Trump ousts Waltz as NSA, taps him for UN role

Former national security adviser Mike Waltz checks his phone — This is the first major Cabinet shakeup of Trump's second term

(Image credit: Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)

What happened

President Donald Trump said Thursday he had removed Mike Waltz as national security adviser and would nominate him to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, in the first major Cabinet shakeup of his second term. Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio would temporarily add Waltz's former job to his portfolio.

Who said what

Waltz "lost favor" with Trump and senior advisers after he accidentally added a journalist to a war-planning Signal chat with other top Cabinet officials, "a crisis that dominated headlines and became one of the first major embarrassments for the administration," The Wall Street Journal said. The "Signal episode hurt Waltz," The Associated Press said, but not as much as "attacks" by far-right influencer Laura Loomer and Waltz's own "hawkish views on Iran and Russia."

Loomer, believed to have convinced Trump to fire much of Waltz's staff last month, texted "Loomered" to Politico after the site reported Waltz's exit. Trump reportedly "wanted to get to the 100-day mark in his term before firing a Cabinet-level official," Reuters said. Now, "after three months of relative restraint," said Politico, "Trump may be ready to fire others." He churned through four national security advisers in his first term.

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Rubio, meanwhile, is now "secretary of everything," The New York Times said. There are "precedents — sort of" — for being both secretary of state and national security adviser, though that 1973-75 Henry Kissinger "experiment" was "considered a failure." But Rubio is also acting administrator of USAID and acting archivist of the National Archives, a "proliferation of titles" that "raises questions" about whether he can "play any substantial role in the administration."

What next?

Instead of giving Waltz a "quiet exit," Trump is "sending him through the gauntlet of a Senate confirmation process" to be U.N. ambassador, Axios said. Waltz can expect a "potentially explosive" hearing, The Washington Post said, with Democrats grilling him on the Signal debacle and other "recent national security blunders."

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Rafi Schwartz has worked as a politics writer at The Week since 2022, where he covers elections, Congress and the White House. He was previously a contributing writer with Mic focusing largely on politics, a senior writer with Splinter News, a staff writer for Fusion's news lab, and the managing editor of Heeb Magazine, a Jewish life and culture publication. Rafi's work has appeared in Rolling Stone, GOOD and The Forward, among others.