The Trump White House celebrated the president’s successful foreign trip so far, as a senior administration official visited the press cabin of Air Force One to trumpet their success.
“I think this trip was a big success because it was unexpected … I always say that the president is always at his best when he’s doing big things that are unexpected,” the official said about Trump’s foreign trip, which is still ongoing. The president meets with Pope Francis tomorrow at the Vatican before attending a NATO summit in Brussels and a meeting with G7 leaders in Sicily.
The official praised all of the White House advance work in Saudi Arabia and Israel, helping the president pulloff an ambitious schedule that had him meeting with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Palestine.
“Donald Trump united the entire Muslim world in a way that it really hasn’t been in many years,” the official said, praising Trump for helping “create a new and strong relationship between America and the Muslim World.”
The official highlighted the administration’s goal of visiting three different faiths — Muslims, Jews, and Christians — to highlight shared values and their fight against terrorism.
“By putting everybody together you can really build a coalition and show that it’s not a Muslim problem, it’s not a Jewish problem, it’s not a Catholic problem, it’s not a Christian problem, it really is a world problem,” the official said.
According to White House reporters on Air Force One, the meeting was off-the-record, but the press office agreed to release it on background to the White House press pool.
The official said that the White House was not distracted by the ongoing Russia controversy, asserting that they were “very focused like laser beams” on the agenda.