President Trump’s reported pick for State Department representative, Morgan Ortagus, heads a consulting company with a regular critic of the president.
Sam Vinograd, who served in the Obama administration’s National Security Council and is a national security analyst for CNN, has argued that Trump’s call to “reclaim” American heritage is analogous to language employed by Adolf Hitler.
“Preserving your heritage, reclaiming our heritage — that sounds a lot like a certain leader that killed members of my family and about 6 million other Jews in the 1940s,” Vinograd said in an interview with CNN earlier this month.
The comments by Vinograd — who did not immediately respond to a request for comment — came after Trump told attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference in March that those in the audience were “on the front lines of protecting America’s interests, defending America’s values, and reclaiming our nation’s priceless heritage.”
In the same interview, she claimed Trump “sounds a lot like despotic leaders that have talked about white heritage and white nationalism around the world and is putting resources in the wrong place, and pretending that there are foreign people trying to influence our country in a way that just isn’t accurate.”
Vinograd, who is also a senior adviser at the University of Delaware’s Biden Institute, has also argued that Trump has spread misinformation and conspiracy theories and has said “things that really looked like Vladimir Putin scripted his speech.”
Meanwhile Ortagus, a former Fox News contributor and active U.S. Naval Reserve Officer, has been selected by Trump to serve as the next State Department spokeswoman, according to media reports. Ortagus did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
She and Vinograd are listed as co-founders and managing directors of the firm Global Opportunity Advisors. The firms offers policy and regulatory guidance, brand identity, and other services to clients.
Ortagus would succeed former Fox News anchor Heather Nauert, who was tapped as Trump’s nominee for United Nations ambassador. However, Nauert eventually withdrew her name from consideration and is no longer in the running for the position. Ortagus would not need Senate confirmation for the position.
The Trump White House did not immediately respond to request for comment.
