Mike Waltz is as Trump’s national security advisor in the major upheaval

Washington (AP) – President Donald Trump said Thursday that he appoints the national security advisor Mike Waltz As an ambassador of the United Nations, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio would take care of Waltz’s functions on a provisional role.

He announced the major reshuffle of his national security team shortly after News announced that Waltz and his assistant leave the administration. Waltz has been examined for weeks after reporting from the Atlantic which he had wrongly added the editor -in -chief of the magazine to a cat reporting to discuss military plans.

“I am happy to announce that I will name Mike Waltz to be the next United States ambassador to the United Nations. In his time in uniform on the battlefield, in Congress and, like my national security advisor, Mike Waltz worked hard to put the interests of our country first, “Trump wrote on social networks.

“In the meantime, Secretary of State Marco Rubio will serve as a national security advisor, while continuing his solid leadership in the State Department. Together, we will continue to fight tirelessly to do America and the world again. ”

There is a precedent for the Secretary of State to serve simultaneously as a national security advisor. Henry Kissinger held the two posts from 1973 to 1975.

It is not known how long Rubio will occupy the two jobs.

But he will make a double duty at a time when the Trump administration will not lack foreign policy challenges – wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the Iran’s rapid nuclear program and an uncertain world economy in the midst of the Trump World Tariff War.

Waltz was criticized in March after the revelations he Journalist added Jeffrey Goldberg to a private text chain On an encrypted messaging application that has been used to discuss the planning of a sensitive military operation against Houthi activists in Yemen.

Trump’s decision to move Waltz to the UN comes from weeks after choosing the job, representative Elise Stefanik in New York, consideration on fears concerning the tight voting margins of the Republicans in the United States House.

“I am deeply honored to continue my service to President Trump and our great nation,” Waltz said on Thursday.

His passage from the National Security Advisor to the candidate of the UN ambassador means that he will now have to face a confirmation audience of the Senate.

The process, which has proven to be difficult for a certain number of choices of Trump’s cabinets, will give legislators, in particular the Democrats, the first chance to grill Waltz on its decision to share information on an imminent American air strike.

Senator Chris Coons, the best democrat of the senatorial committee for foreign relations, said Waltz would face difficult questions.

“I look forward to an in -depth confirmation audience,” said Coons on social networks.

Trump is supposed to weigh several seniors employees to possibly assume the role of national security advisor, including special envoys Steve Witkoff and Richard Grenell, principal director of the National Security Council for the fight against terrorism Sebastian Gorka and the senior official of the State Department Michael Anton, according to several families familiar with the current deliberations.

Witkoff, a real estate colleague from New York who has known Trump for years, has played a key role in negotiations to end the Russian-Ukraine War and the Israel-Hamas conflict and was the main interlocutor of the administration in Iranian nuclear talks last month.

Witkoff has not expressed any interest in taking the job, which requires practical management of many agencies, but could, if it could be requested by Trump, assume temporary control of the NSC, according to an American official familiar with the issue.

The official, who spoke under the cover of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case, said that Witkoff would prefer to remain in his role as a current special envoy, who is relatively independent and not linked to a particular bureaucracy.

Grenell, in addition to being Trump’s envoy for special missions, is the acting president of Kennedy Center. He was an ambassador to Germany during the first administration of Trump, was a special presidential envoy for the peace negotiations of Serbia and Kosovo, and made a passage as interim director of national intelligence. He also weighs the race in the California governor’s race next year.

Waltz had previously assured the “full responsibility” for the construction of the signal messages chain and the administration officials described the episode as an “error” but which caused Americans without difficulty. Waltz argued that he did not know how Goldberg ended up in the messaging channel and insisted that he did not know the journalist.

Trump and the White House – who insisted that no classified information was shared on the text chain – was held publicly in Waltz throughout the episode. But the besieged national security adviser was besieged with personalities such as Laura Loodor, who encouraged Trump to serve aid which, according to her, are insufficiently faithful to the agenda “Make America Great Again”.

While the reports began to circulate that Waltz could leave the administration, Loomer seemed to take credit in an article on the social media site X, writing: “Salvepa”.

“Hopefully the rest of the people who were to be dismissed but who received promotions at the NSC under Waltz also left,” wrote Loomer in another article.

The retired navy’s counter-administered, Mark Montgomery, analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, said that with the appointment of the United Nations, Trump had presented to Waltz a “soft landing” while he withdrew it from the powerful national security consulting a little more than 100 days in the administration.

The signal episode injured Waltz. But even more harmful were the attacks of Loomer and his bellicic opinions on Iran and Russia, which are more in line with Republican Orthodoxy, said Montgomery.

“He injured himself in front constantly defending his staff who was in an inappropriate attack,” said Montgomery. “I think Waltz has tried as loudly as he could adjust his traditional reflection on foreign policy to the president’s more opportunistic system, but the president is only a difficult person to adapt.”

The questions also revolved around the defense secretary Pete Hegseth and his role in the reported cat.

While Waltz installs it, HegSeth has displayed hours for plane launches and the bomb falls into the unwanted application and shared the same information with dozens of people in a second conversationincluding his wife and brother.

The Associated Press reported that Hegseth Pentagon safety protocols bypass To set up an un guaranteeing line for a personal computer in his office – next to the terminals where he received classified information. This raises the possibility that sensitive information could have been put at risk of hacking or potential surveillance.

The Inspector General of the Pentagon investigates the use of the signal by Hegseth, and he faced criticism from Democrats and even certain Republicans. He added to the Pentagon turmoil at a time when Hegseth has rejected or transferred several close advisers. However, Trump has maintained public confidence in Hegseth.

___

The editors of the associated press Tara Copp and Matthew Lee contributed to this report.