Trump nominates Mike Waltz for UN ambassador in major shake-up of
national security team
[May 02, 2025]
By ZEKE MILLER, AAMER MADHANI, SEUNG MIN KIM and FARNOUSH
AMIRI
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday that he is
nominating national security adviser Mike Waltz as United Nations
ambassador while Secretary of State Marco Rubio would take over Waltz’s
duties on an interim role.
He announced the major shake-up of his national security team shortly
after news broke that Waltz and his deputy are leaving the
administration. Waltz has been under scrutiny for weeks after reporting
from The Atlantic that he had mistakenly added the magazine's
editor-in-chief to a Signal chat being used to discuss military plans.
“I am pleased to announce that I will be nominating Mike Waltz to be the
next United States Ambassador to the United Nations. From his time in
uniform on the battlefield, in Congress and, as my National Security
Advisor, Mike Waltz has worked hard to put our Nation’s Interests
first,” Trump wrote on social media.
“In the interim, Secretary of State Marco Rubio will serve as National
Security Advisor, while continuing his strong leadership at the State
Department. Together, we will continue to fight tirelessly to Make
America, and the World, SAFE AGAIN.”
There is precedent for the secretary of state to serve simultaneously as
national security adviser. Henry Kissinger held both positions from 1973
to 1975.
It's not clear how long Rubio will hold both jobs.
But he'll be doing double duty at a moment when the Trump administration
is facing no shortage of foreign policy challenges — the wars in Ukraine
and Gaza, Iran's rapidly advancing nuclear program and an uncertain
world economy in the midst of Trump's global tariff war.
Waltz came under searing criticism in March after revelations that he
added journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to a private text chain on an
encrypted messaging app that was used to discuss planning for a
sensitive military operation against Houthi militants in Yemen.
Vice President JD Vance pushed back on characterizations that Waltz was
ousted.
“The media wants to frame this as a firing. Donald Trump has fired a lot
of people,” Vance said in an interview with Bret Baier of Fox News
Channel. "He doesn’t give them Senate-confirmed appointments
afterwards.”
Trump scrapped first UN pick
Trump’s decision to move Waltz to the U.N. comes weeks after he pulled
his pick for the job, Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, from
consideration over fears about Republicans' tight voting margins in the
U.S. House.
“I’m deeply honored to continue my service to President Trump and our
great nation,” Waltz said Thursday.
His shift from national security adviser to U.N. ambassador nominee
means he will now have to face a Senate confirmation hearing.
The process, which proved to be difficult for a number of Trump’s
Cabinet picks, will give lawmakers, especially Democrats, the first
chance to grill Waltz on his decision to share information about an
imminent U.S. airstrike on Signal.
Sen. Chris Coons, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, signaled that Waltz will face difficult questions.
“I look forward to a thorough confirmation hearing,” Coons said on
social media.
Several aides under consideration for Waltz's job
Trump is believed to be weighing several senior aides to eventually take
on the national security adviser role, including special envoys Steve
Witkoff and Richard Grenell, National Security Council senior director
for counterterrorism Sebastian Gorka and senior State Department
official Michael Anton, according to several people familiar with the
ongoing deliberations.
Witkoff, a fellow New York City real estate maverick who has known Trump
for years, has played a key role in negotiations to end the
Russia-Ukraine war and the Israel-Hamas conflict and has been the
administration's chief interlocutor in the Iran nuclear talks launched
last month.
Witkoff has expressed no interest in taking the job, which requires
hands-on management of numerous agencies, but could, if asked by Trump,
assume temporary control of the NSC, according to one U.S. official
familiar with the matter.
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National Security Advisor Mike Waltz speaks during a television
interview at the White House, Thursday, May 1, 2025, in Washington.
(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the
sensitivity of the matter, said Witkoff would prefer to stay in his
current special envoy role, which is relatively independent and not
tied to any particular bureaucracy.
Grenell, in addition to being Trump’s envoy for special missions, is
serving as the interim president at the Kennedy Center. He served as
ambassador to Germany during Trump’s first administration, was
special presidential envoy for Serbia and Kosovo peace negotiations,
and did a stint as acting director of national intelligence. He’s
also weighing running in next year’s California governor’s race.
Waltz had previously taken “full responsibility” for building the
Signal message chain and administration officials described the
episode as a “mistake” but one that caused Americans no harm. Waltz
maintained that he was not sure how Goldberg ended up in the
messaging chain, and insisted he did not know the journalist.
Trump and the White House — which insisted that no classified
information was shared on the text chain — publicly stood by Waltz
throughout the episode. But the embattled national security adviser
was under siege from personalities such as Laura Loomer, who has
encouraged Trump to purge aides who she believes are insufficiently
loyal to the “Make America Great Again” agenda.
As reports began to circulate that Waltz could be leaving the
administration, Loomer appeared to take credit in a post on the
social media site X, writing: “SCALP.”
“Hopefully, the rest of the people who were set to be fired but were
given promotions at the NSC under Waltz also depart,” Loomer wrote
in another post.
Waltz gets ‘soft landing’ with UN nomination
Retired Navy Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, an analyst at the Foundation
for Defense of Democracies in Washington, said with the U.N.
nomination Trump presented Waltz with a “soft landing” as he removed
him from the powerful national security advisory post just over 100
days into the administration.
The Signal episode hurt Waltz. But even more damaging were the
attacks by Loomer and his hawkish views on Iran and Russia, which
are more in line with Republican orthodoxy, Montgomery said.
"He hurt himself by having to constantly defend his staff that were
under inappropriate attack,” Montgomery said. “I think Waltz tried
as hard as he could to adjust his traditional thinking about foreign
policy to the president’s more opportunistic system, but the
president is just a hard person to adjust to.”
Hegseth continues to face scrutiny
Questions have also swirled around Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth
and his role in the Signal chat.
While Waltz set it up, Hegseth posted times for aircraft launches
and bomb drops into the unsecured app and shared the same
information with dozens of people in a second chat, including his
wife and brother.
The Associated Press reported that Hegseth also bypassed Pentagon
security protocols to set up an unsecured line for a personal
computer in his office –- beside terminals where he was receiving
classified information. That raises the possibility that sensitive
information could have been put at risk of potential hacking or
surveillance.
The Pentagon inspector general is investigating Hegseth’s use of
Signal, and he has faced criticism from Democrats and even some
Republicans. It has added to the turmoil at the Pentagon at a time
when Hegseth has dismissed or transferred multiple close advisers.
Nonetheless, Trump has maintained public confidence in Hegseth.
___
Amiri reported from the United Nations. Associated Press writers
Tara Copp, Matthew Lee and Darlene Superville contributed to this
report.
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