‘He’s More of a Globalist Now’: CNN’s Jeff Zeleny Says Trump ‘Does Not Sound Like’ He Did While Campaigning

CNN chief national affairs correspondent Jeff Zeleny claimed President Donald Trump is “more of a globalist now” on Thursday, arguing his recent remarks on foreign policy did “not sound like the President Trump who was running for re-election on an America First agenda.”

After CNN host Kaitlan Collins said Trump’s trip to the Gulf Arab states “underscores how the president has reimagined what America First means,” and added that Trump’s “view of the Middle East seems to have changed so much since he was last in office,” Zeleny weighed in:

No doubt. I was really struck by that. I have been all week long, but today, watching him deliver that speech before several thousand U.S. troops at the Al Udeid military base was striking. It’s always, you know, so inspiring to see these young troops watching a commander-in-chief on either party, and it was again today as well, but struck by what the president was saying.

He’s more of a globalist now. When you stitch everything together, what he is doing is trying to build this Gulf alliance here to help the U.S. in a very transactional way, there’s no doubt about it, but also other places he’s intervening in. It does not sound like the President Trump who was running for re-election on an America First agenda.

Zeleny concluded, “He’s not intervening in a George W. Bush way, he’s not, but he has much more of a globalist perspective, for now at least. We’ll see if that changes when he returns to Washington.”

This week, during a visit to Saudi Arabia, Trump pushed for the country to join the Abraham Accords and recognize Israel.

Trump also made his first public visit to a mosque on Thursday, taking his shoes off to enter the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi.

Watch above via CNN.