Jan. 20 team pursues $65M to fete Trump

Corporations’ inaugural-gift limit $1M; lobbyists shut out barred

In this Sunday, Nov. 20, 2016, file photo, President-elect Donald Trump, left, stands with investor Wilbur Ross after meeting at the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster clubhouse in Bedminster, N.J.
In this Sunday, Nov. 20, 2016, file photo, President-elect Donald Trump, left, stands with investor Wilbur Ross after meeting at the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster clubhouse in Bedminster, N.J.

PALM BEACH, Fla. -- The scramble to shape his administration underway, President-elect Donald Trump's team has simultaneously begun turning its attention to raising tens of millions of dollars for festivities related to his Washington inauguration.



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Trump, who vowed during the campaign to "drain the swamp" of special interests corrupting Washington, has set $1 million donation limits for corporations and no limits for individual donors, according to an official on Trump's Presidential Inaugural Committee with direct knowledge of tentative fundraising plans. At the same time, the inaugural committee will not accept money from registered lobbyists, in line with his ban on hiring lobbyists for his nascent administration.

The restrictions, which members of the Presidential Inaugural Committee cautioned have yet to be finalized, represent a continued march back from standards set in 2009, when President Barack Obama banned gifts from lobbyists, political action committees and corporations and put a cap of $50,000 on individuals.

Obama relaxed his own rules in 2012, after what was then the most expensive presidential campaign in history had depleted his donor base, lifting the ban on corporate gifts and restrictions on the size of those from individuals.

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Trump, who like Obama campaigned on reducing the influence of money in politics, appears poised to relax them further.

Officials planning the inauguration said Trump would solicit corporate donations up to $1 million and allow money to be transferred from political action committees on a case-by-case basis. The inaugural committee has not reached a decision on where to cap gifts from individuals, if at all.

All told, Trump hopes to raise roughly $65 million to $75 million to fund the parade, balls and other festivities accompanying his swearing-in as president, according to several people involved in the planning efforts.

Such a fundraising total, if it materializes, would easily surpass the $43 million Obama's team raised for his 2013 inauguration and the record $53 million that it raised for his first inauguration in 2009.

Thomas Barrack Jr., a private-equity investor who is heading the inaugural committee, responsible for planning the events accompanying Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20, said the decision to limit donations from certain groups was "in line with the president-elect's thoughts on ethics reform."

The new details, confirmed Thursday on the condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to disclose private deliberations, came as Trump gathered with family at Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach estate and event center, on Thanksgiving.

Trump's team would not say exactly which family members joined him for dinner, although he arrived in Florida earlier in the week with his wife, Melania, and youngest son, 10-year-old Barron.

They dined with other Mar-a-Lago members from a Thanksgiving menu that featured "Mr. Trump's wedge salad" and main course offerings like oven-roasted turkey, leg of lamb, Chilean sea bass and braised short ribs, according to a menu provided by a spokesman. The dessert options included pumpkin pie, toasted coconut cake, warm brownie pockets and hot apple crisp.

Furnace factory

It was a working holiday of sorts for Trump, who suggested on Twitter that he was engaged in trying to prevent an Indiana air-conditioning company from moving jobs to Mexico.

"I am working hard, even on Thanksgiving, trying to get Carrier A.C. Company to stay in the U.S.," Trump tweeted. "MAKING PROGRESS - Will know soon!"

The company, which has announced plans to move 1,400 jobs to Mexico from Indiana in the coming years, confirmed Thursday that it "has had discussions with the incoming administration," but said there was "nothing to announce at this time."

During the campaign, Trump called the planned closure of the Indianapolis furnace factory "disgusting" and "un-American" and made it a campaign rallying cry. At an Indianapolis event in May, he went further, offering the crowd a "100 percent guarantee" the plant would not leave if he were elected.

"Here's what's going to happen," Trump said, according to Bloomberg. "They're going to call me and they are going to say, 'Mr. President, Carrier has decided to stay in Indiana.'"

"One hundred percent -- that's what is going to happen," Trump added. "It's not like we have an 80 percent chance of keeping them or a 95 percent. 100 percent."

Carrier announced its plans to shut down the Indiana plant in February, with the closure set for 2019.

Chris Nelson, a Carrier president overseeing the unit, issued a statement at the time saying the move to Mexico would allow the company "to operate more cost effectively" because of the industry's ongoing migration to that area, as well as "cost and pricing pressures driven, in part, by new regulatory requirements."

The decision to move Carrier's furnace factory garnered national notice after a worker's cellphone video of the announcement to employees took off on social media and generated criticism of Carrier parent United Technologies Corp. In April, Trump said he would impose a hefty tax on Carrier's Mexican-made products and "within 24 hours, they're going to call back: 'Mr. President, we've decided to stay. We're coming back to Indianapolis."'

A representative of Farmington, Conn.-based United Technologies declined to comment beyond Carrier's tweet. Representatives of Trump's transition team didn't respond to a request for more information on the Carrier talks.

The closure could lead to the loss of more than $100 million to the Indiana economy and more than 1,000 other jobs that indirectly relied on the plant, according to some estimates.

Trump's promise to save the plant was met with skepticism in some corners of Indiana, home state of Vice President-elect Mike Pence, but he carried the state easily over Hillary Clinton.

Prayer for unity

On the eve of the national holiday, the president-elect offered a prayer for unity after "a long and bruising" campaign season.

"Emotions are raw and tensions just don't heal overnight," Trump said in a video message on social media. He added, "It's my prayer that on this Thanksgiving we begin to heal our divisions and move forward as one country strengthened by shared purpose and very, very common resolve."

Unity has emerged as a common theme during Trump's limited public appearances in the days since his stunning general election victory, which followed a campaign season in which he rained extraordinary personal attacks on his opponents in both parties, the media and his many Republican critics.

Unity also would be a theme for the inauguration, the official said.

Trump has focused most of his attention in the two weeks since his victory on building a White House team from scratch.

Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson on Wednesday said "an announcement is forthcoming" on his position, which would make him the first black choice -- possibly as secretary of the Housing and Urban Development agency. But he also suggested he'd be thinking about it over Thanksgiving.

Trump is expected to select as commerce secretary Wilbur Ross, a billionaire investor who became known as the "king of bankruptcy" for buying, restructuring and selling off steel-makers and other fading industrial companies, officials on the transition team said Thursday.

In addition to Ross, a generous contributor to Trump's campaign, Trump is likely to choose Todd Ricketts, a Republican mega donor who is an owner of the Chicago Cubs and whose father founded TD Ameritrade, to be the deputy commerce secretary, the officials said.

Ross, 78, an economic adviser to Trump's campaign whose fortune is estimated by Forbes to be $2.9 billion, is aligned with Trump on trade. He says the United States must free itself from the "bondage" of "bad trade agreements," and he has advocated threats of steep tariffs on Chinese goods. Ross, chairman of the private equity firm WL Ross & Co., also has pressed for cutting the corporate tax rate to 15 percent, from 35 percent, and reducing taxes and regulations on energy companies.

Meanwhile, Trump expressed his support for Los Angeles' 2024 Olympic bid during a phone call Wednesday with Mayor Eric Garcetti, Garcetti's office said in a statement.

Besides talking about the Olympic bid, Garcetti spokesman Connie Llanos said, the pair "had a productive conversation about ways to expand infrastructure investments and opportunities in communities across America."

Llanos' statement did not provide details about the tone of the call, how long the two men spoke or what Trump said about immigration.

However, she said the mayor "stressed the important role that immigrants and immigration reform will play in L.A.'s -- and the nation's -- long-term success."

Information for this article was contributed by Steve Peoples of The Associated Press; by Nicholas Fandos and Julie Hirschfeld Davis of The New York Times; by Jonathan O'Connell of The Washington Post; by Richard Clough, Bill Allison, Kevin Cirilli and Linly Lin of Bloomberg News; and by Dakota Smith of the Los Angeles Times.

A Section on 11/25/2016

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