President-elect Trump says Mitt Romney is still in the running for secretary of state and he plans to announce his pick as the nation’s top diplomat next week.
After being named Time’s “Person of the Year” on the “Today” show Wednesday, Trump said Romney is still in the running despite several other people who have worked their way into contention in recent days.
“I’ve spoken to him a lot, we’ve come a long way together,” Trump said. “We had some tremendous difficulty, but we’ve come a long way together.”
Trump denied stringing Romney along as revenge for some of the comments the 2012 GOP presidential nominee made about him. Romney called Trump a “con man” and a “fraud” during the Republican primary in a highly publicized speech in Utah.
“It’s not about revenge, it’s about what’s best for the country,” Trump said.
Trump was asked about a number of topics during the interview, including the announcement made by transition officials on Tuesday that Trump sold all his stock holdings this year.
Trump said he’s never owned a lot of stock but sold all of it in June because he felt good about his chances of being elected and didn’t want to have conflicts of interest.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to be owning stocks when I’m going to be making deals for this country that might help one company and hurt another,” he said.
That deal-making process is in the spotlight once again after Trump’s tweets and statement Tuesday about the new Air Force One planes the government is paying Boeing to build.
Trump said Tuesday he felt the prices of the planes will be too expensive, saying it would cost about $4 billion total, a number that some Air Force officials say could be accurate when research and development is taken into account.
Trump, who has a former Boeing CEO on his transition team, said he spoke with the company on Tuesday about the planes.
“We’re going to work it out, but that’s what I’m here for. We’re gonna negotiate prices,” he said.
Trump finished the interview speaking about his relationship with President Obama, which he described as very good.
Trump described Obama as the “creator of ISIS” and the divider of the country while on the campaign trail, but said Wednesday that he’s grown to like the Democrat. He says they disagree on policy but speak often and Obama has even given his input about Trump’s appointments.
“I would say I take his recommendations very seriously and there are some people I will be appointing, and in one case have appointed, that he felt very highly about that person,” Trump said.
