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Trump steps up security aide search, focuses on health care

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AP West Palm Beach
President Donald Trump brought more contenders for national security adviser to his Palm Beach club for in-person interviews, hoping to fill the job in the coming days as he seeks to refocus his young administration.

Trump also drilled down on policy during his working weekend at Mar-a-Lago, attending a strategy session on how to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, with top aides including Health Secretary Tom Price and Mick Mulvaney, director of the White House budget office.

While in Florida, the president found time for a few holes of golf on Saturday and yesterday. And with his wife, Melania, he stopped by a fundraiser Saturday night at his private Palm Beach club, put on by the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
 

Trump also took to Twitter to explain a comment he made about violence in Sweden at a Saturday rally. He suggested that some kind of major incident had taken place in the country Friday night, but on Sunday he said he was referring to something he saw on Fox News.

That might have been a report Friday night about the influx of immigrants to Sweden. Trump also spoke to the leaders of Panama, Trinidad and Tobago.

After weeks of tumult in Washington, Trump returned to Florida and his private club for a third straight weekend. High on Trump's to-do list is finding a replacement for ousted Michael Flynn as national security adviser.

Scheduled to discuss the job with the president at Mar-a-Lago were his acting adviser, retired Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg; John Bolton, a former US ambassador to the United Nations; Army Lt. Gen. H R McMaster and the superintendent of the US Military Academy at West Point, Lt. Gen. Robert Caslen.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump may interview more candidates and hopes to make the decision soon.

Trump pushed out Flynn last Monday after revelations that Flynn misled Vice President Mike Pence about discussing sanctions with Russia's ambassador to the US during the presidential transition.

Trump said in a news conference Thursday that he was disappointed by how Flynn had treated Pence, but did not believe Flynn had done anything wrong by having the conversations.

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First Published: Feb 20 2017 | 10:42 AM IST

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