Donald Trump named multiple foreign policy advisors for the first time since he began his presidential campaign more than 10 months ago.
In a meeting with the Washington Post’s editorial board, Trump named a team of advisers chaired by Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. The Republican front-runner for president provided five names.
“Walid Phares, who you probably know. Ph.D., adviser to the House of Representatives. He’s a counter-terrorism expert,” Trump told the newspaper. “Carter Page, Ph.D. George Papadopoulos. He’s an oil and energy consultant. Excellent guy. The honorable Joe Schmitz, [was] inspector general at the Department of Defense. Gen. Keith Kellogg. And I have quite a few more, but that’s a group of some of the people that we are dealing with.”
Papadopulos formerly served as a foreign policy adviser to Ben Carson during his presidential campaign. Carson’s bid was marred by his grasp of foreign policy, which caused one adviser to publicly lament the retired neurosurgeon’s inability to learn key issues.
Trump’s other advisers hail from academia, experience working as inspector general at the Department of Defense during George W. Bush’s administration, a former Army lieutenant general and experience as an executive in the energy industry, as the Post reported.
Trump’s decision to unveil his team may have been prompted by pressure from the press and Ted Cruz, Trump’s top GOP rival. The billionaire’s announcement of his five-man team led by Sessions comes a few days after Cruz released 23 names of people working as part of his national security coalition. And Trump has faced scrutiny in the press for spending weeks teasing the release of his foreign policy team.
Trump will deliver a speech in Washington, D.C., on Monday afternoon after deciding to drop out of a scheduled GOP presidential debate in Utah.
