Trump steals Mike Waltz for the UN ambassador after the “signal gate” scandal
President Donald Trump has appointed former national security adviser Mike Waltz as UN ambassador after leaving the post on “Signalgate.”
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump threw his firing as a step-up when he reassigned Republicans to the vertical ambassador position at the heart of “Signal Gate.”
Waltz said he will leave the National Security Council and become a candidate for the United Nations US ambassador.
“You can have a good argument that it’s a promotion,” Vice President JD Vance said.
The position the Senate has been confirmed is a higher profile. And it comes with a soft New York apartment. But unlike eight years ago, when future presidential candidate Nicky Haley went to work, Trump opposed making it the best role.
This could help the waltz, who is expected to get grills from Democrats at the July 15 nomination hearing, at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Waltz’s testimony remains the focus of the hearing. The former Trump aide was one of the president’s more Hawkish advisors. He is almost certain to face difficult questions about the president’s approach to enemies such as Russia and Iran.
“This will be an opportunity for senators to question the former national security adviser and candidates being UN ambassadors. This has been a historically important foreign policy post,” Democrat Chris Koons, who sits on the committee, told USA Today last week.
He said the topic was probably Ukraine, a conflict in the Middle East and continued tensions between the US and its allies over Trump’s stabbed tariffs.
Still, the toughest questions the Waltz faces are for text messages that discussed strikes on Yemen’s Hooti extremists before they happened. Waltz accidentally invited journalists to chat with an encrypted text messaging app.
“He’s been asked several times by several senators about misuse of signals,” Coons said, referring to a commercially available encrypted messaging app.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegses, Vance and other Cabinet officials hampered the strike while in an unsafe chain.
After it became clear, Waltz took “fully responsible” for his blunder. Trump initially refused to fire him or anyone else over the incident. He fired many staff members due to the National Security Council shakeup.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast, a waltz alliance who served with him in the House, acknowledged that Democrats are likely to focus on signal scandals.
“But what are they raising? A completely successful military operation, it’s accurate, and did the Americans and American infrastructure and interests not be hurt in any way? Ultimately, that’s something he has to answer.”
The role of the United Nations remained vacant for months
Trump said on May 1 that he would nominate Waltz as his UN ambassador hours after the news outlet reported on his ouster.
However, he didn’t officially do so for more than a month, raising questions about whether the Waltz still supports Trump’s work.
The president pulled his first pick, Rep. Elise Stefanik, in late March amid concerns about the majority of the GOP’s small home.
Trump eventually signed the necessary documents for the Waltz in mid-June after asking the White House why Trump had not officially moved him forward.
Career diplomat Dorothy Shea has represented the United Nations for the past six months.
Trump will demote ambassador role
The UN ambassadors often serve in the president’s cabinet.
Trump’s first UN ambassador, Nicky Haley, had an official seat at the table. However, the Republican president downgraded the position after the former South Carolina governor quit his job.
White House officials not permitted to appear in the records confirmed to USA Today that the ambassador for the US role is not part of the Cabinet.
This means that the waltz will report to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has been acting as Trump’s national security adviser since the switch occurred on May 1.
Mast said the role is still a “risqué stomping” for Waltz, a former Green Beret and Florida House of Representatives, who served on the House Foreign Affairs, Armed Service and Intelligence Election Committee.
“It’s also a Senate position that has been announced, which puts him under another level of scrutiny,” Mast said. “This is a very different role to what he did before.”
Waltz would need a simple majority of the senators to vote in his favour at the Chamber of Commerce, which holds the majority for the GOP to be confirmed.
Sen. Bill Hagerty, a Republican of Tennessee who served as the US ambassador in Japan, said he hopes the Waltz will have a successful hearing.
He “poses a big challenge to deal with the United Nations,” Hagerty said. He told USA Today, “Mike is a capable expert.”
