Texas Sen. Ted Cruz on Thursday unveiled his national security advisory team, which includes a list of headliners such as Elliott Abrams and former Sen. Jim Talent.
Abrams was an assistant secretary of state in the Reagan administration and a deputy national security adviser during George W. Bush’s administration who directed much of the president’s policy toward the Middle East.
Talent formerly advised Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio on their failed presidential campaigns, and said as recently as last week that Rubio was “head and shoulders” above the rest of the Republican field on foreign policy.
“These are trusted friends who will form a core of our broader national security team,” Cruz said in a statement. “After two terms of a failed Obama-Clinton foreign policy, our allies are confused and frightened, and our enemies are looking for opportunities. This is the moment for all those who believe in a strong America that is secure at home and respected abroad to come together and craft a new path forward.”
Cruz’s team also includes Frank Gaffney, who served as an assistant secretary of Defense in the Reagan administration. Gaffney has more recently courted controversy for suggesting “there is evidence Mr. Obama was born in Kenya.”
But Cruz is no stranger to unorthodox national security advisers, having selected Victoria Coates, an art historian, who has served as the senator’s lead foreign policy adviser.
“Senator Cruz has staked out new ground in terms of a conservative foreign policy during his years in the Senate,” Coates said in a statement. “He’s rejected the failed policies of the past and gotten back to a truly principled, Reagan-esque approach to America’s position in the world.”
Cruz’s national security coalition includes 23 names aside from Coates, and stands in stark contrast to his top rival Donald Trump. The former reality television star has teased releasing names of his national security team for weeks, but has not done so. A top adviser to Trump’s campaign has routinely provided just one name for Trump’s foreign policy team: Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions.
Trump told MSNBC on Wednesday that he would serve as his own best foreign policy adviser.
“I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things,” Trump told MSNBC. “My primary consultant is myself.”
Trump and Cruz present vastly different approaches to foreign policy for the Republican Party. Both men, for instance, have argued that the Iraq war was a mistake. But the specific details of and differences between their foreign policy ideas is not yet known.
