President Donald Trump on Sunday said he recognized the protests against his leadership as a "hallmark of our democracy," shortly after he questioned where Saturday's marchers were on Election Day.
"Watched protests yesterday but was under impression that we just had an election! Why didn't these people vote? Celebs hurt cause badly," Trump said Sunday in a Twitter post. It was his administration's first direct response to the Women's March on Washington and related events across the U.S. and the world.
Less than two hours later, Trump tweeted: "Peaceful protests are a hallmark of our democracy. Even if I don't always agree, I recognize the rights of people to express their views."
Senior Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said it was possible the president would engage more directly with the organizers of the demonstrations but that "none of them [had] reached out to us" as of Sunday morning.
[TRUMP: inauguration, photos, videos and more]
"Folks who are actually open to constructive conversation and solutions, of course we're open to that," Conway told Bloomberg News on Sunday. "He said from the beginning he'd be the president of all Americans."
Hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Washington on Saturday and at other coordinated protests around the world, seeking to convey to Trump that they wouldn't let his agenda go unchallenged.
The crowds choked subway trains in Washington, where the transit authority reported more than 1 million entries into the rail system, or about half a million people taking the D.C. Metro to and from Washington, during Saturday's 19 hours of operation. Subway entries Friday, the day of Trump's inauguration, totaled 570,557 over a 20-hour period.
Speaking about attendance at Friday's inauguration, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Saturday that reporters were trying to "lessen the enthusiasm of the inauguration" by reporting numbers that were lower than those the White House reported.
White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said on Fox News Sunday that the administration was trying to keep the media honest.
"There is an obsession by the media to delegitimize this president, and we are not going to sit around and let it happen," Priebus said.
On NBC's Meet the Press, host Chuck Todd noted that Spicer called it the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, and he asked Conway why Spicer used his first official briefing to "utter a falsehood." Conway responded, "You're saying it's a falsehood, and Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts to that."
Conway later said there was no way to know whether the attendance at Trump's inauguration was the largest ever.
"I don't think you can prove those numbers one way or another," she said. "There's no way to quantify crowd numbers."
Trump hailed his inauguration's Nielsen ratings, posting on Twitter, "Wow, television ratings just out: 31 million people watched the Inauguration, 11 million more than the very good ratings from 4 years ago," referring to Barack Obama's second inauguration. Obama's first inauguration drew 37.8 million viewers.
Fox News topped all broadcast and cable networks with 8.4 million viewers for its coverage from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Central time, according to Nielsen ratings. It was the first inauguration for which Fox News was the most-watched network. No viewership information was available for online streaming platforms or for other countries.
On tax returns
In another interview Sunday, Conway said Trump has no plans to release his tax returns once an audit is completed.
"The White House response is that he's not going to release his tax returns," Conway said on ABC's This Week. "We litigated this all through the election. People didn't care. They voted for him, and let me make this very clear: Most Americans are -- are very focused on what their tax returns will look like while President Trump is in office, not what his look like."
Presidents are not required to release their tax returns, but presidents dating back to Richard Nixon have routinely done so voluntarily.
"You know full well that Trump -- President Trump and his family are complying with all the ethical rules, everything they need to do to step away from his businesses and be a full-time president," said Conway, who previously served as Trump's campaign manager.
Later Sunday, the liberal-funded group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington announced plans to file suit against Trump today, saying he had not stepped away from his businesses.
Group members accuse him of violating a clause in the Constitution that they say prohibits his businesses from receiving anything of value from foreign governments. Because he didn't divest, they say, he is now getting gifts from foreign governments via guests and events at his hotels, leases in his buildings and real estate deals abroad.
White House spokesman Hope Hicks directed inquiries to Trump attorney Sheri Dillon, saying in an email that Dillon "was very clear on this issue two weeks ago and nothing has changed; the president has no conflicts."
There was no mention of conflicts Sunday as about two dozen high-level staff members were sworn in, including Conway, Priebus, national security adviser Michael Flynn and senior advisers Stephen Bannon and Jared Kushner. As White House staff members, the aides did not need to be confirmed by the Senate.
Trump and Vice President Mike Pence presided over the formal ceremony in the White House's East Room. Four of Trump's children -- Donald Jr., Ivanka, Eric and Tiffany -- were in the audience to support Kushner, who is married to Ivanka.
The president warned his staff of the challenges ahead.
"But with the faith in each other and the faith in God, we will get the job done," Trump said. "We will prove worthy of this moment in history. And I think it may very well be a great moment in history."
He said he and his aides were in the White House not to "help ourselves" but to "devote ourselves to the national good."
The president then held up a letter left to him by his predecessor, Obama -- a White House tradition.
"It was really very nice of him to do that, and we will cherish that," Trump said. "We will keep that, and we won't even tell the press what's in that letter."
Trump spoke of a busy first two days, saying he had set up separate meetings with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, representing the other two nations in the North American Free Trade Agreement signed in 1994.
"We're going to start renegotiating on NAFTA, on immigration and on security at the border," Trump told the crowd.
Priebus said Trump would spend the week undoing some of his predecessor's agenda and would sign executive orders on immigration and trade. Priebus did not provide specifics.
Trump said at Sunday's ceremony that with the help of those in the audience, "we are going to do some great things over the next eight years. Eight years."
2 back Tillerson
Trump's choice for secretary of state, former Exxon Mobil executive Rex Tillerson, saw his prospects for office brighten Sunday after gaining the support of two key Republican senators who had wavered on the nomination.
"Though we still have concerns about his past dealings with the Russian government and President Vladimir Putin, we believe that Mr. Tillerson can be an effective advocate for U.S. interests," Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in a statement.
As chief executive officer of Exxon Mobil, Tillerson spoke out against U.S. sanctions levied on Russia after its annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014. The penalties cost the energy giant hundreds of millions of dollars.
McCain and Graham announced their decision before today's vote on Tillerson by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. McCain and Graham aren't committee members but had wanted to signal their support.
Graham said on CBS' Face the Nation that he decided to back Tillerson after Tillerson told him that "when America doesn't lead, other people will, and the vacuum is always filled by bad actors. He said that we have to have a foreign policy that engages the world. We need to lead from the front."
McCain said on This Week that he talked to Tillerson about his views on Russia and his duty as head of a major corporation.
"Listen, this wasn't an easy call," McCain said. "But I also believe that, when there's doubt, the president, the incoming president, gets the benefit of the doubt."
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who challenged Trump for the GOP nomination last year, clashed with Tillerson at a hearing this month, chiding the nominee over the need for "moral clarity." Rubio said Friday that he would make his decision on Tillerson "certainly before the vote" today and that Tillerson's responses to written questions had addressed "some of" his concerns.
The committee has 11 Republicans and 10 Democrats, so Republicans must either be unanimous in their support of Tillerson to endorse him, or they must get the support of Democrats. A "no" vote from Rubio would not doom Tillerson's confirmation, as the nomination could go directly to the Senate floor even without a positive committee recommendation.
Information for this article was contributed by Alex Wayne, Toluse Olorunnipa, Margaret Talev, Gerry Smith, Alex Barinka, Christopher Palmeri, Nicole Piper and Anna Edgerton of Bloomberg News; by Lisa Lerer, Anne Flaherty, Erica Werner and Jonathan Lemire of The Associated Press; and by John Wagner, Paul Duggan and David Nakamura of The Washington Post.
A Section on 01/23/2017