President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he intends to nominate former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz to be the next ambassador to the United Nations. Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong, were cut from the Trump administration Thursday, May 1. The president addressed the National Security Council changes – which may include more staffers to be fired later – and announced the new job for Waltz.
Waltz had been in the hot seat since March, when the Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, published his firsthand account of being added to a Signal group chat with top national security leaders. The chat also featured Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and they discussed strikes against terrorists in Yemen.
While it’s still unclear how a magazine editor wound up included in such a group, Waltz took the blame and issued a mea culpa. “I take full responsibility. I built the group,” he told Fox’s Laura Ingraham. “It’s embarrassing. We’re going to get to the bottom of it.” Embarrassing as it may be, White House maintains that no classified information was revealed during the chat.
This purge had been rumored all week, and when Fox asked on Monday, the administration didn’t deny it. “We are not going to respond to reporting from anonymous sources,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt explained.
This high-profile firing comes at an interesting time for the national security and foreign affairs folks. The US just signed the long-awaited mineral deal with Ukraine and was scheduled to meet with Iran to negotiate Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program. That scheduled meeting has been postponed, according to an announcement by Oman Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi on Thursday, just half an hour or so before Fox confirmed Waltz was dropped.
President Trump had previously chosen Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) to be UN ambassador, but withdrew his nomination in order to preserve the GOP majority in the House. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will act as interim national security advisor until the position is officially filled.
