Trump meets with harsh critic Romney as he races to fill top spots

BEDMINSTER, NJ — President-elect Donald Trump is filling his Twitter feed like the campaigner of old, even while racing to fill senior positions in his administration.

Trump met Saturday with one of his sharpest Republican critics of the campaign, 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney, at Trump’s golf club in New Jersey, and on Sunday with two leading supporters, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani. During the campaign, Romney called Trump a “con man” and a “fraud,” while Trump repeatedly called Romney a “loser.”

NBC said Thursday that Trump was considering Romney as secretary of state, which would put a figure with more orthodox Republican views at the helm of US foreign policy, though still entirely answerable to the Trump White House under the American presidential system.

Romney seemed to give weight to speculation that he would become the US’s top diplomat, telling reporters after the meeting Saturday that he and Trump had a “far-reaching conversation with regards to the various theaters in the world where there are interests of the United States of real significance.”

The former Massachusetts governor said that the two had a “thorough and in-depth discussion in the time we had. I appreciate the chance to speak with the president-elect and look forward to the coming administration.”

Senator Jeff Sessions, an arch-conservative Republican from Alabama who is one of Trump’s closest allies in Congress, said he expected the incoming president to consider the “capable” Romney for some position.

“I think it’s good that the president-elect is meeting with people like Romney. There are a lot of talented people that he needs good relationships with,” said Sessions, who Trump picked for his attorney general.

“And I think Mr Romney would be quite capable of doing a number of things,” Sessions told reporters after meeting the president-elect at his Trump Tower in Manhattan.

The president-elect is still weighing a range of candidates for other leading national security posts. Possibilities for secretary of state are said to include Giuliani, former UN Ambassador John Bolton, Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who met with Trump on Thursday.

On Friday, Trump tapped Sessions for attorney general and Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo to head the CIA, signaling a sharp rightward shift in US security policy as he begins to form his Cabinet.

Trump also named retired Lt. Gen Michael Flynn as his national security adviser. A former military intelligence chief, Flynn has accused the Obama administration of being too soft on terrorism and has cast Islam as a “political ideology” and driver of extremism.

The selections form the first outlines of Trump’s Cabinet and national security teams. Given his lack of governing experience and vague policy proposals during the campaign, his selection of advisers is being scrutinized both in the US and abroad.

Most of Trump’s nominees are expected to be confirmed relatively easily given the GOP majority in the Senate. However, potential roadblocks exist, particularly for Sessions, the first senator to endorse Trump and one of the chamber’s most conservative members.

His last Senate confirmation hearing, in 1986 for a federal judgeship, was derailed over allegations that he made racist comments, including calling a black assistant US attorney “boy” in conversation. Sessions denied the accusation, but withdrew from consideration.

Trump’s initial decisions suggest a more aggressive military involvement in counterterror strategy and a greater emphasis on Islam’s role in stoking extremism. Sessions, who is best known for his hardline immigration views, has questioned whether terrorist suspects should benefit from the rights available in US courts. Pompeo has said Muslim leaders are “potentially complicit” in attacks if they do not denounce violence carried out in the name of Islam.

Pompeo’s nomination to lead the CIA also opens the prospect of the US resuming torture of detainees. Trump has backed harsh interrogation techniques that President Barack Obama and Congress have banned, saying the U.S. “should go tougher than waterboarding,” which simulates drowning. In 2014, Pompeo criticized Obama for “ending our interrogation program” and said intelligence officials “are not torturers, they are patriots.”

Sessions and Pompeo would both require Senate confirmation; Flynn would not.

The Romney meeting was preceded by a Trump tweetstorm. The president-elect rushed to the defense of Mike Pence on Saturday after “Hamilton” actor Brandon Victor Dixon challenged the incoming vice president from the Broadway stage after the show Friday night. “Apologize!” Trump tweeted to the actor. “Our wonderful future V.P. Mike Pence was harassed last night at the theater by the cast of Hamilton, cameras blazing. This should not happen!”

Dixon tweeted back: “Conversation is not harassment sir. And I appreciate @Mike_Pence for stopping to listen.”

In a separate matter Friday, it was announced that Trump had agreed to a $25 million settlement to resolve three lawsuits over Trump University, his former school for real estate investors. The lawsuits alleged the school misled students and failed to deliver on its promises in programs that cost up to $35,000.

Trump has denied the allegations and had said repeatedly he would not settle. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who announced the settlement, called it “a stunning reversal by Donald Trump and a major victory for the over 6,000 victims of his fraudulent university.”

Trump tweeted to his 15 million followers Saturday that he only settled to better focus on leading the US. He also bragged that the deal denied him the chance to win the case, claiming: “The ONLY bad thing about winning the presidency is that I did not have the time to go through a long but winning trial on Trump U. Too bad!”