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Dear Colleagues,

I arrived in Chicago to visit family just hours before the aborted Trump UIC rally that will once again change the trajectory, tenure, and dialogue of the Presidential contest. Needless to say, the division in our country is of grave concern and I fear will only get worse. While more on that later, I want to share a few private items (and ask you not to forward this):

1. Our Issues Hit the Debate. At Thursday night's GOP debate, Trump was asked about Social Security and among many things, he talked about cutting waste, fraud and abuse and curtailing military assistance to our allies like Saudi Arabia, Germany, and Japan that "need to carry their own weight." Marco Rubio responded saying, among other things, that Trump wasn't being realistic since foreign aid was less than 1% of the budget. As you know, Rubio has been a strong supporter of our issues.


Many reporters, however, incorrectly reported that Trump said we should cut foreign aid. Needless to say, we do not need to perpetuate a "cut aid" narrative, particularly when there isn't one, and especially right now. Trump didn't say foreign aid directly and in fact the only country he mentioned that gets foreign assistance is Saudi Arabia - a very tiny IMET program. Confidentially, according to conversations with his team on Friday, he was talking about "military burden sharing" and said that they "see a value of foreign assistance."

While we really don't know where Trump is on our issue, inaccurate reporting could be harmful to us at this time. It could impact his supporters and, potentially, his long-term position. If he isn't supportive, we will of course thoughtfully call out our concerns, as we have done with Rand Paul. But the issue before us was that a "cut foreign aid" narrative was being repeated in dozens and dozens of articles and it wasn't accurate nor helpful.

With this in mind, we carefully reached out to reporters to point out that they were using the wrong term. Many reporters quickly corrected their articles - from saying Trump called for "reducing foreign aid" to Trump called for "reducing overseas military expenditures and assistance."

We will monitor the situation closely hoping that our issues stay out of the rhetorical battles, other than in a positive manner.

2. Anti-Trade Vote: A Sign of a Rise in Isolationism? On top of the growing divide and violence over the weekend, I am very worried after reviewing last week's exit polls, particularly in Michigan and a few other states where significant voting blocs in both party primaries voiced anti-trade sentiments. While not new, the fervor and the populist tone in the Rust Belt and the South are growing signs of renewed isolationist tendencies, much of which we haven't seen in the past 18-24 months.

In addition to the anti-trade debates between Clinton and Sanders on the Democratic side and Trump and his rivals on the GOP side, we have also seen a battle around the Export-Import Bank in the past few Democratic debates with Sanders receiving raucous applause when he said "...it isn't a great idea for the American taxpayer to have to subsidize through corporate welfare profitable corporations who downsize in the United State of America."

Remember - when the 2016 election began, we were worried about isolationism dominating the electorate, but the unprecedented global crises - from ISIS beheadings to Putin's overreach in Ukraine to Syria and Iran - dramatically shifted the debate, especially on the GOP side. Lindsay Graham helped shape the discussion, Rand Paul faltered, and national security and terrorism topped the voters' concerns. Now the narrative may be heading back in a direction we won't like.

3. ICYMI and a Few Other Items. Trump continues to be peppered with questions about his national security advisors. A couple key press stories:

? Washington Post: Why Can't Donald Trump Close the Deal with any foreign policy advisers<https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/03/09/why-cant-donald-trump-close-the-deal-with-any-foreign-policy-advisers/>

? Open Letter: Over 115 GOP foreign policy experts oppose Trump<http://warontherocks.com/2016/03/open-letter-on-donald-trump-from-gop-national-security-leaders/>

It should be noted that the open letter lacked a large number of luminaries. Apparently, some didn't sign as they thought it would be counter-productive if all the "establishment" opposed him. I wonder what would happen if they circulated that same letter this week?

We are reaching out to Senator Sessions (R-AL) who now leads Mr. Trump's National Security Advisory Group - more on that soon.

Last week, we had a useful conversation with Governor Kasich's foreign policy team and we are gearing up our "plum book" policy advisor outreach. By law, both nominees will be setting up transition teams as soon as they are designated by their parties and that process is actually quietly underway. We are already in touch with some of the players behind the scenes.


Last but not least, we are working on platform activities, convention events, and lots of outreach to Senate and House candidates, not to mention big issues on the current budget negotiations, which aren't easy.

I hope to see most of you at the State Department on Tuesday afternoon for our reception with Secretary Kerry in honor of the Chiefs of Mission. If you haven't RSVP'd, please do so ASAP. More next week.

Best,
Liz