National security analyst KT McFarland will join President-elect Donald Trump’s administration as the deputy national security adviser, the transition announced Friday.
“I am proud that KT has once again decided to serve our country and join my national security team,” the President-elect said in a statement. “She has tremendous experience and innate talent that will complement the fantastic team we are assembling, which is crucial because nothing is more important than keeping our people safe.”
Trump’s choice for national security adviser, Michael Flynn, first announced the decision Friday on Twitter.
“So proud & honored to have KT McFarland as part of our National Security team. She will help us #MAGA,” Flynn tweeted from his verified account, using a hashtag that is an acronym for Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America great again.”
Trump’s transition team announced a week ago that Flynn was its choice to be national security adviser.
McFarland, a frequent critic of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy, praised Trump’s outlook.
“Nobody has called foreign policy right more than President-elect Trump, and he gets no credit for it. I’m honored and humbled that he has asked me to be part of his team,” she said in the statement.
McFarland, who ran for a US Senate seat in New York in the 2006 Republican primary, is currently a Fox News national security analyst and was an aide in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.
McFarland often pointed to Trump as the best candidate to improve America’s relationships with its allies.
“Nobody thinks American foreign policy in the last fifteen years has been a success. Our adversaries, and even some of our allies, think we’re a spent power, mired in decadence, self-indulgence and smug self-satisfaction,” she wrote on FoxNews.com.
“Right now, things look grim for American leadership and the American dream. But we’ve been in scrapes like this before and recovered,” McFarland added.