Washington — Donald Trump discussed Saturday with his White House transition team for a second day over Cabinet picks as the president-elect says he was open to keeping parts of President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law.
The billionaire real estate mogul said in interviews that he would consider an “amended” version of the 2010 law, a shift in position after vowing on the campaign trail to repeal the measure.
The announcement was one of several surprises, as Trump shook up his transition team by putting running mate Mike Pence in charge and named a cohort of Washington insiders — and three of his children — to help with the process of choosing a new Cabinet.
In a clear shift from his campaign, he added to his transition team a string of insider figures from the very establishment that he railed against so strongly, including Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus — now tipped as a possible chief of staff.
Trump took his first steps toward engaging with Washington on Thursday when he met with Barack Obama at the White House to discuss the transition ahead of the January 20 inauguration — a conversation the outgoing president called “excellent.”
Trump told The Wall Street Journal the president asked him to consider preserving parts of the healthcare law — and that he was open to the idea.
According to The Journal, Trump said he favored maintaining a prohibition on insurance companies denying consumers coverage based due to so-called pre-existing conditions. Before the law took effect, insurers had been able to refuse to cover people who had previously suffered almost any illness.
Trump also said he was not opposed to requiring insurers to allow children to remain on their parents’ insurance policies until the age of 26, a key Obamacare tenet.
On the Syrian conflict, however, Trump indicated a possible sharp shift away from Obama administration policy. “I’ve had an opposite view of many people regarding Syria,” he told the paper, suggesting a closer focus on fighting the Daesh group.
Meanwhile, in an interview to be aired on Sunday, Trump showed a rare softer side, describing the election night call he received from Hillary Clinton conceding that he had won.
“It was a lovely call, and it was a tough call for her — I mean, I can imagine,” he said in the interview, excerpts of which were aired Friday.
“I mean, for me, it would have been very, very difficult. She couldn’t have been nicer. She just said, ‘Congratulations, Donald, well done’.”
