Susan Page

USA TODAY

Donald Trump's tweetstorm charging without evidence that the election included "millions" of illegal voters is just the latest reminder of how distinctive his emerging presidency promises to be.

Three weeks after he surprised even his own supporters by winning the White House, the president-elect has begun to provide important clues about how he'll govern. Through words, actions and appointments — by what he's done so far, and what he has delayed doing — the nation's 45th president has cut a course that is a mix of the predictable and the unprecedented.

Just like his campaign.

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There's no template for Trump in office because Trump has never held office before, the first president in American history to have neither military command nor governmental experience. He moves into the Oval Office having had little backing from the political establishment that typically is tapped to form a new government. And he doesn't feel bound to follow his predecessors' practices, even down to his plans to divide his time between Washington and his hometown of New York.

That makes the search for clues of what's ahead even more intense than usual. Here are three lessons we've learned already:

1. The first Twitter president

How will Trump communicate with Americans? Let's look at what he's done between he was declared the president-elect and Tuesday morning.

News conferences: Zero.

Tweets and retweets: 77 and counting.

Trump hasn't had a news conference since the election. Indeed, he hasn't held a news conference since July, when he moved from being one of the most accessible presidential candidates in memory to one of the least. At that point, he began to rely mostly on speaking to a handful of preferred news outlets and, notably, social media.

Trump has more than 16 million followers on his @realdonaldtrump Twitter account and more than 15 million on his verified Facebook page. What's more, the @POTUS Twitter account (the acronym for President Of The United States) that he'll inherit from President Obama has more than 12 million followers.

That gives Trump a personal circulation on social media bigger than any American newspaper or TV evening news broadcast. It's a way for him to communicate with his supporters and spark stories in news outlets around the world without being subjected to the follow-up questions reporters presumably would pose.

Since the election, he has posted messages along traditional presidential lines, from wishing the Marine Corps a happy 241st birthday ("Thank you for your service!!") to sending Thanksgiving wishes to the nation. But he also has blasted "the failing @nytimes," castigated the cast of Broadway's Hamilton for reading a message from stage to vice president-elect Mike Pence, and suggested Saturday Night Live owed him "equal time" in response to its satiric portrayals of him.

Over the weekend, he bashed moves by Green Party nominee Jill Stein to seek recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, states Trump narrowly carried. He said without substantiation that fraud had given rival Hillary Clinton a lead in the popular vote of more than two million. "In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally," he wrote.

Monday night, he retweeted five posts denouncing a CNN report that questioned his evidence for that claim.

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2. Loyalty. And its limits.

Loyalty matters to Trump, but there seem to be limits.

Two top campaign aides quickly landed ranking White House jobs, Reince Priebus as chief of staff and Steve Bannon as senior counselor. Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, the first senator to endorse Trump, was named attorney general. Retired Army lieutenant general Michael Flynn, a close adviser during the campaign, will be national security adviser.

But New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who enthusiastically endorsed Trump but remains embroiled in the Bridgegate scandal on his home turf, is on the outs, bumped from his role as head of the transition. Former New York city mayor Rudy Giuliani, who continued to publicly defend Trump even in the immediate wake of the vulgar Access Hollywood video, hasn't won the job he wants, secretary of State, at least not yet.

Which brings us to forgiveness, and its limits.

A rival candidate as the nation's top diplomat, fourth in line for the presidency, is Mitt Romney. During the campaign, the GOP's 2012 presidential nominee was Trump's most scathing critic from the ranks of senior Republicans. In a speech in March, Romney called Trump "a phony, a fraud," "very, very not smart," and a failed businessman who advocated "ridiculous and dangerous" ideas.

Still, Romney is scheduled to meet with Trump for a second time Tuesday to talk about the State Department job, an idea that heartens establishment Republicans but enrages some of those who had supported Trump at the time Romney was denouncing him. "People feel betrayed to think that Governor Romney, who went out of his way to question the character and the intellect and the integrity of Donald Trump, now our president-elect, would be given the most significant cabinet post of all, Secretary of State," Kellyanne Conway, Trump's former campaign manager, said Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press.

The battle between Romney and Giuliani could clear the way for some other prospect, such as Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker of Tennessee.

Trump already has appointed South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley as United Nations ambassador and Betsy DeVos as Education secretary. Both endorsed others during the Republican primaries, and Haley was particularly critical of Trump. She labeled him "everything a governor doesn't want in a president."

Unlike Romney, though, she did say she was voting for him in the general election.

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3. Brotherhood of billionaires

Rich folks often fare well in the bid for presidential appointments. Major campaign contributors routinely are nominated to serve as ambassadors to idyllic locals — think Paris, not Kabul — and to head agencies such as the Commerce Department. In 1953, Dwight Eisenhower's Cabinet, heavy with corporate executives, was dubbed "nine millionaires and a plumber." (Trivia alert: Who was the plumber? Labor Secretary Martin Durkin, a former president of the plumbers' and pipefitters' union. He only lasted eight months in the job.)

But the bank accounts of Trump's Cabinet appointees seem likely to overwhelm any previous administration. DeVos' family is heir to the huge Amway fortune. Trump has spoken favorably of Wilbur Ross, the billionaire businessman known as the "king of bankruptcy," to head Commerce. And a pair of billionaires are reported to be among the finalists for Treasury secretary, Jonathan Gray of the Blackstone private equity firm and Steve Mnuchin, formerly of Goldman Sachs.

By the way, if they take the government jobs, they will be subject to a federal law that says executive-branch employees can't participate in government matters in which they or their immediate families have a financial interest. That could force them to divest some assets or put them in a blind trust.

That ethics law doesn't apply to the president and his extensive business assets.

Trump also seems partial to generals. Besides naming Flynn, Trump has tweeted his regard for retired Marine Corps. general James ("Mad Dog") Mattis as a prospective secretary of Defense. Mattis' appointment would require a congressional waiver from the requirement that the Pentagon chief be out of uniform for at least seven years. "Very impressive," Trump tweeted. "A true General's General!"

And he met for about an hour Monday at Trump Tower with retired general David Petraeus, who had to resign as CIA director for mishandling classified information. He's another possible secretary of State. "Just met with General Petraeus," Trump tweeted Monday afternoon. "Was very impressed!"

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