Top Clinton Adviser Touts Minnesota Roots In Campaign Stop
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Jake Sullivan, one of Hillary Clinton's top advisers, made a campaign stop Wednesday in his hometown of Minneapolis.
The Southwest High School grad says it's his Minnesota roots that have kept him grounded during this year's roller coaster campaign.
"The things that I learned here in Minnesota -- common sense and civility, a sense of public service and being part of a community -- that has really guided me in my career," Sullivan said.
At 39, he is Clinton's senior foreign policy adviser.
While groping allegations and WikiLeaks have captured campaign headlines, Sullivan is front and center in a deep political divide between the candidates on foreign policy.
He says voters should worry about Republican nominee Donald Trump's open admiration of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"This a man who jails his political opponents, who invades his neighbors, who has journalists killed if they write negative stories about him," Sullivan said. "This is someone who Donald Trump is praising."
Sullivan, who graduated from Yale and Yale Law School, served as a deputy chief of staff when Clinton was secretary of state. He says despite the email server scandal, she is trustworthy and that the WikiLeaks emails are not as damaging as critics claim.
"There are some emails there that don't come off great, but that would be true of anyone's email box anywhere," Sullivan said.
Among Sullivan's regrets is that his busy schedule leaves him little time to come back home.
"Every chance I get to come back here and see friends and run around the lakes, I seize it, because I love this place," he said.
Sullivan is widely expected to become national security adviser, if in fact Clinton wins the White House.
In his 1994 year book at Southwest High School, he was named "most likely to succeed."
