Former GOP Rep. Virgil Goode, the first former member of Congress to endorse GOP President-elect Donald Trump, is backing GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher for the position of secretary of state.
“I think Dana would be a great choice for secretary of state, considering his many years of House Foreign Affairs Committee,” Goode told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “And I remember him when I was in Congress, and I thought he did a good job. He was good on immigration … but I think his foreign affairs experience would make him a great secretary of state.”
Virgil served as a Republican member of Congress representing Virginia’s 5th Congressional District from 1997 to 2009. He also managed to beat out all current members of Congress by months in terms of throwing support behind Trump, making the announcement Nov. 2, 2015 in an article he wrote for Breitbart.
Trump’s first endorsement from a sitting congressman came from Republican Rep. Chris Collins in late February, 2016, after Collins told CNN, “We need a chief executive, not a chief politician.”
According to Virgil, the reason Rohrabacher is a good choice for secretary of state is because he understands the necessity of immediately halting the refugee crisis in the Middle East, which is behind the flood of refugees now pouring into Europe and the United States.
“You don’t help the situation by flooding Europe and flooding the United States with refugees,” Goode told TheDCNF. “You’re creating more problems, not less problems.”
At least in the United States, one recent example Goode raised was the incident at Ohio State University, in which Abdul Ali Artan, a refugee from Somalia, ran people over with his car and then proceeded to engage in a stabbing spree before he was shot dead.
Of course, not everyone thinks Rohrabacher would make a stellar candidate for the position.
Rohrabacher faces criticism for his friendly relationship with Russia, and his apparent willingness to ignore human rights abuses from the Kremlin, but such concerns didn’t cause Virgil to waiver in his endorsement. Rather, Virgil sees Rohrabacher’s relationship with Russia as somewhat of a plus.
“I don’t think it’s a negative,” Virgil said. “Anyone who is secretary of state has to relate to all the nations of the world. In some areas like dealing with terrorists, Russia and the United States have the same problem. So sharing information in that area might be helpful.”
Former United Nations ambassador John Bolton and he would make a dynamic duo if tapped for positions in the Department of State, Rohrabacher told Breitbart News Daily Thursday.
“I would think it would be very easy for us to work together,” Rohrabacher said. “I would hope that we could be the dynamic duo that takes on these very serious and heavy problems and challenges we face not only around the world, but in cleaning up our own State Department, and John would be ideal for that.”
Both Rohrabacher and Bolton are being considered for top roles in the State Department, recent reports say.
If asked, Rohrabacher said he plans to leave Congress and join the Trump administration as secretary of state.
Goode also added that even though retired Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly has been tapped for the position of head of the Department of Homeland Security, he’d like to see Kris Kobach, the secretary of state for Kansas, given the role of deputy secretary for DHS.
“He is highly knowledgeable in the immigration laws which are a maze, and he understands them, and he fought battles in court,” Goode said. “Opponents to the need to control immigration would hate to see Kobach in a key position.”
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