Will Trump's foreign policy team be a reprise of the Bush years?

(Image credit: Getty Images)

published 10 November 2016

The neoconservative foreign policy establishment's distaste for Donald Trump (and perhaps even preference of Hillary Clinton) is well-documented, but now that he's president-elect — well, the siren song of power calls.

As the Trump transition team prepares to assemble the new administration's foreign policy advisers, Politico reports that George W. Bush alums are torn over whether to work for Trump if he asks them:

With the GOP taking the House, the Senate, and the presidency, however, the prospect of power is enticing. That being said, the main reason some say they will work for Trump is because he's a foreign policy novice who will suddenly have access to the nuclear codes and who will be taking over during an especially volatile time on the global front. Even those determined not to work for Trump say they hope he finds good people who will do so for the country's sake. [Politico]

Whether Trump will ask remains to be seen. Infamously vindictive — he says his famous Bible verse is "an eye for an eye" — some suspect he will not let bygones be bygones. "I don't think they’re going to be brought on board, even if they wanted to be," said Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), an early Trump supporter. "I think that Donald Trump remembers who supported him and who didn’t."

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Explore More

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.