Mike Pence Meets with Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice

Twitter/@mike_pence
Twitter/@mike_pence
Adelle Nazarian

Vice President-elect Mike Pence met with former Secretary of State Condoleezza “Condi” Rice in the Washington, D.C., transition office on Wednesday to discuss bringing her on board the new administration.

According to a producer with NBC, when asked how the meeting went, Rice said, “Terrific. Thank you.” The same producer, Vaughn Hillyard, noted that when he asked Rice about the secretary of state post, she smiled at him:

Rice went to work as a professor at Stanford University, where she currently teaches, after President George W. Bush left the White House in 2009. She has been considered for vice president but expressed that she was not interested.

She is deemed a moderate on many issues, including immigration, and has maintained relatively hawkish views on foreign policy.

Her 2012 speech at the Republican National Convention received several standing ovations. She took on President Barack Obama’s foreign policy and asserted that America’s role in the world did not permit the United States the liberty of “leading from behind,” a hallmark of Obama’s presidency. She also reaffirmed “American exceptionalism.”

While achieving her undergraduate degree from the University of Denver, Rice studied under Josef Korbel, Madeleine Albright’s father. In 2000, she became the first woman to serve as a national security adviser to a president, during George W. Bush’s administration. In 2005, she became the first black woman to serve as secretary of state, becoming the 66th person in U.S. history to hold that post.

Pence is scheduled to meet on Wednesday with Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Reince Priebus, Trump’s newly minted chief of staff.

Follow Adelle Nazarian on Twitter and Periscope @AdelleNaz.

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