Armand Cucciniello

Armand V. Cucciniello III is a former American diplomat, news reporter, military advisor, political commentator, and public relations executive. Cucciniello was formerly spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Iraq.

Education

Cucciniello is a graduate of Boston University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 2002. He later earned an M.A. from Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. Cucciniello is also a graduate of the National War College at National Defense University, where he concentrated in Cyber Studies and Influence Warfare.

In 2006, Cucciniello moved to Baghdad, Iraq to work for Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I). Shortly after, he was hired by the U.S. Department of State to work in the Public Affairs Section at the U.S. embassy, located in the former Republican Palace of Saddam Hussein. As such, Cucciniello was made a non-career U.S. diplomat and became a spokesperson for the U.S. embassy until 2010. He subsequently served in Islamabad, Pakistan, and later worked for the United Nations Command, Combined Forces Command and United States Forces Korea in South Korea. Cucciniello was vice president of Blue Force Communications, a public relations agency with offices in New York City and Washington, D.C.

In a 2016 article for USA Today, Cucciniello was the first person to describe then-U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump's foreign policy as "America First," a moniker subsequently used by New York Times reporters David E. Sanger and Maggie Haberman in their interview with Trump who, "agreed with a suggestion that his ideas might be summed up as 'America First'." The phrase became a cornerstone of Trump's campaign platform, and later that of the Trump Administration. After Rex Tillerson was announced as Trump's nominee for United States Secretary of State, Cucciniello argued that Tillerson could perform well in the role given his depth of business experience. While a student at National Defense University, Cucciniello wrote about and published essays on state-sponsored Chinese influence and Russian propaganda.