse Hillary Clinton and said afterward she would not maintain "a diplomatic silence in the face of attitudes of racism, sexism, misogyny or intolerance of any kind."
Sturgeon's office said she used Friday's call to emphasize the "values Scotland and the United States share." Trump's transition team described the conversation as a "short congratulatory call."
In Louisiana, Trump campaigned for Republican John Kennedy.
Kennedy, the state treasurer, faces off today against Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell, a Democrat, for the seat of retiring Republican Sen. David Vitter. Neither won a majority in the November primary, leading to the runoff. Polls have shown Kennedy with a comfortable lead.
While candidate Trump was often at odds with the establishment wing of his party, the incoming president has been broadly supported by GOP leaders since the election. And he is trying to consolidate any lingering factions, most immediately in Louisiana, where a victory by Kennedy would cement the party's four-vote advantage in the new Senate.
"We need John in Washington," Trump said, speaking in front of a lectern that had a sign urging voters to "Geaux Vote. Vote GOP." Trump said he needed Kennedy to help him enact his agenda.
Come January, Trump told the crowd, "The American people will be in charge. Your voice, your desires, your hopes, your aspirations will never again fall on deaf ears."
He rattled through some of the major themes of his campaign, vowing to renegotiate trade deals, repair roads and bridges, and "build a wall" to guard against unlawful immigration.
"We have people coming into our country by the thousands, thousands and thousands of people, and now I don't have to campaign, so I don't have to say Hillary's going to increase it by 550 percent," Trump said. "No, I don't have to say it anymore. Isn't it nice?"
Trump's day also included a meeting at his New York City tower with House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to discuss policy priorities.
"We are really excited about getting to work and hitting the ground running in 2017," Ryan said after the morning meeting.
Before Trump's private jet touched down in Louisiana, he was taking more steps to fill administration positions. U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington state emerged as a leading candidate to head the Interior Department, according to a person involved in the transition.
In the nation's capital, the Trump transition team has issued a list of 74 questions for the Energy Department, asking agency officials to identify which department employees and contractors have worked on forging an international climate pact as well as domestic efforts to cut the nation's carbon output.
The questionnaire requests a list of those individuals who have taken part in international climate talks over the past five years and "which programs within DOE are essential to meeting the goals of President [Barack] Obama's Climate Action Plan."
The questionnaire was described by one Energy Department official as unusually "intrusive" and a matter for departmental lawyers.
Trump's transition team did not respond to a request for comment.
White House spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters that he could not speak to the questionnaire directly, saying, "If you have questions about activity that the president-elect's team is doing, you should check in with them and try and figure out why they're doing it."
But Schultz added, "All I can tell you is that President Obama is enormously proud of the work of civil servants and federal workers across the administration, that over the past eight years they've worked to make this country stronger.
And they don't do so out a sense of great pay or because the hours are great. They do so out of a sense of patriotism. And the president's proud of their record."
Trump and his team have vowed to dismantle specific aspects of Obama's climate policies.
Saudi-Linked Firms
Separately, corporate registrations in Delaware show Trump shut down some of his companies in the days after the election, including four that appeared connected to a possible Saudi Arabia business venture.
News of the move comes days before Trump was expected to describe changes he is making to his businesses to avoid potential conflicts of interest as president.
The Trump Organization's general counsel, Alan Garten, described shutting down the four companies as routine "housecleaning" and said there was no existing Trump business venture in Saudi Arabia. The four Saudi-related companies were among at least nine companies that Trump filed paperwork to dissolve or cancel since questions were raised after the election about how he would conduct business while in the White House.
Trump operates branded hotels and resorts in a handful of countries around the world, though he and his executives have talked about expanding more globally. Last year, Ivanka Trump singled out the Middle East and Saudi Arabia as potential locations.
Garten said Friday that the dissolution of the companies, which occurred last month, was part of a periodic process to shed corporate entities that were no longer needed or were set up for ventures that did not materialize. Garten said he did not know why the companies were set up last year or whether they involved a business ventures in Saudi Arabia that didn't happen.
"I'm not aware of any deal in Saudi Arabia," Garten said. "I'll go further, there is no deal in Saudi Arabia."
Garten declined to say whether the closures were related to Trump's election or his expected announcement next week about how he will be handling his businesses as president.
Also, Trump has kept a business connection to his rebooted Celebrity Apprentice reality show, keeping an executive producer credit on The New Celebrity Apprentice, said Clare Anne Darragh, a spokesman for show creator Mark Burnett. She declined further comment on Trump's participation in the show that taped last February.
Trump's representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The series debuts Jan. 2 with Arnold Schwarzenegger replacing Trump as host. Schwarzenegger is an executive producer on the new show, as Trump was on the original.
Information for this article was contributed by Ken Thomas, Lisa Lerer, Julie Pace, Julie Bykowicz, Lolita Baldor, Eileen Sullivan, Chad Day, Randall Chase, Stephen Braun, Jeff Horwitz and Lynn Elber of The Associated Press; by Joe Sobczyk, Justin Sink and Henry Goldman of Bloomberg News; and by Steven Mufson, Juliet Eilperin, Chris Mooney and Missy Ryan of The Washington Post.
A Section on 12/10/2016