President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday he will hold a press conference on January 11th, during which he has previously indicated he would unveil plans to avoid any conflict of interest between the White House and his business dealings.
Trump has not held a press conference since July, and his announcement gave just the latest date set for the much-delayed event previously due to take place December 15th. He was elected in November.
The precedent has seen American presidents-elect field numerous press conferences during the transition to power to discuss matters such as their choices to fill their cabinet and policy plans for the incoming administration.
Instead, Trump has relied largely on rallies, photo ops, select interviews and – in unprecedented fashion – on tweets.
He has largely snubbed thus far the tradition that the presidential news conference has become.
His methods of communicating news about the transition have been unorthodox for an incoming head of state.
Last month, he unexpectedly announced to reporters camped in the lobby of his Manhattan Trump Tower skyscraper that Masayoshi Son – the flamboyant head of Japanese telecoms giant SoftBank and a self-made billionaire — had announced a $50 billion investment in the US that would create 50,000 jobs.
Economic announcements of this magnitude are rare and generally take place through a news release or a carefully planned press conference, requiring the efforts of many public relations experts who carefully consider every word and gesture.
Steven Mnuchin, tapped to become Secretary of Treasury, and Wilbur Ross, the commerce pick, announced on CNBC television that they had been appointed to their Cabinet positions by Trump.
The official announcement was published several hours later.
As for the nomination of his future Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, the president-elect announced the pick during a rally in Cincinnati, Ohio, the first stop of his “thank you tour” in the industrial states that gave him the presidency.
Trump later doubled down on his doubts about US intelligence findings that Russia meddled in the US election through computer hacking, a conclusion that triggered US sanctions against Moscow.
He also claimed that an intelligence briefing he had been due to receive about the hack would now take place Friday.
Trump, who is seeking warmer ties with Washington’s former Cold War foe, has long treated accusations of Russian meddling as a thinly veiled effort by a Democratic president to delegitimize a Republican victory.
But that defiant stance is running up against increasing opposition in his own party. Over the weekend, Trump also made the claim that he knows “things that other people don’t know” on the issue.
