AP: Huntsman among secretary of State possibilities

President-elect Donald Trump is reportedly open to expanding his shortlist of candidates for secretary of State to include former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman.

Huntsman was one of the possibilities reported by The Associated Press on Saturday night, citing a source close to the Trump transition.

Huntsman, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, previously served as ambassador to China and speaks Mandarin.

The AP reported that Trump is moving away from the two front-runners for the secretary of State position, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Trump has twice met with Romney, the 2012 GOP nominee who criticized Trump’s candidacy, but some of the president-elect’s aides and allies have slammed Romney as a potential Cabinet pick.

Questions have also swirled over the international business ties of Giuliani, an adviser to Trump during the campaign who has openly campaigned for the secretary of State position.

Huntsman vocalized concerns about Trump during the campaign, and was among Republicans calling for him to drop out of the race in October in the wake of the tape showing the businessman making lewd comments about women.

Others thought to be in the running this week for secretary of State included retired Gen. David Petraeus and Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Huntsman appeared on “Fox and Friends” on Saturday morning to weigh in on Trump’s call with the president of Taiwan the previous day, which Huntsman called unsurprising despite it breaking decades of U.S. protocol.