WASHINGTON – President-elect Donald Trump is broadening the field of candidates for secretary of state as his transition team remains divided nearly a month after the election over how to fill the most prominent gap in his prospective Cabinet.
Top adviser Kellyanne Conway told reporters Sunday that the search had expanded beyond the four men thought to be under consideration and that Trump planned to interview additional candidates early this week.
Those new candidates appeared to include John R. Bolton, an ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush; Jon Huntsman Jr., former Utah governor and ambassador to China under President Obama; Rex W. Tillerson, president and chief executive of Exxon Mobil; and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.
Asked about the search on ABC, Vice President-elect Mike Pence mentioned Bolton as a potential candidate and said others could be added to the list. Bolton met with Trump for about an hour on Friday and Tillerson is set to meet with him on Tuesday, according to two people briefed on the meetings.
Despite their differences over the Iraq war, which Bolton ardently supported, Trump said during the campaign that he turned to Bolton for military advice and called him "a tough cookie."
The transition team had previously signaled that the group under consideration had narrowed to four men: Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee; Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York and a close ally of Trump; Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee; and David Petraeus, retired general and director of the CIA under Obama.
An announcement of a selection for the post is not expected for at least several more days.
In an audition of sorts, Petraeus appeared on ABC to highlight his foreign policy experience in the military and his work abroad in the private sector. He also sought to put behind him a potentially significant hurdle to his candidacy: his mishandling of classified material while he was a top general. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge in 2015 and was forced to resign as CIA director.