Want to know what Scott Walker thinks about the Obama administration’s preliminary deal with Iran on its nuclear program? Or the composition of Israel’s new government? This week, you’re out of luck.

The Wisconsin governor, the current Republican front-runner in some early voting state polls, is in Israel until Thursday, but he isn’t taking questions. Stung by his own past gaffes and those of other Republican presidential hopefuls abroad, Walker has locked the media out of his Israel trip, moving to burnish his foreign policy credentials without actually talking about foreign policy.


Other trips abroad by presidential contenders have been more open to public scrutiny. When Walker traveled to London for a trade mission in February, he spoke and took questions at a think tank. That same month, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie took press questions in London. But both men sparked controversy with their public statements, and some people in Republican foreign affairs circles say Walker is wise to refrain from holding forth on the complexities of Middle East geopolitics.

“He knows a quite a bit about Iran because it’s in the newspapers. But in the Arab war against Israel, he really does not have a strong knowledge base on the situation,” said Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, who discussed world affairs with Walker last year at a Republican Jewish Coalition summit in Las Vegas.

Klein, who has yet to endorse a candidate in the GOP race for the presidential nomination, added that when he traveled to Israel last year with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, “He had constant press. He welcomed press, because he’s very knowledgeable about the issues.”

A spokeswoman for Walker pointed to several occasions in recent weeks in which Walker gave interviews or took questions from media in the U.S., including on foreign policy issues.

Ahead of the trip, Walker described it as a “listening tour” and told reporters, “It’s an educational trip. It’s not a photo op.” But there Walker was on Monday, greeting people at the Western Wall in a photo posted to his Twitter account. In photos posted to the Twitter feed of Matt Brooks, the executive director of the RJC — which funded the trip in conjunction with Walker’s leadership PAC — Walker looked concerned atop the Golan Heights and met with Israeli politician Natan Sharansky. Brooks, meanwhile, tweeted out his permission to television news producers, asking to use the photos.

On Monday, Walker’s Our American Revival PAC touted the endorsement of former Mitt Romney adviser Robert O’Brien, who will serve as a foreign policy adviser in Walker’s presumptive presidential campaign.

O’Brien rejected the notion that Walker was using this phase of the campaign to bone up on global affairs after drawing flak for foreign policy comments he made this winter as he soared to the top of the GOP field earlier than even his supporters had expected him to.

“I would quibble with the phrase ‘boning up,’” said O’Brien. “Gov. Walker is getting briefed, and he’s continued to monitor events around the world in addition to fulfilling his duties as governor of Wisconsin.”

O’Brien was courted by several presidential contenders — including, reportedly, Senate Foreign Relations Committee member Marco Rubio and Armed Services members Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz — but said that after observing President Barack Obama’s administration, he considers executive experience a more important foreign policy qualification than a background in foreign policy.

Christian Whiton, an official in George W. Bush’s State Department and a former adviser to Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani who’s endorsed Walker, said the Wisconsin governor was right to shut out the media. “It’s important for candidates to go and listen and learn,” he said. “You have Jim Baker, who was advising Jeb Bush speaking before J Street. Walker’s approach is almost the opposite. He’s going to listen.”

Walker’s decision to hold only low-pressure private events offers him the best of all worlds: He can boast of his travel to Israel — a must-stop for GOP presidential prospects — without getting grilled abroad on the complexities of Middle East politics, which could present the likelihood of tripping over unexpected questions from the foreign and domestic press corps.

Yigal Palmor, director of public affairs at the Jewish Agency for Israel, sat in on Walker’s Monday meeting with Sharansky and described it as a “friendly exchange” on Middle East geopolitics, Jewish immigration to Israel and Sharansky’s experience as a political prisoner in the USSR. Palmor said there was “quite an emotional moment” when Sharansky showed the governor a photo of his family at the former KGB headquarters in Moscow, returning as happy tourists years after his imprisonment.

When Walker went to London in February, he drew criticism for punting on a question about his belief in evolution. Also that month, he told the crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference that his experience with pro-union protestors in Wisconsin qualified him to take on ISIL, and he told conservative donors in Florida that Ronald Reagan’s firing of striking air traffic controllers in 1981 was the most consequential American foreign policy decision made in his lifetime.

RJC board member Ari Fleischer, who served as press secretary to President George W. Bush, defended Walker’s decision to go low profile from Israel, where he’s accompanying the governor. “It’s important for presidents and nominees to conduct frequent and open press events while abroad. They represent either the country, or their party, and their foreign travel should have open moments,” Fleischer, who hasn’t yet endorsed any candidate in the primary, wrote in an email. “However, for a possible candidate like Governor Walker, especially this early in the process, it’s more important to focus on policy briefings and backgrounders than the public aspects of a foreign visit. It shows a seriousness of purpose, and I think that’s appropriate.”

Neoconservative commentator and Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol said that Walker’s decision not to be available to the media is sensible, adding that in his own experience traveling abroad with politicians, he’s found they’re able to learn more if they’re not preoccupied with public posturing. “Sometimes it’s appropriate if you’re John McCain to go give a speech,” he said, but “I think it’s very sensible in this case not to pontificate.”

For aspiring presidents who lack experience on the world stage, travel abroad has become a political necessity. The foreign trip is an opportunity to show they can step into a global role and represent the United States abroad. But the chance to project the image of a statesman brings with it added scrutiny.

Christie stumbled twice in dealing with the media on a trip to London in February. First, he set off a brief media firestorm when, in response to a question from a reporter, he suggested that parents should “have some measure of choice” about vaccinating their children. The remark came amid a measles outbreak in the U.S. that was blamed in part on a drop in vaccination rates. The next day, he snapped at a Washington Post reporter who asked him about the Islamic State, saying, “No questions. Is there something you don’t understand about ‘No questions’?”

In July 2012, Republican nominee and 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympics CEO Mitt Romney angered British officials when he criticized their preparations for the London Olympics. The Sun, a Murdoch-owned tabloid in the United Kingdom, captured local sentiment with a headline calling the former Massachusetts governor “Mitt the twit.”

The next contender to brave the gauntlet of foreign travel will be former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. In June, he visits Poland, Estonia, and Germany, where he has at least one public event scheduled. He’ll address an economic conference organized by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling Christian Democratic Union.