Trump promises to heal U.S.
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — President-elect Donald Trump promised to “heal our divisions and unify our country” as he prepares to meet with some of the victims of last week's car-and-knife attack at Ohio State University.
“When Americans are unified there is nothing we cannot do — nothing!” Trump told the crowd at a rally Tuesday night in Fayetteville, N.C. “I'm asking you to dream big again as Americans. I'm asking you to believe in yourselves.”
The Republican businessman largely stuck to the script — even stopped the crowd when it started to boo the media — and avoided some of the score-settling and scorched-earth rhetoric that defined his campaign and was present last week in Cincinnati.
Meanwhile, Trump was named Time magazine's Person of the Year on today, a choice the magazine's managing editor said was “straightforward” given that Trump had upended politics-as-usual during the course of his extraordinary race for the White House.
“It's a great honor. It means a lot,” Trump said in a telephone interview on NBC's “Today” show.
Trump is expected to visit Columbus, Ohio, on Thursday, according to a person familiar with the plans but not authorized to discuss them before they are announced.
Authorities have said Ohio State University student Abdul Razak Ali Artan, 18, stabbed students before being fatally shot by police. He first rammed a campus crowd with his car before hopping out with a knife. They said Artan, a Somali immigrant, was inspired by Islamic State rhetoric. Trump has denounced the immigration policies that allowed Artan into the country.
In North Carolina, he repeated his vow to fortify the nation's military and brought Marine Gen. James Mattis on stage, officially naming his choice to be defense secretary after teasing it last week.
Earlier Tuesday, Trump telegraphed that when he takes office in six weeks he'll take an interventionist role in the nation's economy — as well as play showman when he sees a chance. The celebrity businessman's declaration about Air Force One caused manufacturer Boeing's stock to drop temporarily and raised fresh questions about how his administration — not to mention his Twitter volleys — could affect the economy.
“The plane is totally out of control,” Trump told reporters in the lobby of Trump Tower. “I think Boeing is doing a little bit of a number. We want Boeing to make a lot of money, but not that much money.” Earlier he had tweeted that the deal's costs were “out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!”
Not long after his first appearance, Trump returned to the lobby with Masayoshi Son, the CEO of SoftBank, a massive telecommunications company that counts Sprint among its holdings. Trump pointed proudly to Son's commitment to invest $50 billion in the United States, which Trump said could create 50,000 jobs.
