WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the U.S. presidential transition (all times EST):
9:30 a.m.
President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team has launched a new website and Twitter account as the Republican prepares to take office.
Visitors to greatagain.gov can find information on Trump’s polices as well as biographical information about the Republican. The website also includes a notice that it’s looking to fill 4,000 slots for presidential appointees, but doesn’t have instructions on how to apply for positions.
The transition team’s Twitter account, @transition2017, posted its first tweet Wednesday night. It reads: “Working together, we will begin the urgent task of rebuilding our nation and renewing the American dream.”
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is leading Trump’s transition team.
___
8:55 a.m.
When President-elect Donald Trump and his family move into The White House in January, 10-year-old Barron Trump will be the youngest presidential son to reside in the executive mansion since John F. Kennedy, Jr.
The White House has been home to only presidential daughters since JFK, Jr., whose father was assassinated just before his 3rd birthday in 1963.
Kennedy’s son broke a long drought of boys living in The White House. He was the first since Quentin and Archie Roosevelt lived there beginning in 1901.
___
8:45 a.m.
The White House says Vice President Joe Biden will be meeting with Vice President-elect Mike Pence.
The meeting will take place Thursday afternoon at the White House. Journalists and photographers won’t be granted access to the meeting.
The vice presidential meeting comes the same day that President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump will meet at the White House. Their wives also plan to meet.
___
8:40 a.m.
The White House says President-elect Donald Trump’s team will start working directly with federal agencies this week on the transition.
Trump’s team will start getting briefings related to the Defense Department, State Department, Treasury Department and other agencies. The briefings will include budget details, flow charts for staff and other information.
Officials at those agencies will start speaking regularly to Trump team members to facilitate the handover of power in January. And Trump’s team will start creating policy teams that will work out of government-provided offices near the White House.
The White House also says the Obama administration will host two “exercises” involving multiple agencies to help familiarize Trump’s team with government practices and systems for responding to domestic emergencies.
___
8:25 a.m.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says he has not talked with President-elect Donald Trump about a role in the Trump administration.
Speaking on NBC’s “Today” show Thursday, the Republican said he does not believe the George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal will cloud his future.
Christie says he’s not committed to doing anything in a new administration. He says his job is to get Trump through the transition and he’ll talk with the president-elect if there’s any job that Trump wants him to do.
Christie refused to say if he was interested in a specific job.
___
8:05 a.m.
President-elect Donald Trump will meet with House Speaker Paul Ryan to talk about the Republicans’ legislative agenda.
The meeting Thursday with be the first face-to-face between the men since Trump’s surprising win. Trump and Ryan have had a tense relationship. Ryan did not campaign with Trump and has been critical of some of his policy proposals.
Trump has blasted Ryan as disloyal, “weak” and “ineffective.”
A source familiar with the plans tells The Associated Press that Vice President-elect Mike Pence will also attend the lunchtime meeting. It will follow Trump’s White House meeting with President Barack Obama.
The source asked for anonymity to discuss details before an official announcement.
—By Kathleen Hennessey in Washington
___
7:55 a.m.
A top adviser to Donald Trump is dismissing post-election protesters as “a bunch of crybabies.”
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was asked Thursday about protests in several cities following Trump’s victory Tuesday.
There have been protests in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington and elsewhere. Some demonstrators carried placards declaring “Not My President.”
Giuliani said on Fox News Channel’s “Fox and Friends” that most of the protesters are college-age students and seem to be “1 percent of 1 percent of 1 percent.”
Giuliani said he would advise the president-elect to tell them to calm down and after a year, “you’ll be living in a better country. If not, go cry then.”
Giuliani is widely expected to get a major position in the Trump administration.
__
7:45 a.m.
Don’t expect Donald Trump to apologize for his “birther” campaign when he meets with President Barack Obama at the White House.
That’s according to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has been overseeing the transition for Trump. The president-elect and Obama are meeting later Thursday. Christie was asked on NBC’s “Today,” whether Trump would apologize for his repeated comments casting doubts on whether Obama was born in the United States.
Christie said “I think that’s all past us.” He noted that Obama has made barbed remarks about Trump. He said: “That’s politics though.”
Asked if Trump’s birther comments were “just politics,” Christie said “everything is in the context of politics” — though that doesn’t mean Trump didn’t believe what he was saying.
Obama was born in Hawaii.
___
3:30 a.m.
President Barack Obama is set to welcome his successor, Donald Trump, to the White House, extending an olive branch to a man he blasted as unfit to serve as commander in chief and who led the charge to challenge the legitimacy of his own presidency.
The Oval Office meeting on Thursday symbolically begins the transition of power. Obama is a Democrat who ushered in a sweeping health care law and brokered a landmark nuclear accord with Iran. Trump is a Republican who has vowed to wipe those measures away after he takes office on Jan. 20.
First lady Michelle Obama also plans to meet privately in the White House residence with Trump’s wife, Melania Trump.
