Former State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus is believed to be attempting to wriggle her way back into President-elect Donald J. Trump’s next administration in January. While Ortagus held a communications role at the top U.S. diplomatic agency from 2019 until 2021 under Trump, colleagues at State and other departments viewed her as less than aligned with Trump’s America First foreign policy.
FAILED CONGRESSIONAL BID.
Following the 2020 election, Ortagus’s true colors were revealed, especially after she was blocked in 2022 from running for Congress in Tennessee after the state legislature passed a law requiring candidates to live in the district they wish to represent. She was largely backed by the Republican Party establishment, with fundraisers hosted by a who’s who of anti-Trump donors.
Having failed to even make the ballot in the Tennessee congressional race, Ortagus—who previously served within the entrenched, neoconservative foreign policy establishment at USAID and the Treasury Department under both President George W. Bush and Barack Obama—ramped up her appearances on corporate media, especially Fox News, where she routinely attacked Trump.
ANTI-AMERICA FIRST.
In May of 2023, just as the Republican presidential primary was kicking off in earnest, Ortagus slammed Trump’s major foreign policy speech. During an appearance on Fox Business, she told host Charles Payne that she hadn’t “drank the juice yet.” Orgatus smeared the now President-elect, stating: “Where I fundamentally disagree with [Trump’s] foreign policy, where I think it is very Rand Paul-esque, is the seeds of isolationism. In his gut, he does not think that America should be a ‘policeman of the world.'”
Despite Orgatus’s insistence that Trump’s America First foreign policy views are ‘isolationist,’ the American people have resoundingly agreed with Trump—sending him back to the White House with a landslide 2024 election victory.
BACKED POMPEO, PENCE, & HALEY.
Even more concerning is Ortagus’s decision to back several of Trump’s opponents during the 2024 Republican presidential primary. The former State Department spokeswoman was an early backer of her former boss and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as he considered a presidential run. Notably, Pompeo legitimized the Biden Department of Justice’s (DOJ) lawfare campaign against Trump when the President-elect was indicted by special counsel Jack Smith for allegedly mishandling classified documents.
However, after Pompeo abandoned his nascent presidential bid, Ortagus would go on to back the likes of neoconservatives Mike Pence and Nikki Haley against President Trump.
ORIGINAL NEVER TRUMPER.
While Orgatus’s most recent anti-Trump statements and actions are concerning to many inside the Trump transition, her comments in 2016 are as equally troubling. Ortagus falsely claimed that Trump made fun of disabled people and likened his temperament to a “middle school pubescent boy.” She also described the future President as “disgusting.”
Concerns are also being raised regarding Ortagus’s relationship with Samantha Vinograd, an aggressive anti-Trump activist and political operative. Vinograd has routinely compared Trump to Hitler, accused him of espousing “white nationalist” talking points, and perpetuated the Democrat-pushed Russa collusion hoax.
DEEP STATE FLUNKEY.
Even during her short tenure in the first Trump administration, Ortagus was viewed as being too aligned with Deep State actors, especially employees at the State Department. In one incident, Ortagus and others in then-Secretary of State Pompeo’s inner circle allowed anti-Trump employees to express their opposition to the President of the United States on their personal social media accounts—something that in any other administration would be considered taboo at the least.
Another point of contention is Ortagus’s consulting firm, Polaris National Security, which is widely believed to be backed by anti-Trump, Deep State billionaire Paul Singer. In 2016, it was Singer who is suspected—at least in part—of funding the debunked Steele Dossier, which helped kick off the Democratic Party’s Russia collusion hoax attacks against Trump.
In the final days of the first Trump administration, Ortagus’s mercenary, pro-Deep State attitude may have gotten the best of her. The former State Department spokeswoman pledged to support the Biden government in an email to staff that was viewed by many as an attempt to retain her job after the 2020 election.
