Trump names GOP chairman Priebus as White House chief of staff and Bannon as top advisor

China’s President Xi Jinping called U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday night and told him that cooperation is “the only correct choice for China and the United States,” Chinese state media reported on Monday.

Trump’s presidential transition office confirmed that the phone call took place. “During the call, the leaders established a clear sense of mutual respect for one another, and President-elect Trump stated that he believes the two leaders will have one of the strongest relationships for both countries moving forward,” it said in a statement.

Trump repeatedly slammed China in his campaign, threatening to formally declare the country a currency manipulator and to slap 45% tariffs on Chinese imports to the U.S.

On Monday, the nationalistic, state-run Global Times tabloid said that the measures would be a mistake. “If Trump wrecks Sino-US trade, a number of US industries will be impaired,” it said. “Finally the new president will be condemned for his recklessness, ignorance and incompetence and bear all the consequences.”

Donald Trump made his first significant moves as the nation’s president-elect on Sunday, naming two campaign insiders with sharply contrasting approaches as his top White House aides while also signaling that he will seek to promptly deport up to 3 million immigrants with “criminal records’’ who are in the U.S. illegally.

The rapid-fire developments highlighted the challenges Trump faces in reconciling the rhetoric that helped propel him to victory with how he is prepared to govern.

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Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the Conference Hall of the ministry in Budapest in 2015.

(Attila Kisbenedek /AFP/Getty Images)

China’s foreign minister on Sunday emphasized a desire to mend bilateral ties under President-elect Donald Trump, though he accused China during his campaign of manipulating U.S. currency and stealing American jobs.

“We want to improve our relations under the Trump administration,” Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on an official visit to Ankara, according to Reuters.

Trump trounced China during his campaign, saying it was “raping” the U.S. on trade policy and calling climate change a “hoax” produced by the Chinese. He also threatened to hike up tariffs. But the country’s officials tend to take a pragmatic approach to rhetoric espoused during campaigns, waiting instead for actions taken in office.

The new U.S. leader may push China harder on trade deals, but he also could soften the previous president’s “pivot to Asia” policy and pull back from U.S. influence in the region.

Analysts say Chinese leaders are looking for a more transactional relationship, one that doesn’t delve into human rights and stays out of geopolitics. They hope Trump, a businessman with no political experience, will offer that possibility.

Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory telegram to Trump hours after his win. A commentary last week in the Communist Party-led People’s Daily newspaper said the world’s two biggest economies “must cooperate or perish.”

Wang on Sunday emphasized officials were “ready to improve U.S. ties through mutual understanding.”

A motion to delay the Trump University trial until after the presidential inauguration was filed in San Diego federal court Saturday night, arguing a few extra months would give both sides time to videotape Donald Trump’s testimony or possibly reach a settlement.

In the motion, Trump’s attorney Daniel Petrocelli lays out a detailed plan that would postpone the trial, scheduled to begin Nov. 28, until sometime after the Jan. 20 inauguration to allow the president-elect to focus his time and energy on the transition to the White House.

The class-action lawsuit, filed in 2010, accuses Trump and Trump University of misleading students who signed up for seminars that promised to teach insider secrets to real estate investing. The students claim they were told instructors were “handpicked” by Trump, though they weren’t, and that the program falsely held itself out to be an accredited university, though it was not.

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Reince Priebus previously served as the Republican National Committee Chairman. Bannon was the chair of Brietbart News, a politically conservative news site.

President-elect Donald Trump signaled Sunday that the dual forces that helped get him elected — Republican loyalists and far-right conservatives — will share power in his White House, naming strategists to two top West Wing posts.

Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus will serve as his White House chief of staff, suggesting an increased willingness by Trump to work within Washington’s system to accomplish his agenda.

At the same time, however, Stephen K. Bannon, the campaign CEO who helped amplify some of Trump’s most incendiary rhetoric about Muslims, immigrants and other minority groups, will serve as his chief strategist, according to a statement that called Priebus and Bannon “equal partners.”

“I am thrilled to have my very successful team continue with me in leading our country,” Trump said in the statement. “Steve and Reince are highly qualified leaders who worked well together on our campaign and led us to a historic victory. Now I will have them both with me in the White House as we work to make America great again.”

Priebus was viewed as a choice who could bring order and experience to Trump’s inner circle, which consists largely of family members and advisors with little experience in Washington. He also serves as a bridge to Republican leaders on Capitol Hill, including House Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Trump is known to value loyalty. Even as Trump’s outsider candidacy split the GOP during the primaries, Priebus was one of the first party leaders to accept and promote Trump once it became clear he was the likely nominee.

Bannon, who took leave from his job running the conservative Breitbart News site to run Trump’s campaign, is a divisive figure. Breitbart, which had long promoted Trump’s candidacy, has also given a platform to the so-called alt-right, a loose collective of openly racist and anti-Semitic activists. Bannon’s new West Wing assignment immediately drew criticism from both Democrats and Republicans.

“Be very vigilant America,” warned John Weaver, a top operative for Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s presidential campaign.

Bannon, a former Goldman Sachs banker, has also worked in various roles in the entertainment industry, producing films and politically oriented documentaries. He also had a hand in Turner Broadcasting’s purchase of Castle Rock and gained a stake in rights to a handful of television shows, including “Seinfeld.”

2:40 p.m.: This story was updated with details on Bannon’s Hollywood career.

1:55 p.m.: This story was updated with background on Bannon.

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Donald Trump’s plan to deport up to 3 million people in the U.S. illegally was echoed Sunday by other Republican leaders, including House Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, who said the party was focused on securing the border and not mass deportations.

Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,’’ Ryan said, “We’re focused on securing the border. … We’re not planning on erecting a deportation force.’’

Newt Gingrich, who served as House speaker in the 1990s and who is assisting Trump’s transition, also told CBS’ “Face the Nation’’ that the deportation of immigrants in the country illegally who have criminal pasts would be the new administration’s priority.

Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, a close Trump ally whom the president-elect may appoint as U.S. attorney general, said his administration “would have to be very careful’’ regarding immigration from terrorism-prone regions of the Middle East.

“This is going to be a country-by-country decision,’’ Giuliani told CNN, saying that much will depend on the extent to which each country cooperates in sharing information.

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In the first episode of “Saturday Night Live” since the election of Donald Trump as the next president, the show took a rather muted approach. With Kate McKinnon in a Hillary Clinton-style white pantsuit, the show also paid tribute to singer Leonard Cohen, who died Monday at age 82.

Sitting behind a piano, McKinnon sang and played Cohen’s signature “Hallelujah,” fighting back tears throughout the performance. And at its end, she turned directly to the camera and said: “I’m not giving up, and neither should you.”

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Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election took about three-quarters of Americans by surprise, including six in 10 of those who voted for him, according to a new Gallup poll.

Despite the unexpected result and the persistence of protests in major cities, however, a large majority of Americans appear ready to accept Trump’s election as legitimate.

A Washington Post/ABC News poll, taken Wednesday through Friday, found that 74% of Americans said they “accept the election of Donald Trump as legitimate.” On the other side, 18% said they “think Donald Trump is not the legitimate winner.”

Not surprisingly, people who supported Hillary Clinton were less likely to accept Trump’s legitimacy, with about one-third of Clinton supporters saying they did not see him as the “legitimate winner” compared with 58% of her voters who did accept him.

Gallup, which asked the question slightly differently, found somewhat broader acceptance of Trump. In its survey, it noted that Trump will be inaugurated in January and asked Americans: “Will you accept him as the legitimate president, or not?”

In response, 84% of those polled said they would accept Trump as the legitimate president, 15% said they would not. Among Clinton voters in the Gallup survey, three-quarters said they would accept Trump while slightly fewer than one-quarter said they would not.

Gallup asked the same question 16 years ago just after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of George W. Bush and against Al Gore, resolving that year’s disputed election in Bush’s favor. At that point, the share of Gore’s backers who said they would not accept Bush as legitimate was slightly larger than the share of Clinton voters taking that position toward Trump.

The Gallup survey was a one-day poll taken the day after the election among 511 adult Americans. It has a margin of error of 5 percentage points in either direction. The Washington Post/ABC News poll has a margin of error of 4 points in either direction.

(Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press))

President-elect Donald Trump says his administration will seek to promptly deport up to 3 million immigrants with “criminal records’’ who are in the U.S. illegally but will defer the far wider exclusions he called for during the campaign until “after the border is secure.’’

Trump’s comments, made in an interview to be broadcast Sunday night on CBS’ “60 Minutes,’’ highlight one of the challenges he faces in reconciling the rhetoric that propelled him to victory with how he is prepared to govern.

“What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records … probably 2 million, it could be even 3 million, we are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate,’’ Trump said.

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Warning: Video contains racial epithets and a lewd term.

California is quickly becoming a battleground for immigration policy as a cross-section of leaders across the state vowed to fight any plans by President-elect Donald Trump to deport thousands of people in the U.S. illegally.

Trump said during the presidential campaign that he’ll build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and deport people in the country illegally. He is expected to unwind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, an initiative by President Obama that protects immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

California has some of the nation’s most liberal policies when it comes to handling immigrants here illegally. The state has allowed them to get driver’s licenses, health coverage for children and in-state tuition. Institutions like churches also support immigrants.

But the Golden State could be on a collision course with Trump if he pushes hard-line immigration policies enthusiastically backed by many of his supporters.

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Few presidential campaign tools have ever been as effective as Donald Trump’s Twitter account, where he could fire off 140 characters that would immediately disrupt the race.

Given his history of tweets labeled offensive, newsworthy or simply shocking, one question that arose after he won the election Tuesday was whether he would keep tweeting from the White House. Defending the value of Twitter as a venue to get his message out directly, Trump said the answer is yes.

“It’s a great form of communication,” he told CBS’ “60 Minutes” in an interview to air Sunday. “... I’m not saying I love it, but it does get the word out.”

Trump’s sometimes-erratic tweeting — messages were sent in the middle of the night or to wage an ill-advised fight — contributed to Hillary Clinton’s accusations that he was too unstable to serve as president.

Trump, whose relationship with the media can be described as rocky at best, said he also views Twitter as a way to counter tough news reports about him.

“I have a method of fighting back,” he said.

It was an ominous warning from a president-elect who vowed to sue several news organizations that ran unflattering stories about him during his campaign and to reexamine libel laws should he win the presidency, though no federal libel law exists.

How he’ll carry out his tweeting remains a question. The Secret Service will likely ask him to restrict his electronics use for security reasons; President Obama fought to keep hold of his Blackberry when he came into office and ultimately agreed to use a modified device.

Another unknown is whether Trump will tweet from his existing account of @realdonaldtrump or move to the @POTUS handle, which Obama has said he’ll hand off to his successor.

Perhaps he’ll choose a mix. Trump’s personal account has about 15 million followers, while the presidential handle has just under 12 million. Trump could use his account for more informal or even politically incendiary tweets and save the other for more more formal messaging.

He uses a similar pattern on his own account now: Tweets sent from Android devices tend be feistier and are thought to come mostly from Trump himself, while those written on iPhones are more traditional campaign fodder and believed to be written, or at least edited, by staff.

(Win McNamee / Getty Images)

A somber Hillary Clinton blamed her presidential election loss on a variety of factors Saturday, including FBI Director James B. Comey’s announcement last month that newfound emails possibly linked to her private server were being reviewed.

In a 20-minute phone call with donors, Clinton said Comey’s Oct. 28 letter to lawmakers about the investigation had halted some of her momentum near the end of the race, according to a person on the call.

“She was pretty clear there was a lot going on in this campaign, and that this was a factor, but not the only factor,” the person, who would not be named discussing the private call, said of Comey’s letter.

Comey’s letter sent shock waves throughout the presidential campaign in its final days, and Donald Trump and Republicans used it to rally supporters and fuel speculation that Clinton was under investigation. Clinton’s campaign called for more transparency from Comey.

Just two days before the election, Comey sent a follow-up letter to say that the new emails turned up nothing that would cause the bureau to change its recommendation not to prosecute Clinton.

During the call, Clinton also said she was determined to see that country has a prosperous future, echoing comments she delivered in her concession speech.

(Andres Kudacki / Associated Press )

Filmmaker Michael Moore shuffled into the marble lobby of Trump Tower in Manhattan on Saturday to see whether President-elect Donald Trump might be up for an impromptu visit.

Moore, a liberal who once branded Trump a “wretched, ignorant, dangerous part-time clown and full-time sociopath,” had no luck.

“I just thought I’d see if I could get into Trump Tower and ride the famous escalator,” Moore, wearing a red San Francisco 49ers cap, told reporters who gathered around him.

Holding a smartphone to record the scene on Facebook Live, Moore took a ride up the same escalator that Trump descended with theatrical flair when he announced his candidacy in June 2015.

Secret Service agents blocked Moore from taking an elevator to Trump’s home or office.

Moore dropped by the doorman’s desk. He told him he wanted to see Trump. The doorman paid him the courtesy of phoning upstairs with the request, but the answer was no.

Moore, who won fame by dogging then-General Motors CEO Roger Smith in the documentary “Roger & Me” in 1989, left the doorman a note reading: “Mr. Trump. I’m here. I want to talk to you.”

A few minutes later, Moore left the building.

Trump and Conway on election night.

(John Locher / Associated Press)

Donald Trump is on the verge of naming his White House chief of staff, and he’s weighing whether to take a victory tour next week, a senior advisor said Saturday.

The president-elect spent the day inside Trump Tower as thousands of protesters gathered outside the Midtown skyscraper where he lives and works.

“He’s enjoying time with his family,” said Kellyanne Conway, who managed Trump’s campaign and now serves as senior advisor to his transition team. “He’s receiving many visitors. He’s receiving many phone calls. The senior team has been with him almost nonstop.”

One of the visitors spotted by reporters and photographers staking out the Trump Tower lobby on Saturday was Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK Independence Party who was instrumental in Britain’s vote to leave the European Union.

“They enjoy each other’s company, and they absolutely had an opportunity to talk about freedom and winning, and what this all means for the world,” Conway told reporters outside the lobby elevator.

Also seen at Trump Tower on Saturday was Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee and a top candidate for the White House chief of staff job.

“Chairman Priebus has expressed an interest in the position,” Conway said. “There are several people being considered. And it’s Mr. Trump’s decision, ultimately.”

Announcement of his choice, she said, was “imminent.”

Asked about reports that Trump might take a victory tour across the U.S. next week, Conway responded: “It’s possible. We’re working on the schedule. We feel busier than ever. We felt pretty busy as the underdog pulling off the election.

“But we feel incredibly busy, going through transition and forming a government. People up there are working around the clock.”

Marion Le Pen, France’s youngest member of Parliament and the niece of the leader of the country’s far-right party, tweeted Saturday that the head of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign invited her to work with his administration.

For much of the 2016 presidential race, Le Pen, 26, was a vocal supporter of Trump. In August, she tweeted that Trump was “less harmful” than Hillary Clinton and said the GOP nominee “responded to people’s hopes.”

Le Pen, a member of France’s National Front party, has been castigated by some for rhetoric labeled anti-Muslim, following terrorist attacks in the country carried out by militants loyal to Islamic State.

“France is not an Islamic country, and Islam should not have the same place in public life,” she said recently.

Stephen K. Bannon, the Trump campaign CEO said to be in the running to be Trump’s White House chief of staff, ran Breitbart News before taking a leave to work for Trump. The conservative site has given a platform to the so-called alt-right viewpoint, a loose right-wing faction that includes openly racist and anti-Semitic activists.

How Donald Trump governs will be shaped by who he surrounds himself with in Washington. At the moment, that remains an open question. Trump’s orbit now includes some of the most incendiary members of the so-called alt-right and neoconservative movements, as well as Republican Party stalwarts with a very different outlook. Trump is mulling which of them will get the big White House jobs. Here’s a look at the conflicting personalities in his circle:

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(Stephanie Yao Long/Associated Press)

A protester was shot in Portland amid a rowdy standoff with police as a fourth night of protests unfolded around the nation, spurred by outrage over the election of Donald Trump as president.

The non-fatal shooting occurred when a protester on the Morrison Bridge was shot by an unidentified man who was part of a group of people attempting to cross the bridge in a car.

“Preliminary information indicates that a suspect was in a vehicle on the bridge and there was a confrontation with someone in the protest. The suspect got out of the vehicle and fired multiple shots injuring the victim,” the Portland Police Bureau said in a statement.

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This combination of file photos shows Federal Reserve Board Chairwoman Janet L. Yellen and President-elect Donald Trump.

(AFP/Getty Images)

Donald Trump leveled unprecedented criticism at the Federal Reserve during the campaign. As president, he could get to quickly reshape it — and the economic conditions that central bank policymakers will be facing.

Trump will have the opportunity to appoint as many as five new members to the seven-person Fed Board of Governors during his first year and a half in office. That includes a new chairperson to replace Janet L. Yellen, whose term expires in early 2018.

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(Molly Riley / Associated Press)

President-elect Donald Trump described Hillary Clinton as gracious in her phone call this week conceding defeat and hinted that he may take future advice from her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

“Hillary called, and it was a lovely call, and it was a tough call for her, I mean, I can imagine,” Trump, in his first television interview since the election, told CBS’ “60 Minutes.” “Tougher for her than it would have been for me. I mean, for me, it would have been very, very difficult. She couldn’t have been nicer. She just said, ‘Congratulations, Donald, well done.’ ”

Trump, who redrew the political map with his win on Tuesday, carrying several states that traditionally vote Democratic, said that former President Bill Clinton called him later in the week to offer congratulations as well. When asked if he would seek the counsel of the former president, Trump said it was possible.

“He’s a very talented guy, I mean, this is a very talented family,” Trump said. “Certainly, I would certainly think about that.”

In the interview, Trump also largely reiterated comments he made earlier in the day to the Wall Street Journal that indicated he wanted to preserve parts of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

He said that any healthcare law his administration helps draft would keep provisions in the current law that ensure coverage for people with preexisting conditions and allow children living at home to stay on their parents’ healthcare plans until age 26.

Trump also said there would be no lapse in healthcare coverage for people insured under the Obama plan and whatever replaces it.

“We’re going to repeal it and replace it,” he said of the president’s healthcare law.

(Alex Wong / Getty )

He’s a Muslim from the heartland and he could be the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota is slowly raking up support from some key figures within the party, such as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Sen. Charles Schumer, who want him to be the next leader, following the party’s humbling presidential loss earlier this week.

Citing more than 250,000 signatures in support of Ellison on a petition posted to his website, Sanders said the congressman is the future of the party.

“The Democratic Party needs to look itself in the mirror and work tirelessly to become once again the party that working people know will work for their interests,” Sanders, who amassed a youthful, liberal following during the Democratic primary, said in a statement. “Keith is one of the most progressive members of Congress, and he was an early supporter of our political revolution.”

The DNC entered a rebuilding phase after Tuesday’s stunning victory by Republican Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton.

Yet even before the election results were tallied, the DNC faced several controversies with its former and interim chairs -- Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida and Donna Brazile, respectively.

In July, WikiLeaks released emails that showed members of the DNC acting favorably toward Clinton during the Democratic primary. It led to Wasserman Schultz’s resignation. After Brazile replaced her as interim chair, additional leaked emails showed Brazile, who was also a CNN contributor, had shared debate questions with the Clinton campaign during the primary last spring.

Others who are seeking to lead the DNC include former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who held the role from 2005 until 2009, and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley. In addition, Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander, who waged a competitive Missouri Senate race this year but fell short, is also eyeing the position.

President-elect Donald Trump signaled a willingness Friday not to repeal all of the Affordable Care Act, saying in an interview that he would keep several popular provisions.

“Either Obamacare will be amended, or repealed and replaced,” Trump told the Wall Street Journal in something of a retreat from his campaign promise to throw out the whole law.

Trump indicated that he might keep several provisions, such as the law’s insurance guarantee, which requires that insurers cover Americans, even if they are sick.

He also said he likes a provision in the law that allows young adults to remain on their parents’ health plans until they are 26.

Trump said he had been persuaded to look at these provisions after meeting at the White House with President Obama this week.

“I told him I will look at his suggestions, and out of respect, I will do that,” Trump said.

The two provisions are among the most popular in the health law, which Obama signed in 2010.

And congressional Republicans have signaled for several years that they would keep them in any repeal program that they develop.

But keeping the insurance guarantee while gutting other parts of the health law could prove problematic for Trump and his congressional allies.

And Trump’s comment underscores the challenges facing Republicans if they move to repeal and potentially replace Obamacare.

There is a widespread agreement that it is impossible to require insurers to cover sick people without also including some mechanism that compels people to get insurance when they are healthy and without some financial aid to help people buy coverage.

Without these tools, an insurance guarantee would likely leave insurers only covering sick people, which would in turn make coverage increasingly unaffordable.

The health law provides these additional tools to make the guarantee work. It includes a penalty on people who don’t get coverage and hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies to help low- and moderate-income people buy coverage.

But Republicans have pledged to eliminate the mandate, which is very unpopular, and slash the subsidies, which are costly.

To date, Trump has not indicated how he would replace the mandate and the subsidies that help make the insurance work.

(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was abruptly replaced by Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, the vice president-elect, to lead President-elect Donald Trump’s transition to the White House, Trump aides announced Friday.

The job is always crucial, but especially so for the first modern president ever elected without experience in either government or the military. In addition to staffing the White House, Cabinet agencies, embassies and other key government posts, the transition team needs to make sure Trump is briefed and prepared to take responsibility for taking over the government and getting his policy initiatives in place.

Christie has been tarred by the recent convictions of two former top aides for creating a traffic jam leading to the George Washington Bridge to punish a mayor who would not endorse him.

Pence has proven a loyal second to Trump, backing him when other establishment Republicans were critical and finding ways to explain some of his more controversial statements in public. A former member of the House, Pence also has close ties to House Speaker Paul Ryan and other top Republicans on Capitol Hill.

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(David Becker/Getty Images)

Outgoing Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid offered a blistering assessment of President-elect Donald Trump on Friday, saying the Republican “has emboldened the forces of hate and bigotry in America.”

“I have heard more stories in the past 48 hours of Americans living in fear of their own government and their fellow Americans than I can remember hearing in five decades in politics,” said Reid, a longtime Nevada Democrat who will retire in January, in a statement. “Their fear is entirely rational because Donald Trump has talked openly about doing terrible things to them.”

For months, Reid has been a vocal critic of Trump, labeling him a racist unfit to lead the country for his calls to ban Muslims from entering the country and charged rhetoric about Mexican immigrants.

Nationwide, from New York to Los Angeles, people took to the streets Wednesday and Thursday to protest Trump’s election.

The nation needs to heal, said Reid, whose protĂŠgĂŠ, former Nevada Atty. Gen. Catherine Cortez Masto, won his seat to become the first Latina in the Senate.

“We must first put the responsibility for healing where it belongs: at the feet of Donald Trump,” he said.

In his victory speech, Trump struck a conciliatory tone, vowing to bring the country together.

The stock market cooled slightly early Friday after a two-day rally sparked by Donald Trump’s unexpected presidential victory and stoked by the prospect that a Trump administration will make good on promises to spend heavily on infrastructure projects and ease many federal regulations.

Financial stocks have been among the biggest winners this week, a sign that investors are betting on looser bank regulation — including changes to 2010’s Dodd-Frank Act — and that interest rates will rise. Finance stocks that are part of the Standard & Poor’s 500 index climbed nearly 8% Wednesday and Thursday, though they traded slightly lower in early trading Friday.

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For only the fourth time in U.S. history, the presidential campaign has ended with an electoral college winner who won fewer votes than his opponent.

Under the system established in the Constitution, in 1787, the winner is the candidate who wins the majority of electoral votes based on the state-by-state tallies, and that candidate is Donald Trump.

Hillary Clinton will finish second, even though she will have beaten him by more than 200,000 votes in the national popular vote.

For Democrats, it makes for a painful repeat of recent history.

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After another night of protests against Donald Trump, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said opponents of the president-elect don’t want to accept “that they lost the election.”

“I’m not sure why some of these things are going on,” Priebus told anchor George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “It was the Democrats that accused Donald Trump of not being willing to accept the outcome of the election. Now he won fairly overwhelmingly, although close, but electoral college-wise, pretty clear.”

“He lost the popular vote,” Stephanopoulos reminded Priebus.

“Understood -- but it’s the other side now that doesn’t want to accept the fact that they lost the election. So look, I think everyone just needs to take a deep breath. Take the weekend. Today’s Veterans Day. Count our blessings, and let’s come back on Monday.”

Thousands of protesters took to the streets again in cities across the nation on Thursday night, with what police called a riot breaking out in Portland, Ore.

On Twitter, Trump said Thursday that it was very unfair that “professional protesters, incited by the media” were protesting his election. By Friday morning, he tried to walk back the criticism, praising the protesters for their “passion” and calling for unity.

Priebus told ABC that he did not know whether paid protesters were involved.

“I’m sure that the vast majority of people are just very disappointed with the outcome of the election, so I’ll give them that, and I’ll also say I understand the 1st Amendment of the Bill of Rights. But this election is over now. And we have a president-elect who has done everything he can do over the last 48 hours to say, ‘Let’s bring people together.’”

What a difference 10 hours makes.

President-elect Donald Trump embraced anti-Trump protesters as passionate on Friday, after calling them “unfair” and a product of media incitement the previous night.

“Love the fact that the small groups of protesters last night have passion for our great country,” Trump posted on Twitter on Friday morning.

People angry over the presidential election results hit the streets for a third night in major cities inclduing Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and New York. In Portland, Ore., police called the protests a riot.

On Thursday, Trump tweeted that “professional protesters” were being unfair, and he accused the media of inciting their actions.

“Lock her up!” was his supporters’ fervent cry.

But it’s Donald Trump who may find himself in political shackles, stuck between his followers’ yearning to put Hillary Clinton in jail and his expressed desire to unite a badly fractured country after an election in which he lost the popular vote.

The tension is not likely to dissipate anytime soon. After having pledged to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Clinton, Trump faces a dilemma: He can either drop the matter and risk angering his supporters, or charge ahead with a criminal inquiry targeting his vanquished political foe, something never before done in U.S. history.

“It’s a tough decision,” former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, a Trump advisor and a top choice to be the next attorney general, told CNN on Thursday. “I don’t know what the right answer to that is. It’s a tough one that ought to be given a lot of thought. ”

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A protester waves the peace sign to LAPD officers blocking the intersection of Olive Street and Olympic Boulevard during an anti-Donald Trump march through downtown Los Angeles on Nov. 10.

(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

Hundreds of people flooded the streets of downtown Los Angeles on Thursday and marched between City Hall and Staples Center, marking a third night of demonstrations against the election of Donald Trump as president.

The crowd halted traffic but was mostly peaceful, though some vandalized property with graffiti, hurled bottles and launched fireworks. At one point, a large boom resembling that of a firecracker thundered near 2nd and Spring streets.

One person defaced a Los Angeles police cruiser, prompting officers to reach for beanbag shotguns, but a clash with demonstrators was averted.

A man with a megaphone urged fellow demonstrators not to resort to vandalism.

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