David Petraeus, Mitt Romney and Senator Bob Corker are all due to meet with president-elect, but Trump’s transition team is split over nominations

Donald Trump is due to meet the former US military commander David Petraeus, followed by Mitt Romney and Senator Bob Corker, in a sign the contest for secretary of state in the incoming administration is still wide open.



The announcement has come amid a struggle inside the Trump transition team over nominations to the post. It follows an extraordinary intervention in the internal debate over top jobs by Trump’s campaign manager and advisor, Kellyanne Conway. Conway warned of a “backlash” from Trump voters if Romney was chosen as secretary of state, because of his vocal opposition to Trump during the primary campaign.

“I’m all for party unity but I’m not sure we have to pay for that with the secretary of state position,” she said in a television interview on Saturday.

MSNBC reported on Monday that Trump was ‘furious’ at Conway’s public intervention. He is also said to be irritated by open campaigning for the job by former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, one of the favourites of the hardline faction in Trump Tower.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest David Petraeus was a military commander in Iraq and Afghanistan. Photograph: Cliff Owen/AP

The deadlock between factions supporting Romney and Giuliani has created space for other candidates for the country’s top diplomatic post. Petraeus has been on the shortlist for at least two weeks, though Monday’s meeting with Trump is expected to be the first time the two men will have met since the election.

Petraeus, a former military commander in Iraq and Afghanistan, had to resign as CIA director in 2012 after the FBI found he had shared classified information with his lover in the course of an extramarital affair, and he later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour charge. During the campaign, Trump relentlessly attacked Hillary Clinton for having classified data on a private email server.

Diplomats who have seen Petraeus since the election said he was eager for public redemption and a return to public life at the top level. Since the election, he has spoken supportively about Trump’s prospects as president, and told the BBC he would serve in a Trump administration if asked.

Corker, the chair of the Senate foreign relations committee, who Trump will meet on Tuesday, is on the secretary of state shortlist as a civilian option in an administration that could be heavy on retired military officers.

The former Defense Intelligence Agency director Lt Gen Michael Flynn has been appointed national security adviser and the former marine general James Matthis is currently favourite to take the post of secretary of defence. Adm Michael Rogers, head of the National Security Agency and US Cyber Command, is reported to be under consideration as a possible new director of national intelligence.

The New York Times cited a person briefed on the negotiations as saying that Romney, who had derided Trump as a “phoney, a fraud” during the campaign – had not asked to be considered but had been approached by the vice-president-elect, Mike Pence. Romney, who Trump is also scheduled to meet on Tuesday, reportedly told Pence he would accept the post if offered it.