IS THERE ROOM UP THERE ON THAT UNICORN?:

Earnest said he was intentionally vague in responding to questions about the number of such calls and topics of conversation, which he refused to describe, to give the president and president-elect the ability to confer in private. He also said he didn't see the White House announcing future calls between the two men.

Trump's advisers, focused on efforts to select a cabinet, assemble a White House staff and craft a 100-day agenda with Congress for early 2017, are suddenly touting the president-elect's pleasure in conferring with the same man he denigrated for years as a potentially illegitimate and "failed" American president.

What do the phone calls signal? The private view inside the White House is that Trump needs all the help he can get while rocketing from private businessman to leader of the free world. In interviews and exchanges with reporters, Obama has diplomatically suggested that Trump's learning curve is steep, but he has commended him as practical and not ideological. 

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