Trump’s focus Sunday: Cabinet posts, tariffs

The president-elect expands the pool of candidates for secretary of state, while vowing to punish firms that move jobs overseas.

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump is broadening the field of candidates for secretary of state as his transition team remains divided nearly a month after the election over how to fill the most prominent gap in his prospective Cabinet.

Kellyanne Conway, a top adviser to Trump, told reporters Sunday that the search had expanded beyond the four men thought to be under consideration and that Trump planned to interview additional candidates early this week.

Those new candidates appeared to include John R. Bolton, an ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush; Jon Huntsman Jr., former Utah governor and ambassador to China under President Barack Obama; Rex W. Tillerson, president and chief executive of Exxon Mobil; and Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-W.Va.

Asked about the search on the ABC program “This Week,” Vice President-elect Mike Pence mentioned Bolton as a potential candidate and said others could be added to the list. Bolton met with Trump for about an hour Friday and Tillerson is set to meet with Trump on Tuesday.

Despite their differences over the Iraq War, which Bolton supported, Trump said during the campaign that he turned to Bolton for military advice.

The transition team had previously signaled that the group under consideration had narrowed to four men: Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee; Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York and a close ally of Trump; Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee; and David H. Petraeus, retired general and director of the CIA under Obama.

An announcement of a selection is not expected for at least several more days.

Petraeus appeared on “This Week” to highlight his foreign policy experience in the military and his work abroad in the private sector. He also sought to put behind him a potentially significant hurdle to his candidacy: his mishandling of classified material while he was a top general. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge in 2015 and was forced to resign as CIA director.