US President-elect Donald Trump said on Thursday he has picked tough-talking retired general James Mattis to be his defense secretary as he soaked up adulation at a large Ohio rally where he pledged to unite the nation.<\/p>\n
The splash of hard news came during a sea of soaring\u2014and then blunt\u2014rhetoric from the 70-year-old Republican billionaire, who was speaking at his first post-election event following days of meetings about forming his cabinet.<\/p>\n
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\u2018We are going to appoint \u2018Mad Dog\u2019 Mattis as our secretary of defense,\u2019 Trump told cheering supporters in Cincinnati, referring by nickname to the four-star Marine general who headed the US Central Command, giving him authority over troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
\u2018He\u2019s our best. They say he\u2019s the closest thing to (World War II-era) general George Patton that we have,\u2019 Trump said, apparently divulging his pick days ahead of schedule as his transition team had already said there would be no more cabinet announcements this week.<\/p>\n
Mattis will require both Senate confirmation and a special waiver of a law that bans uniformed military officers from serving as secretary of defense for seven years after leaving active duty.<\/p>\n
At the start of his address, Trump launched lofty calls to unite what he called a \u2018very divided nation\u2019 and reject \u2018bigotry and prejudice in all of its forms.\u2019<\/p>\n
He even vowed to try to work with Democrats to end gridlock on Capitol Hill.<\/p>\n
But the Manhattan property mogul, who defeated Hillary Clinton last month to win the White House, rather dramatically returned to the brash and abrasive tone that marked his controversial and ultimately victorious campaign.<\/p>\n
He savaged the nation\u2019s political press, slammed illegal immigration and the country\u2019s refugee program, mocked his critics and vowed to \u2018drain the swamp\u2019 in establishment-heavy Washington.<\/p>\n
It became a loose, swerving speech that kicked off what his team has branded a \u2018thank you tour\u2019\u2014a victory lap of sorts that will take him to several political battlegrounds including Ohio, perhaps the nation\u2019s ultimate swing state.<\/p>\n
Boastful<\/p>\n
\u2018I love you Ohio, this is a great place,\u2019 the populist political novice said to a loud cheer from a crowd that filled roughly half of the US Bank Arena, which has a capacity of about 17,000. Trump lamented the roadblocks in place around the venue, which he said kept attendance down.<\/p>\n
\u2018You went out and you pounded the pavement… and propelled to victory a grassroots movement the likes of which the world has never seen before,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n
The tone was decidedly more boastful than his afternoon appearance in neighboring Indiana, where he visited a company and claimed credit for saving American jobs.<\/p>\n
He then issued a stark warning to other US firms that they will face consequences if they relocate abroad.<\/p>\n
The president-elect, who made guaranteeing jobs for blue-collar American workers a key plank of his campaign, strode triumphantly through an Indiana factory that makes Carrier air conditioners, trumpeting a deal to keep 1,100 manufacturing positions from being shifted to Mexico.<\/p>\n
The maverick tycoon glad-handed workers on an assembly line before defending his negotiation with the company.<\/p>\n
\u2018I think it\u2019s very presidential. And if it\u2019s not presidential, that\u2019s OK because I like doing it,\u2019 Trump said.<\/p>\n
\u2018But we\u2019re going to have a lot of phone calls made to companies when they say they\u2019re leaving this country because they\u2019re not going to leave this country.\u2019<\/p>\n
During the race, the Republican billionaire threatened to slap tariffs on firms that decamped for places like Mexico or Asia where labor costs are cheaper.<\/p>\n
It became a refrain of his victorious campaign, during which he repeatedly leaned on Carrier not to ship a planned 2,000 jobs to Mexico.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US President-elect Donald Trump said on Thursday he has picked tough-talking retired general James Mattis to be his defense secretary as he soaked up adulation at a large Ohio rally where he pledged to unite the nation. The splash of hard news came during a sea of soaring—and then blunt—rhetoric from the 70-year-old Republican billionaire, who was speaking at his first post-election event following days of meetings about forming his cabinet. Advertisement ‘We are going to appoint ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis as our secretary of defense,’ Trump told cheering supporters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4329,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4328"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4328"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4330,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4328\/revisions\/4330"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}