Former Trump adviser Mike Waltz faces 'Signalgate' grilling in Senate hearing for UN post

USA Today

2 days ago

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump cast his dismissal of Michael Waltz as a step up when he reassigned the Republican at the center of the "Signalgate" to a plumb ambassador position.
Waltz would leave the National Security Council, he said, to become his nominee for United States ambassador to the United Nations.
'You could make a good argument that it's a promotion," Vice President JD Vance said.
The Senate-confirmed position is higher profile. And it comes with a cushy New York apartment. But unlike eight years ago, when future presidential candidate Nikki Haley held the job, Trump has decided against making it a top role.
That could help Waltz, who's expected to get a grilling from Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, at his nomination hearing on July 15. The lower designation will allow Waltz to testify alongside two other Trump nominees.
Waltz's testimony will still be the focal point of the hearing. The former Trump aide was one of the president's more hawkish advisers. He is almost certain to face difficult questions about the president's approach to foes such as Russia and Iran — not to mention Trump's criticisms of United Nations leadership and his withdrawal from the institution's human rights council.
"This will be a chance for senators to question the former national security advisor and nominee to be U.N. ambassador, which has historically been a significant foreign policy post," Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat who sits on the committee, told USA TODAY last week.
He said that likely topics will be Ukraine, the conflict in the Middle East and ongoing tension between the U.S. and its allies over Trump's stinging tariffs.
Still, the toughest questions Waltz could face are over the text messages in which senior officials discussed strikes on Houthi militants in Yemen before they'd happened. Waltz inadvertently invited a journalist to the chat in an encrypted text messaging app.
"He will be asked several times by several senators about his misuse of Signal," Coons said, referring to the commercially available encrypted messaging app.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vance and other Cabinet officials weighed in on strikes while in the unsecure chain.
Waltz took 'full responsibility' for the blunder, after it came to light. Trump initially declined to fire him or anyone else over the incident. He fired scores of staff members later in a National Security Council shakeup.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast, an ally of Waltz' who served with him in the House, acknowledged that Democrats were likely to zero in on the Signal scandal.
"Yet what are they bringing up? An entirely successful military operation, that was precise, that no Americans or American infrastructure or interests were harmed in any kind of way? In the end, that's what he has to answer for," Mast said in an interview.
U. N. role remained vacant for months
Trump said on May 1 that he would nominate Waltz as his United Nations ambassador, hours after news outlets reported on his ouster.
Yet, he did not officially do so for more than a month, raising questions about whether Waltz still had Trump's backing for the job.
The president yanked his first pick, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, in late March amid concerns about the GOP's narrow House majority.
Trump eventually signed the necessary paperwork for Waltz in mid-June after USA TODAY asked the White House why Trump had not formally put him forward.
Career diplomat Dorothy Shea has represented the United States at the United Nations for the past six months.
More: Trump shakes up national security team: Waltz tapped for UN post
Trump demotes ambassador role
United Nations ambassadors have often served in presidential Cabinets.
Trump's first United Nations ambassador, Nikki Haley, had an official seat at the table. But the Republican president downgraded the position after the former South Carolina governor left the job.
A White House official who was not authorized to go on the record confirmed to USA TODAY that the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. role would not be part of the Cabinet.
That means that Waltz will report to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who's been acting as Trump's national security adviser since the switch occurred on May 1.
Mast said the role is still a "tremendous stepping stool" for Waltz, a former Green Beret and Florida congressman who served on the House Foreign Affairs, Armed Services and Intelligence committees.
"It's also a Senate-confirmed position, which puts him under a different level of scrutiny," Mast said. "It's a very different role than what he was doing previously."
Waltz will need a simple majority of senators to vote in his favor in the chamber where the GOP holds the majority in order to be confirmed.
Sen. Bill Haggerty, a Tennessee Republican who served as U.S. ambassador to Japan, said he expected Waltz to have a successful hearing.
He'll have "a big challenge dealing with the United Nations," Haggerty said. He told USA TODAY: "Mike's a competent professional."