GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.: Appearing jovial and relaxed, Donald Trump plunged back into election politics Friday, a full month after he won the presidency, thanking Michigan voters and prodding Louisiana Republicans to turn out for Saturday’s Senate runoff election.
Trump regaled supporters in Grand Rapids with a lengthy recitation of his victories in a string of battleground states, including Michigan, which had not previously 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.”
Several protesters were removed from his rally at DeltaPlex Arena, prompting the president-elect to declare at one point, “Get ’em out of here.”
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 bring a new research-and-development center to Michigan.
In Louisiana, the incoming president addressed a large crowd at an airport hangar, and at one point tossed his trademark “Make America Great Again” hat to a supporter. He noted that he’d been named Time’s “Person of the Year” and asked the crowd if the magazine should go back to its former “Man of the Year.”
Gauging the boisterous response, he declared the answer was yes.
In other developments, the president-elect shut down some of his companies in the days after the election, including four that appeared connected to a possible Saudi Arabia business venture, according to corporate registrations in Delaware.
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 the 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 the election.
Garten said Friday the dissolution of the companies occurred last month.
In private, people close to Trump said he was expected to name yet another Goldman Sachs executive to his White House team. The president-elect’s National Economic Council is to be led by Gary Cohn, president and chief operating officer of the Wall Street bank, which Trump repeatedly complained during the campaign would control Hillary Clinton if she won.
Washington state Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a member of the GOP House leadership team, emerged as a leading candidate to head the Interior Department, according to a person involved in the transition.
Major decisions remain for Trump, most importantly his choice for secretary of state. Trump announced that Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, was no longer under consideration.
Meanwhile, there apparently is a split over the next head of the Republican National Committee. Current chairman Reince Priebus is heading to the White House to be chief of staff.
Priebus is said to support Michigan Republican Party chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel for the post, though other senior officials are backing Nick Ayers, an aide to Vice President-elect Mike Pence. McDaniel addressed the Michigan crowd before Trump took the stage, but no RNC announcement was made.