Donald Trump won’t be rushed on Cabinet picks, spokesman says

President-elect Donald Trump is looking at candidates from “outside the box” to fill his Cabinet and won’t be rushed in making selections, a member of the transition team said Wednesday.

Pushing back against criticism about slow progress in naming appointments, transition team spokesman Jason Miller said that Mr. Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who is leading the team, are taking “a very structured methodical approach to this.”

“We’re not going to rush,” he told reporters at Trump Tower in New York, where Mr. Trump lives and the transition team has offices. “We’re going to make sure that they are people that we are confident will pass confirmation and they are going to be people that we think can implement the president-elect’s vision.”

He noted that President Obama’s Cabinet wasn’t completely filled by the end of the first week following his election in 2008.

“The president-elect will be putting forward some very fine people. It’ll be some folks who’ll be outside the box,” Mr. Miller said. “There will be some people who have been very successful in fields of business, in fields of education.”

Mr. Miller would not confirm reports that Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, a former primary rival of Mr. Trump, was under consideration for U.S. attorney general.

“Obviously I am a big fan of Senator Cruz’s and whether there is something within the administration or whether it’s as an ally on Capitol Hill, I think Senator Cruz is happy that we’re going to have a president who’s going to push for conservative reforms, who’s going to make sure that we’re appointing the right kind of Supreme Court choices,” he said.

“I think Senator Cruz will be a strong ally for President-elect Trump,” Mr. Miller said.

He also pushed back at reports that recently named White House political strategist Stephen K. Bannon is a white supremacist and anti-Semite.

“That’s just folks that are bitter the election’s over. They didn’t get the result that they wanted,” he said. “Steve Bannon is someone who’s done a fantastic job implementing the president-elect’s vision on the campaign trail. He’s someone I’ve had the opportunity to work with over the past three or four months, someone I’ve seen very high character from.”

He called Mr. Bannon a “fantastic example of really being inclusive. Someone who’s embraced diversity at every step.”

Mr. Bannon, who ran Breitbart News before becoming Mr. Trump’s campaign manager, has been criticized for the news website giving voice to the Alt Right movement, which includes racist elements.