The 2016 election was tough and "unbelievable," but nobody, including President-elect Donald Trump, wants to continue acting like the campaign is still going on, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said Thursday morning, as Trump was heading to meet with President Barack Obama.
"Just like President-elect Trump said and President Obama said and Secretary Clinton said, we have got to come together," said Priebus on Fox News' "America's Newsroom" program. "The only way we are going forward in this country is to come together."
Trump, while making his victory speech early Wednesday morning, was not bragging about his win, and he took all political rhetoric out of the speech, Priebus said.
"He wasn't relitigating old arguments," he told show host Martha MacCallum. "He went before the American people and delivered a speech, go back and watch it again, about coming together, working America, making America great again. You can't make America great again without all of us coming together and remembering we are on the same team."
Priebus has been mentioned as having a potential role in Trump's administration, but he said Thursday that will be up to the new president-elect. Meanwhile, he said, Trump will "surround himself with great people, he always does."
The meeting with Obama, said Priebus, is an "important day," and they will "shake hands and it will be a great moment in American history."
Priebus said Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan, who had issues with each other during the campaign, will come together, as it is important for the nation.
"You don't get to be the president of the United States and accomplish the kinds of things President-elect Trump has accomplished unless you are capable of dealing with both positive challenging situations, and I am certain he and Paul Ryan will get along well," said Priebus, rating the chances of cooperation at "100 percent."
There were protests against Trump's win in several major cities Wednesday night, but at the end of the day, Trump won the election because "people wanted change," said Priebus.
"We had a great candidate. People can talk about a ground game which was great but if you don't have a good candidate you go down in flames."
And while there are a lot of fears being voiced on Trump, Priebus said he got to know the New Yorker "on a regular basis, a mundane time eating pizza and talking about sports," and found him to be, even during stressful times "personal, gracious, and very warm."
"That was the guy all of us wanted the whole world to see," said Priebus. "People saw it over time. The most important thing was he was a straight talker and a straight shooter.
"The guy in private is extremely likable and even outside of being private people looked at him and saw a guy they wanted to have a beer with. That curiosity, him as a person, on the campaign trail that was very magnetic, he didn't run away from who he was."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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