Ever since the news broke that the magazine I edit, The National Interest, would host Donald Trump for a big foreign policy speech at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, I've been fielding calls from think tank friends, not to mention places like the Daily Beast and the Washington Post, where friends and acquaintances asked what was really behind the event. Was I joining the Trump brigade? Was Zalmay Khalilzad, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations whom we picked to moderate the event, a covert Trump supporter? 

Not a chance. With his impeccable establishment credentials—a trifecta of ambassadorships to Afghanistan, Iraq and the U.N.—Khalilzad seemed like the perfect candidate to lend the event some gravitas. His introduction of Trump was about as neutral as could be; the most he was willing to grant is that Trump is a "provocative voice" with "distinctive views about America's purpose and mission abroad." Still, in one sense the questions were understandable. The prospect of a publication like ours—one identified with the "realist" school of foreign policy, which advocates balance-of-power geopolitics and caution abroad—hosting Trump offers an irresistible line of inquiry for anyone searching for what looks like a phantom Trump foreign policy team. Writing in Politico Europe, for example, James Kirchick divined a nefarious move on the part of the National Interest and the Center for the National Interest (which publishes the magazine), in tandem with Trump adviser and former lobbyist Paul Manafort, to buff Trump's image on behalf of the Kremlin. Sorry, but this sees a coherent conspiracy where this is none. The Center for the National Interest was originally contacted by Trump's savvy son-in-law, Jared Kushner, about hosting the event, long before Manafort was even associated with the campaign.