Skinner’s conservative credentials are listed in her bio in the Mandate for Leadership. They include her being a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, a visiting fellow and senior advisor at the Heritage Foundation, an academic advisor at the America First Policy Institute, and a professor at Pepperdine University. She has also worked for the government at the State Department during the Trump administration and at the Department of Defense. She has edited books about Ronald Reagan and has worked for George W. Bush, among other Republicans.
In 2020, she appointed Richard Grenell, a former diplomat during the Trump administration, to a position at Carnegie Mellon University. The appointment was controversial, as Grenell had made a name for himself with some statements that were considered undiplomatic. A report on the controversy stated that “the general tone of many of his communications is dismissive and disrespectful of the opinions of others.”
Critics of his tenure as ambassador to Germany described him as “a vain, narcissistic person who dishes out aggressively, but can barely handle criticism.” An article in the British news source the Independent quoted “Susan Hennessey, a senior fellow in national security at the Brookings Institution,” as saying that “Mr. Grenell was ‘utterly incompetent.’”
Diverse Education tells of a letter from “More than 200 Carnegie Mellon University faculty, staff and students…asking the university to withdraw its selection of former Ambassador Richard Grenell…saying he has a ‘well-documented record of sexism and support for racist political movements.’”
Skinner is quoted as saying in response that Grenell is “generous and respectful of varying opinions” and that “As the nation’s first openly gay member of a president’s cabinet, a political conservative, a Christian, and a ten-year veteran of the State Department, Ambassador Grenell brings a unique perspective to the practice of US diplomacy and politics.”
In keeping with the Mandate for Leadership’s generally hostile view of China, Skinner has been quoted as saying: “The same cartels that parasitically run Mexico are also working with the PRC to fuel the largest drug crisis in the history of North America” and, concerning an adversarial relationship between the United States and China: “This is a fight with a really different civilization and a different ideology.” Foreign Policy magazine has criticized the Trump administration’s China policy (in which Skinner played a role) as “needlessly aggressive and risky.”
Regarding China, Skinner has also been quoted by the Washington Post as saying that “the coming conflict with China is ‘the first time that we will have a great power competitor that is not Caucasian.’” This, as Foreign Policy points out, is not accurate, since the United States has fought Japan and Native American tribes. As for the argument implicitly proposed by the Trump administration and the Mandate for Leadership, which is that increased conflict with China that could result in war is all but inevitable, the Post states that “the argument that seems to be informing U.S. China policy is deeply flawed and dangerous.” Skinner has a scholarly background and seems not to have a record of making the kind of outré statements that other authors of the Mandate for Leadership have made. For example, in a May 31, 2024 tweet, she thanks various people for “making this non-partisan dialogue possible….Honored to join.” However, she is also quoted in another tweet as saying “We believe that Donald Trump is on the way back to the Oval Office.” She is very much a conservative and a defender of the “Trump doctrine” with hawkish foreign policy views.
