JOHN KING: Welcome back.
The President-elect's transition to do list
still includes deciding just how he plans to hand off
his complicated business and wall off his presidency
from its decision making.
He had promised to do so this past week,
but says he needs a bit more time.
We do know Ivanka Trump is coming to the White House,
with an office now, East Wing, West Wing.
Sara Murray will help me out of that in a minute.
In a tweet on Monday, the President-elect
said this about his businesses. "Two of my children,
Don and Eric, plus executives, will manage them.
No new deals will be done during my term or terms,"
there you see that, "in office."
Later in the week, his children were involved
in an official transition meeting with technology
executives, one of the many examples critics
used to question whether Trump's children can manage
his business if they're also involved in official government
business.
This is a tricky one and they get a little
sensitive about it, but you do have his daughter
Ivanka, who many people thought after the campaign,
that she would run the Trump Organization.
Now she's coming into the White House.
Her husband, Jared Kushner, they're trying to figure out
the nepotism rules, but apparently
he comes into the White House.
Don and Eric run the Trump Organization,
but they're helping pick cabinet members
and they're showing up at these meetings.
Kosher?
- I'm going to go ahead and say not exactly.
Look, there is going to have to be a point,
and [inaudible] acknowledged in his statement
that there would be a point, where the sons would be taking
over the businesses and Trump would no longer be
getting briefed on it.
He's even open to no longer having
conversations with his sons about the business.
That one is a little bit harder to believe.
But Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump
are both coming to Washington, whether they
are given formal titles or remain
in some sort of amorphous role, advising him, to be determined.
She was supposed to have an office in East
Wing, that may be changing.
She may get an office in the West Wing.
It may be a less formal than that,
depending on how they deal with it.
And on the one hand, you sort of get it.
Donald Trump has spent his life building this business.
You understand why he doesn't just want to sell it all off
and leave himself with nothing after the presidency.
But he also campaigned for a year and a half on the notion
that the presidency was so much more important than anything
he was doing in the corporate world.
And so I think what you're seeing
is them really struggling on any way
to draw a clear, bright line.
And when you talk to some people who are close to Trump
and close to the family members, they admit privately there will
never be a clear, bright line.
And he also campaigned about, he's accused
the Clintons of pay to play.
He said he was going to drain the swamp.
This past week, New York Times reporting that they were
auctioning off a coffee with Ivanka
as part of a charity fund raising effort.
And on the one hand, you can say it's
a charity fund raising effort, good that people
use their influence.
On the other hand, she's going to have
an office in the White House.
It strikes you as pay to play.
And apparently that's been canceled.
Yeah.
And what's striking about it is that I don't think they really
appreciate why it's problematic or even
really care for that matter.
Take the example of the Interior Secretary nomination, not
the most high profile cabinet post, but one where you really
saw this on vivid display.
We had a story in the paper yesterday
about Don Trump Jr. was sitting in on the interviews
and in fact played a key role in torpedoing the nomination
of a member of Congress on the House side,
Ms. Rogers, who was widely thought
to get that post until Don Trump,
Jr. intervened and they then elevated a
different congressman instead.
He literally is in these meetings,
talking to these possible candidates,
and then he's sort of urging his dad for or against.
It's striking and I'm really actually surprised
that nobody in Congress has stood up to say hey,
I'm not so sure that this is kosher.
And yet one counter argument that you
hear from a lot of people around Trump
is that they're very happy with the idea
that Ivanka and Jared, in particular, will
be in Washington and in the White House,
because they are a calming presence
and they can be a moderating presence.
So you get these questions about the businesses,
but also a lot of people who are quite happy to have those two
folks in the White House.
I think Sarah's point is the operative one which
is that they will not draw bright lines
and they will continue to push the edge of the envelope
on this as long as they can.
And, in some ways, the legal aspects of this
are still a little murky and yet to be worked out.
JOHN KING: And again 33 days and if you're a Trump critic,
you get mad when I say this, give him grace.
He's not president yet.
Give him grace for 33 days and then he'll
still be held accountable.
We'll what happens.