Job seekers, advisers and would-be allies paraded through Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, over the weekend as President-elect Donald Trump worked on filling his Cabinet. By Sunday, Marine Gen. James Mattis had emerged as a leading contender for secretary of Defense.

Members of the Trump team took to the Sunday talk shows. Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who heads Trump’s transition, and the incoming chief of staff, Reince Priebus, defended Trump’s Cabinet picks so far and elaborated on Trump’s more controversial campaign promises, including the reinstatement of waterboarding and a ban on Muslims entering the country.

Trump, who met Saturday with Mattis, called him “the real deal” and a “brilliant, wonderful man.” In a tweet early Sunday morning, Trump said “General James “Mad Dog” Mattis, who is being considered for Secretary of Defense, was very impressive yesterday. A true General’s General!”

Now a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, Mattis has publicly criticized President Obama’s defense and national security policies.

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, whom Trump met with on Saturday for more than an hour, is under “active and serious consideration” to serve as secretary of state, Pence said.

“I know the president-elect was very grateful that Governor Mitt Romney came here to New Jersey yesterday,” Pence said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “We spent the better part of an hour together with him. And then I know that the two of them actually had some private time together. I would tell you that it was not only a cordial meeting but also it was a very substantive meeting.”

It is still an open question whether Romney, once a fierce critic of the president-elect, would be willing to serve in a Trump administration.

After Trump and Pence attended services at nearby Lamington Presbyterian Church in Bedminster, they began back-to-back meetings with a dozen people, including New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who had been ousted as chairman of Trump’s transition team; former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani; and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, an immigration hard-liner. Trump spokesman Jason Miller said “there definitely is a possibility” that more Cabinet announcements could be made Monday.

In his interview on CBS, Pence did not rule out the possibility that Trump could reinstate waterboarding as an interrogation technique against accused terrorists, a practice that Congress made illegal after its use under President George W. Bush.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., speaking Saturday at the Halifax International Security Forum, insisted that any attempt to bring back waterboarding, which simulates drowning, would be quickly challenged in court.

“I don’t give a damn what the president of the United States wants to do or anybody else wants to do,” McCain said. “We will not torture. My God, what does it say about America if we’re going to inflict torture on people?”

Pence said he has “great respect for Senator McCain” but added that “we’re going to have a president again who will never say what we’ll never do.”

“What I can tell you is that going forward, as he outlined in that famous speech in Ohio, is that a President Donald Trump is going to focus on confronting and defeating radical Islamic terrorism as a threat to this country,” Pence said.

In December, as a candidate, Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims” entering the country.

Asked about the idea of such a ban, Priebus, who appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, said “I’m not going to rule out anything, but we’re not going to have a registry based on a religion.”

Priebus was asked on another Sunday television show about a tweet in February by retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, whom Trump has chosen as his national security adviser. Flynn tweeted “Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL.”

“Is that the official policy of the Trump administration, that fear of Muslims is rational?” asked Jake Tapper, host of the CNN show.

“Well, of course not,” Priebus said. “Look, I think, in some cases, there are radical members of that religion that need to be dealt with, but certainly we make it clear that that’s not a blanket statement for everyone. And that’s how we’re going to lead.”

Priebus also vowed that Trump’s White House counsel will ensure that Trump avoids all conflicts of interest with his business ventures.

Priebus also defended Trump’ s choice of Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., as attorney general. Several minority and civil rights groups, including the NAACP and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, have spoken out against the selection, referring to accusations of racism that kept Sessions from a federal judgeship in 1986.

Priebus said that Sessions should not be judged on accusations of statements he made decades ago and called Sessions an “unbelievably honest and dignified man who started his career working against George Wallace.” In 1966, Sessions campaigned against Lurleen Wallace, who was running for governor to keep in place the policies of her husband, then-Gov. George Wallace, a staunch proponent of segregation.

But Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., the incoming minority leader, said that Sessions “is going to need a very thorough vetting.””

Related Stories