California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher has emerged as a contender to serve as President-elect Donald Trump’s secretary of state, according to multiple reports.
Rohrabacher tweeted last week, “I have been told that I am under consideration to join President Trump’s team as Secretary of State.” He added, “it would be a privilege and an honor to serve as his Secretary of State.”
The Daily Mail reported on Tuesday that Rohrabacher “has emerged as a dark-horse candidate for secretary of state, and The Washington Examiner on Saturday said Rohrabacher is now a front-runner for the position.
The Washington Examiner reported that Mitt Romney’s prospects for the position have faded recently and that Rohrabacher at secretary of state and former ambassador to the UN John Bolton serving as deputy secretary of state is an “emerging ‘consensus package.'”
The California Republican’s foreign policy outlook is very much in line with Trump’s anti-interventionist views. On the other hand, Bolton said last year: “The people who say, oh things would have been much better if you didn’t overthrow Saddam miss the point that today’s Middle East does not flow totally and unchangeably from the decision to overthrow Saddam alone.”
In a recent interview, Rohrabacher said radical Islam should be prioritized as a threat. “We have to prioritize, and a non-communist Russia has the same incentive for us to work together because it threatens Russia, and they’re killing Russians. Radical Islamists are killing Russians like they’re killing western Europeans and Americans. For me to suggest that we work with Russia to defeat this threat, I think it is rational,” he added.
He is a former speech writer for Ronald Reagan and is the chairman of the House subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia and emerging threats. The Daily Caller has reported that Mitt Romney is likely Trump’s pick to head the state department.