NEW YORK (CNNMoney) – President-elect Donald Trump says he will transfer his business holdings to a trust run by his sons, but he won’t sell his stake — stopping far short of what ethics lawyers say would eliminate conflicts of interest.
In a press conference at Trump Tower, Sheri Dillon, a lawyer for Trump, said that his business and financial assets will be placed into the trust before he is inaugurated Jan. 20. But she said Trump will still receive reports on the overall profit of the Trump Organization, his worldwide empire.
Trump will resign his leadership of the company and transfer control to his two adult sons, Don Jr. and Eric, and an in-house executive, she said. Dillon said that Trump will not discuss the business with them.
Outside ethics lawyers have repeatedly urged Trump to liquidate his holdings and hand the proceeds over to an independent trustee who controls them without his knowledge, a structure known as a blind trust.
Maintaining an ownership stake in his properties, they say, leaves the possibility that Trump’s personal profit motive could influence his decisions as president.
“This is not a blind trust,” said Larry Noble, general counsel of the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan, nonprofit government watchdog group.
Even if the sons are in control, “everybody is still aware that those decisions that help the business help his bottom line,” he said. “Turning the running of the business over to the children doesn’t help.”
Dillon told reporters that establishing a blind trust would be too complicated, and that no independent trustee is capable of running the Trump Organization.
“President-elect Trump should not be expected to destroy the company he built,” she said. “This plan offers a suitable alternative to address the concerns of the American people.”
Dillon said the Trump Organization will not enter new deals in foreign countries while Trump is president. Any domestic deals that could raise conflict concerns will need the written approval of a newly appointed ethics officer, she said.
Dillon also said Trump will donate to the U.S. Treasury any profits from foreign government payments to his hotels.
But she dismissed concerns that Trump, by accepting hotel business from foreign governments, will be violating the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause, as outside ethics have said.
Donald Trump said Wednesday that Republicans will introduce proposals to repeal and replace Obamacare as soon as his nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, Tom Price, is approved.
In a news conference in New York City, the President-elect stressed that legislation to repeal President Barack Obama’s signature health care law — along with legislation to replace it — will be considered “essentially simultaneously.”
“We’re going to be submitting — as soon as our secretary’s approved, almost simultaneously, shortly thereafter, a plan. It’ll be repeal and replace. It will be essentially simultaneously,” Trump said. “Probably the same day, could be the same hour.”
Price, a Georgia congressman, has been one of the most ardent Obamacare critics and introduced legislation to repeal the law. His confirmation hearings will begin next week.
At the news conference, Trump also expounded on the political liability that comes with trying to overhaul the Affordable Care Act, saying that for the time being, the healthcare law is Democrats’ problem to “own.”
“We don’t want to own it. We don’t want to own it politically. They own it right now,” Trump said. “The easiest thing would be to let it implode in ’17.”
Trump told the New York Times this week that he wants Republicans to vote immediately to both repeal and replace Obamacare — even as quickly as next week.
But Republicans are not close to having a replacement plan ready, and don’t expect to vote on a budget reconciliation bill that would repeal major portions of Obamacare until late February or March. At that point, Republicans plan to begin considering a series of possible legislative paths to replace what they voted to repeal.
It’s also not clear that there will ultimately be one comprehensive “replacement” bill — in fact, GOP leaders are currently weighing various legislative paths to incrementally replace what they roll back.
President-elect Donald Trump insisted at a news conference Wednesday that Americans “don’t care at all” about his unreleased tax returns.
“I’m not releasing the tax returns because, as you know, they’re under audit,” he said at the event, his first since becoming President-elect.
Drug stocks tanked after President-elect Donald Trump, in his first press conference since the election, complained about big price increases and put the industry on notice.
Trump said that many companies were “getting away with murder” and that there would be more competitive bidding practices for federal contracts in his administration.
Dow component Pfizer stock fell more than 2% immediately after the comments. Mylan, which has already come under Congressional scrutiny for dramatic prices hikes of its life-saving allergy medication EpiPen, fell 3.5%, and Bristol-Myers Squibb dived 4%.
Allergan and Valeant, two other biotechs that have been criticized for raising drug prices, also fell more than 3%. And the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF, which owns many of these companies fell 3% too.
Trump’s tough talk about drug prices can’t be reassuring to investors, many of whom had believed that Hillary Clinton was likely to be tougher on the health care industry than Trump.
During the past year, the drug industry has come under fire for excessive price increases, especially since the now notorious “bad boy of pharma” Martin Shkreli raised the price of the live-saving drug Daraprim more than 5,000% after his company bought it.
Trump said during his press conference that the US government will build the wall and then be reimbursed by Mexico.
“I don’t feel like waiting a year or a year and a half to start building. Mexico in some form, in their many different forms, will reimburse us,” Trump said during the press conference. “They will reimburse us for the cost of the wall. That will happen. Whether it’s a tax or if it’s a payment. Probably less likely that it’s a payment. But it will happen.”
He continued, “I want to get the wall started.”
