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President Donald Trump on Thursday ousted his national security adviser, Mike Waltz — only to name Waltz as his next United Nations ambassador.
Waltz, a former Florida GOP congressman, has served as national security adviser for less than four months. He became embroiled in controversy in March, after he inadvertently added a journalist to a Signal group chat on which senior Trump officials discussed sensitive military plans.
He will now have to go through a Senate confirmation vote to take the spot that his former House Republican colleague, Rep. Elise Stefanik, initially planned to occupy. Stefanik withdrew from consideration in March as Republicans worried over whether they could hold her New York seat in a special election.
Trump announced the Waltz departure on Truth Social on Thursday afternoon and named Secretary of State Marco Rubio as an interim replacement national security adviser. Trump’s moves came as a surprise to even some within his administration.
As for Waltz, the tensions that led to his remarkable shift in positions began before the so-called Signalgate affair, according to four people familiar with the situation.
One of those people told Semafor that Waltz’s traditionally hawkish views of national security created tension with more isolationist players in the White House — and said that the former Green Beret was on the outs in Trump’s network even before the group chat flap.
This person added, in a sentiment confirmed by two others Semafor spoke with, that Waltz’s style was seen as imperious and abrasive by White House colleagues.
A second of the four people described Waltz as too “neocon” for others in the administration and said White House chief of staff Susie Wiles had raised concerns about the ousted national security adviser to others in the administration.
Another Waltz critic who has made her displeasure very public, right-wing agitator Laura Loomer, celebrated his departure from the White House on X, as well as the expected ouster of Waltz deputy Alex Wong.
“SCALP,” she posted. It was an apparent reference to what Trump ally Steve Bannon described as a “no scalps policy” the president had embraced in recent weeks, keeping Waltz on the job in order to avoid giving his critics a victory after the Signal debacle.
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Despite the internal clash that later prompted his exit, Waltz had a positive reputation on Capitol Hill that is expected to make his Senate confirmation somewhat smooth, despite Signalgate.
Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., told Semafor that Waltz “had a good background, so he had factual data, and we thought he was one of those guys who would make good decisions and recommendations based upon fact.”
“Here we go again,” Rounds added.
One subtle sign of Waltz’s imminent exit came earlier this week, when he was spotted with Trump at Joint Base Andrews but did not join the president’s Air Force One trip to Michigan. He didn’t take the trip after Trump told him not to, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Even before Rubio’s selection as a replacement became official, speculation was mounting about who might replace Waltz.
The news was met with bated breath in European capitals, where officials are waiting to make a judgment call on what it means until a successor is named. “Let’s see who is going to be there instead,” one senior European official said in a text message.
One potentially polarizing name in the mix: Ric Grenell, the current envoy for special missions who recently lost a foothold on US-Venezula relations to Rubio.
The White House did not immediately return a request for comment on Wiles’ role in Waltz and Wong’s departure from the White House.
Notable
- The Pentagon has also been the scene of staff churn early on in the second Trump administration, with several aides to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth leaving their posts.
- Forty-six percent of US registered voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the war in Gaza, while 52% said the same of his handling of Russia’s war in Ukraine, according to an Emerson College poll out this week.
- Trump had four national security advisers during his first term. The first, Michael Flynn, was fired after less than a month.