The 2020 Trump reelection campaign has opted not to have foreign or economic policy teams, in part to avoid the type of problems in 2016 that ensnared junior advisers and led to special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

Instead, Team Trump will follow the lead of the White House on policy, according to Trump campaign officials. It is the first time in at least two decades that a presidential candidate has decided not to have dedicated policy teams covering national security and the economy.

The campaign’s decision to avoid foreign policy advisers this time around could allow Team Trump to sidestep scrutiny over connections to foreign governments, as well as saving campaign cash.

Rather than having its own policy advisory teams, the Trump campaign follows the lead of the State Department, the Department of Defense, the National Council of Economic Advisers, and other executive departments on policies, most of which are already well established.

“His positions are known,” said Republican strategist Ford O’Connell of Trump. “The most important positions are going to be the economy, illegal immigration, and where he stands on tariffs, and he’s in good shape there. The only policy position he has to work on, really, is better messaging healthcare — how he’s going to protect preexisting conditions and keep medical costs down.”

O'Connell said the Trump campaign has a "huge advantage" over 2020 Democratic contenders, who will have to create new policies for a host of issues and try to make them stand out in a crowded field of 23 candidates.

And while some Democrats have rolled out attention-grabbing plans such as free college or "Medicare for all," others have been noticeably light on policy, something O’Connell was keen to point out.

Read more from Emily Ward at the Washington Examiner

Donald Trump’s ISIS battle plan, which includes “extreme vetting” of immigrants for anti-American sentiments, had him sticking to a script one political watchdog urged him to adopt more often.

“He needs to continue to hammer home the fact that national security and economic security go hand-in-hand — and not fly off the handle before it’s time to give the next speech,” said GOP strategist Ford O’Connell.

In a speech yesterday in Youngstown, Ohio — a crucial election battleground state — the GOP presidential nominee called for halting immigration from “the most dangerous and volatile regions of the world,” as well as ideological tests to weed out those who don’t embrace western values and aren’t willing to assimilate to American culture.

Read more from Kimberly Atkins at the Boston Herald

To say the revelation from the State Department that 22 of Hillary Clinton's emails from her term as secretary of state contained top secret information is not good news for her presidential campaign is probably an understatement, but experts and Republican strategists doubt it will be a significant roadblock in her path to the Democratic nomination.

The State Department announced Friday that 37 pages of emails from the private server Clinton used to conduct her government business include information so sensitive that they cannot even be released in redacted form. This is the first official confirmation from the Obama administration that Clinton's emails did contain top secret material, which letters from the intelligence community inspector general had alleged.

18 emails between Clinton and President Barack Obama are also not being released "to protect the president's ability to receive unvarnished advice and counsel." State Department spokesman John Kirby said those emails have not been determined to be classified.

More than 1,300 other emails released so far have been partially redacted due to classified information, but the State Department and Clinton's campaign have claimed that material was retroactively classified.

If she wins the nomination, it will certainly be an issue that her Republican opponent raises in the general election, but its effect on her in the Democratic primaries is blunted in part by the fact that Sanders has generally refused to attack her over it.

"I'm not so sure it really affects her in the primary because it doesn't seem that Bernie Sanders is going to go after her," said Republican strategist Ford O'Connell. 

If Sanders tops Clinton in both of the first two voting states and he sees a legitimate chance of winning the nomination, though, Skelley and O'Connell suggested Sanders may rethink his approach.

"You can run attack ads all day long with this information," O'Connell said, adding that the Clinton campaign's handling of the scandal indicates she has "been playing legal hopscotch from the beginning."

"It's clear even if you're a Clinton fan that she's been fudging the truth," he said.

"She hangs her hat on her experience and years of service. How did she not know?" O'Connell said.

Read more from Stephen Loiaconi at Sinclair Broadcast Group

U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to address the rising threat of global terrorism at Tuesday's annual State of the Union address, just weeks after the bloody massacres in Paris that shocked France and nations worldwide.

Experts and officials fret other radical groups may be emboldened by those slayings and could be eying the U.S. as a possible target. At the same time, critics accused Obama of showing little leadership on the issue, which they say was spotlighted by the U.S. president's no-show at an anti-terrorism rally in Paris last week that drew 40 world leaders including the heads of Germany, Britain and Israel.

Republican strategist Ford O'Connell told Xinhua that while Obama will address Americans' concerns over terrorism, the topic is unlikely to comprise the bulk of the speech. "The terrorism part, I can't see him spending a lot of time on it, but obviously his approval ratings are (low) and a lot of Americans don't think he is focusing on (terrorism) in the best way," he said.

"Security is going to be over the next three or four years one of the top three or four issues...It's something that Americans are concerned about," O'Connell said.

Read more from Matthew Rusling at Xinhua

First there was ISIS. Now there's Ebola.

The Ebola health crisis is the latest global issue to become a fixture this campaign season, spilling into debates, campaign rhetoric — and even a few ads.

Political arguments about Ebola can roughly be divided into three groups.

Democrats argue that budget-cutting Republicans have deprived the government of the resources it needs to keep Americans safe from the threat of Ebola. That's the argument Democratic Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado made at a recent debate.

His opponent, Rep. Cory Gardner, offers argument No. 2. Republicans are tying the issue to larger questions about President Obama and his competency. Gardner specifically pointed to priorities at the CDC.

Third, some Republicans link the Ebola crisis to border security.

Exchanges like these are playing out in campaigns across the country and in local and cable news interviews.

"It's a terrible thing to say, but fear is a heck of a motivator," says Republican strategist Ford O'Connell.

Even though the elections are just a few weeks away, O'Connell says it's almost impossible for candidates to break into this news cycle unless they're talking about one of two things: ISIS or Ebola.

O'Connell says that strategy has already proven successful for some candidates. Just look at Republican Scott Brown in New Hampshire.

"He started talking about ISIS ... then he started weaving in Ebola, and all of a sudden [Sen.] Jeanne Shaheen's lead was cut in half," O'Connell said. "What's going on here is Republicans are making a national security leadership argument, if you will, and Democrats are making a governing agenda/budgets argument."

Read more from Juana Summers at NPR

What a difference a national immigration crisis makes. Republicans across the country are defying the RNC’s post-2012 dictum that GOP candidates must soften their tone on illegal immigration and line up behind comprehensive immigration reform in order to attract support from the Hispanic community.

And it’s working for many of them. It may even be the key ingredient in a Republican Senate takeover if the issue motivates turnout among the party’s base.

Just look at Scott Brown, the moderate former Massachusetts senator and New Hampshire Senate hopeful, who has made immigration a hallmark of his campaign against Democratic incumbent Jeanne Shaheen. In September, Brown told talk-radio host Laura Ingraham, “This race is about immigration.” In July, he released his first ad chastising the “pro-amnesty policies” of Shaheen, who supported the Senate’s “Gang of Eight” bill, and he has flooded the airwaves with ads since. He has given speeches saying immigration is a national-security challenge above all else and written to Shaheen stressing the need to secure the border as a national-security imperative.

Republicans say Brown’s stance has boosted him in the polls. “The key for Scott Brown on this issue was the southern-border crisis and all of these different crises between ISIS, the southern border, Ebola, et cetera; all of a sudden it becomes more about national security,” says GOP strategist Ford O’Connell. Since July, Shaheen’s lead has slipped from double digits to just five points, according to RealClearPolitics, and a Brown spokeswoman tells NRO that’s in part because the issue of immigration has hit close to home.

Read more from Ryan Lovelace at National Review Online

With the United States evacuating Baghdad embassy staffers as Islamic extremists continued their bloody march on the Iraqi capital, the latest international crisis is pushing foreign policy to the forefront of the 2016 presidential campaign with calls intensifying for an alternative to the global withdrawal strategy that propelled President Obama into office in 2008.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant yesterday claimed to have killed 1,700 Iraqi Air Force recruits, while the United States moved an aircraft carrier into the Persian Gulf but stopped short of committing to any military actions.

“I’m not sure that anybody wants the U.S. to be the world police, but if we don’t get a foothold in some of these situations, someone else will, as we’re seeing right now in Iraq,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican operative in Washington, D.C., who advised John McCain’s presidential campaign and studied Iraq at The Heritage Foundation. “Foreign policy is definitely creeping into the three or four issues for either nominee. The War on Terror is not over.”

ISIL terrorists posted graphic photos yesterday that appeared to show gunmen massacring captured Iraqi soldiers. U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki called the militants’ claim “horrifying and a true depiction of the bloodlust that these terrorists represent.” The State Department said yesterday some Baghdad staffers will be “temporarily relocated” to the Iraqi cities of Basra and Erbil, and Jordan.

The strife in Iraq — much like crises in Ukraine, Syria and Libya — is putting pressure on President Obama to ramp up U.S. response.

Read more from Jack Encarnacao at The Boston Herald

More than any other Republican lawmaker, Sen. Rand Paul has aggressively gone after nontraditional GOP voters in the past year, trying to lure Democrats and independents into his party's column as he considers a presidential bid.

So it seemed odd last week when the libertarian-leaning senator from Kentucky made a partisan joke about the prisoner swap that secured U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl's release.

His comment made national headlines, and the Democratic National Committee called his remarks "completely out of line" and uncivilized.

So, why make a joke that rips some of the very voters you're trying to attract?

Political experts say Paul is testing out his campaign language before it starts to count in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.

"He's really trying to figure out what he can and can't get away with on the stump," said GOP operative Ford O'Connell. "If he can't broaden his appeal in the GOP primary, there is no general election."

Paul is also trying to place daylight between himself and other potential Republican candidates, O'Connell continued, as the GOP still lacks a clear frontrunner for 2016.

Known for his non-interventionist views, Paul has to convince Republican donors and voters that he's strong enough to be commander in chief, O'Connell said.

His joke was the latest in a string of comments last week expressing frustration with the Obama administration over the Bergdahl swap.

While O'Connell argued the dust-up over Paul's Taliban joke at the convention will be nothing more than a "blip" in the long run, it was nevertheless "out of character" for the senator.

"If he continues to do that, it's obvious that he hasn't figured out how to brand himself distinctly from the others," he said.

Read more from Ashley Killough at CNN