Please go ahead.

SPICER: Hey, good morning. Thank you, guys, for joining us again. We are just shy of two weeks out, 15 days until the next president of the United States is sworn in.

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Today, the Office of Legislative Affairs will facilitate 52 meetings (inaudible) office for our Cabinet-level nominees. Yesterday was another great day for us on the Hill, with a series of constructive meetings. Our nominees met with individuals on both sides of the aisle to talk about their pending nominations.

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Just to give you an idea of who was on the Hill yesterday, Congressman Mick Mulvaney, the designee for Office of Management and Budget; Congressman Tom Price, who is designee for secretary of health and human services; Steven Mnuchin, the secretary-designate of the Department of Treasury; Mr. Wilbur Ross, secretary-designate of commerce; Ms. Linda McMahon for the Small Business Administration; General Kelly for the Department of Homeland Security; Dr. Carson for the Department of Housing and Urban Development; Senator Sessions, the next attorney general of the Department of Justice; Governor Nikki Haley, the designee for ambassador to the U.N.; General Mattis, designee for secretary of defense; Secretary Elaine Chao, secretary- designate for the Department of Transportation; Seema Verma, the designee for the administrator of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

SPICER: We'll have another list for you on updates tomorrow. On the staff front, Caroline Wiles will be serving -- I apologize for the oversight yesterday. She joins the list of staff that was announced yesterday. She will serve as deputy assistant to the president and director of scheduling in the White House.

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Last name is W-I-L-E-S. First name is Caroline, C-A-R-O-L-I-N-E.

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Congratulations to her.

To recap yesterday, the president-elect announced his intention to appoint Jay Clayton as chairman of the Security Exchange Commission.

He also made several announcements in the first wave of White House staff.

Katie Walsh as deputy chief of staff to the White House, W-A-L-S- H.

Rick Dearborn, D-E-A-R-B-O-R-N, deputy chief of staff for legislative intergovernmental affairs and implementation.

Joe Hagin, H-A-G-I-N, deputy chief of staff for operations.

Marc Short, M-A-C -- excuse me, M-A-R-C, S-H-O-R-T, assistant to the president and director of legislative affairs.

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Jon DeStefano, D-E, big S-T-E-F-A-N-O, assistant to the president and director of presidential personnel.

Omarosa Manigault, O-M-A-R-O-S-A, last name M-A-N-I-G-A-U-L-T, assistant to the president and director of communications for the Office of Public Liaison.

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Josh Pitcock, P-I-T-C-O-C-K, assistant to the president and chief of staff to the vice president.

Keith Schiller, S-C-H-I-L-L-E-R, deputy assistant to the president and director of Oval Office operations.

George Gigicos, G-I-G-I-C-O-S, deputy assistant to the president and director of advance.

Jessica Ditto, D-I-T-T-O, deputy assistant to the president and deputy communications director. Raj Shah, R-A-J, S-H-A-H, deputy assistant to the president and deputy communications director and research director.

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Bill Stepien, S-T-E-P-I-E-N, deputy assistant to the president and political director.

Jen Pavlik, P-A-V-L-I-K, deputy assistant to the president and deputy chief of staff to the vice president.

Jon McEntee, M, small C big E-N-T-E-E, special assistant to the president, personal aide to the president.

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I would expect further of staff announcements in the next couple hours.

For planning purposes, the president-elect is planning -- mentioned yesterday -- on holding a press conference in New York on January 11th. We'll have more details coming out in the next couple days regarding credentialing and location.

One real quick point of clarity. The -- there's a story out there in the Wall Street Journal that is entitled, "Donald Trump Plans to Revamp -- Revamp of Top Spy Agency."

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Please note the following, quote: "These reports are false. All transition activities are for information-gathering purposes and all discussion and tentative. The president-elect's top priority would be to ensure the safety of the American people and the security of the nation and he's committed to finding the best and most effective ways to do it."

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But I want to reiterate, there is no truth to this idea of restructuring the intelligence community infrastructure. It is 100 percent false.

I just also want to note today, obviously, the intelligence chiefs are all testifying in front of the House Armed -- Senate Armed Services. They will be briefing the president-elect tomorrow.

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SPICER: It is interesting, for what it's worth, just -- there's a story that came out in Buzzfeed that notes that the DNC is on the record saying that the FBI has never actually contacted them to validate claims by CrowdStrike, which is the third-party tech security firm, and never actually requested the hacked servers.

You know, I would -- I would sort of equate this to no one actually going to the crime scene to actually look at the evidence. I think it's worth further reporting and discussion, if I could make such a recommendation.

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Today, (inaudible) inaugural (inaudible) with his various staff members. The vice president-elect began his day with PDB and is spending the rest of the day in a series of transition meetings in Washington, D.C.

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With that, I'd be glad to take a few questions.

OPERATOR: If you'd like to ask a question, you can do so by signaling with star-one on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speaker phone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment.

Again, that's star-one for questions, and we'll pause just for a moment.

We'll take our first question from Chuck Raasch of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Please go ahead.

QUESTION: Hi, Sean. Thanks for doing this call.

Katie Walsh was given a lot of credit for helping to build the voter ID in the GOTV infrastructure at the RNC that helped elect Mr. Trump. And I'm wondering, you know her well, obviously, can you say what she brings to this job in the administration? And also, will that -- any of that activity that she sort of helped formulate over there, will that translate into the new job? Or will it be a different type position for her?

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SPICER: Thanks, Chuck. I think that, look, whether you -- if you look at Katie's history, not just at the RNC, but prior to finance director, she is someone that has been 100 percent mission-oriented; has taken whatever task has been at hand and succeeded in almost everything she has done. She has been a tremendous asset to the Trump campaign after he became the nominee, as noted by Kellyanne's comments yesterday and the release. And I think she tweeted out some comments additionally.

And she has been a tremendous asset in the -- in the transition period as well, for which the president-elect asked her to serve in this role. I think, look, if you look at both her roles prior to joining the RNC, but as you know at the RNC, helped oversee, you know, by all hands, one of the single-handed greatest efforts by a party committee to work with the nominee in a seamless way and ensure victory, not just at the top of the ticket, but all the way down to the local offices.

Katie brings a tremendous amount of talent, expertise and management skills to the White House. And I think the president-elect really values the work that she's done both in the campaign and subsequently in the transition.

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OPERATOR: We'll take our next question from Allison Burswell (ph) from Bloomberg BNA. Please go ahead.

QUESTION: Hi. Thank you for hosting this call.

I wanted to ask, could you talk a little bit about the apparent disagreement between the President-elect Trump's -- president-elect's tweets and Paul Ryan on the idea of border taxes? Trump has (inaudible) to impose some on G.M., but Paul Ryan said yesterday that tax reform, not tariffs, are the way to go. So can you talk a bit about that?

SPICER: Well, I don't -- I'll let the speaker speak for himself. I will tell you that the way that Mr. Trump looks at this is that if American companies stay in the United States and continue to hire American workers to grow our manufacturing base, then there is no tariff. There's no tax.

I think what he is concerned about is that American companies continue to -- or American companies who go offshore, get rid of American jobs, and then want to sell back to the United States is something that he doesn't think is right and it doesn't benefit the American workers. And he's going to continue to fight for American workers.

SPICER: That -- that's one piece. And then he continues to obviously want to work with the Congress to enact both regulatory and tax reform to create a more business-friendly environment that will spur economic growth and job creation.

Just today, he saw -- I think there's a USA Today story that came out in the last 15 minutes -- Stanley's Black and Decker to open a U.S. plant after Trump's border attacks threat.

Look, I think you have seen this over and over again, whether it's Carrier or Lockheed, following Ford, G.M. now; Sprint, and a whole host of other companies that understand that his goal is to create a more business-friendly environment that will create more American jobs -- not just the jobs, but good-paying jobs and help American workers.

And he's going to continue to fight for that and make sure that companies don't get a tax benefit, frankly, to go off overseas that denies -- that hurts American workers, and then be able to sell back and profit. He's focused on the American worker who he understands and been fighting for for decades now.

OPERATOR: And we'll take our next question from Brian Schwartz of Fox Business. Please go ahead.

QUESTION: Hey, guys. I just want to -- two questions. One, Bloomberg is reporting that Christopher Giancarlo is expected to lead the CFTC. And the second thing that I wanted to ask you is it's also being reported that David Malpass is being seen as a top candidate for a senior treasury international affairs role under Donald Trump.

And is that true? Can you guys give us anything on that?

SPICER: I appreciate your try, Brian, but when we have staff announcements, we'll make them. At this point, there is no additional staff announcement to be made. But look, I think you've seen a flurry for the last, you know, almost 60 days of people, whether it's at Trump Tower or Mar-a-Lago, Bedminster, coming in and out that want to be part of this administration to help make this country better.

Some of them have come in to meet with the president- or vice president-elect because of a particular position; sometimes they're coming in to share an idea or a thought. But we have continued to be wowed by the number of people who have expertise in all areas of government, business, academia, military, other government service that want to come in and be part of the president-elect's vision to make the country better.

And I'm sure that we'll continue to have staff announcements in the next several days in a variety of capacities.

OPERATOR: We'll take our next question from Trey Yingst of One America News. Please go ahead.

QUESTION: Hey, thanks guys.

A quick question. I was just wondering if the president-elect is doing anything behind the scenes to help the Senate confirmations, as the Senate starts to take a look at his Cabinet appointments?

SPICER: Look, I know you've seen the vice-president-elect up on the Hill yesterday, both on the House and Senate side. I mentioned the nominees themselves are up on the Hill. Our legislative affairs team and others have been in constant contact both with Senate offices and staff offices. And the president-elect is in constant contact with members of the House and Senate leadership.

You know, but at this stage of right now, I think the nominees are getting up and answering questions and getting to know some of the senators on the committees of jurisdiction.

OPERATOR: We'll take our next question from Michael Auslen of the Tampa Bay Times. Please go ahead.

QUESTION: Thanks for taking my question.

I wanted to ask if Pam Bondi is still under consideration for some role. And additionally, if she's had any meetings since the one that was noted in December with the president-elect or anyone else in the transition or future administration?

SPICER: Well, Attorney General Bondi is on the transition team. I know, as you mentioned, she's met with him before. We read out every day of who the president-elect's meetings are with. And as I noted in the last question, we have no additional announcements. But the attorney general has been a very trusted confidante and supporter of the president-elect and -- and so I'm sure that he will continue to have conversations.

And, you know, I don't want to get ahead of any decisions or any announcements that may or may not come, but she has been a very important person, both in terms of the campaign and the transition, and is a very valued opinion in the president-elect's world right now.

OPERATOR: And we'll take our next question from Ben Siegel of ABC News. Please, go ahead.

QUESTION: Hey, Sean, thanks for -- thanks for doing the call.

Just a question for you about the president-elect's schedule. Is he gonna be deposed today as part of the hotel restaurant lawsuit at Trump Tower?

SPICER: Let me -- let me take a look at his schedule today and I'll get back to you on that.

OPERATOR: And that does conclude our time for question and answers, I'll turn it back to Sean for any closing remarks.

SPICER: Thanks, guys. I appreciate you jumping on. I'll see you tomorrow when we're officially two weeks out. Have a great day. Thank you.