Brett McGurk has played a key role in shaping the Biden administration’s Middle East policy and is currently the NSC coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa.

Trager, whose research has focused on Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood, has also previously served as a staff member for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the Middle East and North Africa issues and as an adjunct professor at the University of Michigan, the University of California, and the University of Pennsylvania. 

He also was the Esther K. Wagner Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. 

He authored a 2016 book, Arab Fall: How the Muslim Brotherhood Won and Lost Egypt in 891 Days, assessing the rise and fall of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in the early 2010s, the state of Egyptian politics, and the possibility of a Muslim Brotherhood resurgence.

The book included interviews with Muslim Brotherhood leaders.

He has also written about Qatar’s role in the Middle East.

He will fill the position at the NSC currently held by Brett McGurk. McGurk is a senior member of President Biden’s Middle East staff who has participated in negotiations surrounding a ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon and served as a key interlocutor with Saudi Arabia. 

When asked for a comment, Karoline Leavitt, Trump-Vance Transition Spokeswoman, did not confirm the appointment. 

“President-elect Trump has made brilliant decisions on who will serve in his second administration at lightning pace. Remaining decisions will continue to be announced by him when they are made,” she told the Hill.

While at The Washington Institute, Trager urged members of Congress not to meet with Muslim Brotherhood officials, describing them as an extremist hate group, and criticized President-elect Donald Trump’s first administration for failing to properly manage its relationship with Egypt when it blocked the provision of millions in aid.

He praised Trump’s 2017 speech in Riyadh, calling on Muslim leaders to take decisive action against Islamist terrorist groups.

Trager graduated from Harvard University and has an MA from the American University in Cairo, where he focused on Islamic legal reform. He also has a PhD in political science from the University of Pennsylvania, where he focused on Egyptian opposition to then-President Hosni Mubarak, including fieldwork during the 2011 uprising.

The appointment would add to Trump’s growing list of Middle East advisors dealing with a region rocked by war for over a year. 

This includes Trump’s selection of his close friend and real estate investor Steve Witkoff as Special Envoy for Middle East Peace; his daughter’s father-in-law, Massad Boulos, as senior advisor on Arab and Middle East affairs; and former State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus as deputy special envoy for Middle East peace.