David Jackson

USA TODAY

NEW YORK — Donald Trump on Sunday tapped Reince Priebus — the Republican Party chairman who helped engineer his stunning presidential victory last week — as his White House chief of staff.

Trump also considered campaign CEO Stephen K. Bannon for the slot, but announced that the former Breitbart News executive would serve chief strategist and senior counselor for the administration that takes office in little more than two months.

“I am thrilled to have my very successful team continue with me in leading our country,” Trump said in a 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.”

In thanking Trump for the appointment, Priebus said he would strive to "create an economy that works for everyone, secure our borders, repeal and replace Obamacare and destroy radical Islamic terrorism."

Bannon, who joined Trump's team in August, said that "we had a very successful partnership on the campaign, one that led to victory. We will have that same partnership in working to help President-elect Trump achieve his agenda.”

Priebus, a lawyer and political operative who became Republican Party chairman in 2011, developed the get-out-the-vote operation that Trump's campaign rode to a come-from-behind victory over Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. While critical of some of Trump's comments at times, Priebus became one of the GOP establishment's most vocal proponents of Trump after the New York businessman won the party nomination.

The new White House chief of staff is also a close ally of a frequent Trump critic, House Speaker Paul Ryan.

As a news executive, Bannon helped turned Breitbart into a leading voice of conservatism and a champion of Trump's candidacy.

But Ryan has been one of the news site's top targets.

Beyond personnel announcements, the president-elect began sketching out policy priorities this weekend and appeared to temper some of his campaign rhetoric. His proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexican border may include some fencing instead, Trump said, and his initial deportation plan will focus on "criminals" who are in the country illegally.

In "certain areas, a wall is more appropriate," but "there could be some fencing," Trump said in an interview with CBS’ Sunday newsmagazine 60 Minutes.

While pledging more deportations, Trump said he would emphasize criminals before deciding what to do about law-abiding families who are in the country illegally.

"What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers," Trump told CBS, later adding: "After the border is secure and after everything gets normalized, we're going to make a determination on the people that they're talking about who are terrific people."

Trump put the number of deportable criminals at two to three million, but immigration experts say it is much lower.

Trump said on 60 Minutes that if Americans are afraid of how he might run the government, it is “only because they don't know me.”

For instance, reporter Lesley Stalh suggested that gays and lesbians may fear Trump would roll back marriage equality for same-sex couples.

“You know, I’ve been a supporter,” Trump said. “These cases have gone to the Supreme Court. They've been settled. And I'm fine with that.”

Trump railed against lobbyists and special interest on the campaign trail, but acknowledged that he has numerous lobbyists on his transition team, because "That's the only people you have down there".

"They know the system right now," Trump said, "but we're going to phase that out. You have to phase it out."

In addition to the 60 Minutes interview, the president-elect and aides holed up high in Trump Tower throughout the weekend as they pursued staffing decisions and policy planning for an administration that takes office in little more than two months.

Since his election win over Clinton on Tuesday night, Trump has granted a couple of select interviews, spoken with Republican officials and foreign leaders — and tweeted, including more pot shots at his media coverage.

"Wow, the @nytimes is losing thousands of subscribers because of their very poor and highly inaccurate coverage of the 'Trump phenomena," Trump tweeted early Sunday.

Trump pledged to be "very restrained" with social media during his presidency, but told 60 Minutes that "the fact that I have such power in terms of numbers with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, et cetera, I think it helped me win all of these races where they're spending much more money than I spent. And I won."

Social media, Trump said, "has more power than the money they spent, and I think maybe to a certain extent, I proved that."

Trump also seemed to extend olive branches to his critics over the weekend, including possible compromises on his plan to repeal President Obama's health care law.

Trump spoke in terms of keeping provisions that forbid insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.

Trump has also said his priorities include a program of road-and-bridge projects ("infrastructure"), de-regulation of financial institutions, and beefing up border against drugs and illegal immigration.

While the Trump campaign has provided little information, foreign governments have confirmed that their leaders spoke with the president-elect. The government of France, for example, said President Francois Hollande spoke with Trump for some 10 minutes Friday about terrorism and Syria.

A Japanese official said Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will be in New York on Thursday to meet with the incoming U.S. President.

As Trump and his team huddled upstairs in his Manhattan tower, thousands of demonstrators massed outside on Fifth Avenue throughout the weekend, protesting what they called his racist and sexist behavior throughout the campaign. Many protesters pointed out that Clinton will likely win the popular vote over Trump.

In a weekend interview with The Wall Street Journal, Trump said he wants to bring the country together after a rancorous campaign.

Asked if he regretted his own aggressive rhetoric, Trump told the Journal: "No, I won."