Trump says no to salary and long vacations

washington — Republican billionaire Donald Trump said in an interview broadcast on Sunday he would forgo the salary that comes with the US president’s job. “I think I have to by law take $1, so I’ll take $1 a year,” Trump said. “But it’s a— I don’t even know what it is. Do you know what the salary is?”

“$400,000 you’re giving up,” CBS News’ Leslie Stahl answered.

“No, I’m not gonna take the salary. I’m not taking it.” He also pledged not to take long vacations.

xi seeks cooperation

Chinese President Xi Jinping told US President-elect Donald Trump that cooperation was the only choice for relations between the world’s two largest economies, with Trump saying the two had established a “clear sense of mutual respect”. Trump lambasted China throughout the US election campaign, drumming up headlines with his pledges to slap 45 per cent tariffs on imported Chinese goods and to label the country a currency manipulator on his first day in office. His election has injected uncertainty into relations at a time when Beijing hopes for stability as it faces daunting reform challenges at home, slowing growth and a leadership reshuffle of its own that will put a new party elite around Xi in late 2017.

mexico keeps eyes open

Mexico is scrambling to ready its diplomats in the United States to handle millions of undocumented migrants’ potential needs following Donald Trump’s election, its foreign ministry said. The ministry’s North American team huddled with Foreign Minister Claudia Ruiz Massieu to “analyse the results of the US election and discuss concrete actions concerning the future of the bilateral relationship” between the two countries, according to a statement. The meeting follows the Republican billionaire’s victory last Tuesday in a campaign which saw him call illegal Mexican migrants “rapists” and pledge to build a wall along the southern US border. Trump has alos threatened to renegotiate the North America Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) .

‘blind trust’ for kids

A top adviser to president-elect Donald Trump says it would be “unrealistic” to purge his children from his businesses and hand their control over to an independent trustee. Appearing on televised interviews on Sunday, Giuliani initially said Trump should set up some kind of “blind trust.” When pressed, Giuliani told CNN’s “State of the Union” that Trump has an unusual situation and that creating a traditional blind trust would “basically put his children out of work.” He says they then would have to “start a whole new business and that would set up ... new problems.” Giuliani said Trump’s three children — Ivanka, Donald Jr. and Eric — who are involved in his businesses would not advise Trump once he becomes president in January.

dnc chief aspirant

A potential contender to become the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee says he’ll be making a decision “real soon” about whether to vie for the job. Appearing on Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota says the post requires a person with the “vision and the ability to mobilise and inspire people at the grassroots.” Ellison says fewer Democrats voted in the 2016 presidential election than four years ago because the party’s message of strengthening the middle class “didn’t come through” in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania and other states. Ellison would have the support of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who lost in the Democratic presidential primary to Hillary Clinton.