Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Mora Namdar is responding to attacks on her qualifications after she was confirmed to a major role in the Trump administration.
The Daily Beast posted an article on Dec. 26 about Namdar’s appointment and confirmation with the headline, “Trump Hires Beauty Salon Owner to Decide Who to Ban From U.S.” In an exclusive interview with the Daily Caller, Namdar explained her involvement in the beauty business and what qualifies her for her new position. (RELATED: US Shuts Down ‘Performative’ Gaza Ceasefire At UN It Says ‘Legitimizes’ Hamas Narratives)
“My career in policy really began, believe it or not, when I was a teen,” Namdar told the Caller, noting she started taking college classes at age 12. The daughter of Iranian immigrants, Namdar was raised in Dallas, Texas.
“I’ve always been academically inclined as my grandmother was a literature professor and I had a love of reading and books from a very young age,” she added.
Namdar told the Caller she was attending middle school in Texas where she was given the opportunity to take the SAT because she was excelling in school. Scoring better than most high schoolers, Namdar was invited to begin college classes at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
“One of the first college classes I took at 12 was Poli-Sci 101, and I just fell in love with it and knew that I was going to do probably law and probably policy from there on out, ” Namdar said, adding that she later attended SMU as undergraduate student.
“I did a double major, triple minor. So it’s Political Science, International Affairs, and minors in Philosophy, Fine Art and Human Rights,” she told the Caller, adding that she speaks fluent Farsi.
We are excited to welcome Assistant Secretary Mora Namdar to the Bureau of Consular Affairs! A/S Namdar was sworn in this week to implement President Trump’s priorities, including the advancement of policies that make America safer, stronger, and more prosperous. pic.twitter.com/JA3yAiCHQP
— TravelGov (@TravelGov) December 24, 2025
While at SMU, Namdar said that she helped start up the Human Rights department and was the inaugural graduate from the program.
Following the Sept. 11, 2000 terrorist attack on the United States, Namdar told the Caller her foreign policy beliefs took shape and inspired the next steps in her career.
“The ideas of peace through strength really were solidified for me, and that became a core tenet of my policy thinking and sort of policy analysis, and I carried that through with me to law school at American University, where I did a JD and MA concurrently,” Namdar told the Caller. “So the law degree, and then Master’s in International Affairs, and I started the National Security Law brief.”
The National Security Law Brief is the nation’s first student-run law school publication that “focuses on the rapidly evolving field of national security law.” Namdar’s writings for the publication caught the attention of the government, specifically a piece from 2011 titled “Deciphering the Iranian Paradox – It’s Not Left Wing, It’s Not Right Wing, It’s the Right Thing: No Engagement, No War, The Time Has Come to Support the Will of the Iranian People.”
“I pointed out that you have this anti-American regime in Iran, you have a pro-American population, and you have an opportunity to sort of do what’s best for national security and human rights concurrently, and it happens to align in the same way. And that got me first recruited into government,” she told the Caller.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio looks on as US President Donald Trump speaks after announcing the US Navy’s new Golden Fleet initiative, unveiling a new class of warships, at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, on December 22, 2025. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP via Getty Images)
Namdar went on to work for Voice of America as a special adviser on national security and policy for two years and then she established her own law firm as an attorney.
Prior to her confirmation as assistant secretary of state for consular affairs, Namdar served as the senior bureau official for the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs where she supported “the Gaza Peace plan, Middle East stabilization, countering the Iranian regime’s malign influence, supporting human rights, promoting investment in America and American technology, promoting U.S. strategic messaging, internet freedom and more.”
In her new role, Namdar will oversee visa approvals and revocations as well as passport issuance. It’s a job she previously did during the first Trump administration on an interim basis.
While working as an attorney, Namdar started her beauty salon business, something she told the Caller she never expected to take off in the way it did. She realized there was a need for a chic place for professionals like herself to go and get their hair and makeup done with ease.
The business now has three locations and Namdar told the Caller she continued to run her law practice while growing the salon.
“It was a fun, creative side outlet from the very busy and very intense work that I was doing at my firm,” she told the Caller, adding that every part of the brand has been trademarked internationally.
US President Donald Trump (C) delivers a statement during a summit on Gaza in Sharm el-Sheikh on October 13, 2025. (Photo by YOAN VALAT/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Namdar told the Caller that she isn’t a licensed esthetician and has never been the one doing the beauty services at her salons.
“The implication there is you can only be good at one thing,” Namdar told the Caller of criticism related to her businesses. “So if you’re good at developing a business, then you should only be good at developing a business. If you’re good at policy, should only be good at policy. If you’re good at law, you’re only good at law. But I just don’t subscribe to that level of thinking.”