President of the United States Donald Trump has announced plans to reassign Mike Waltz, remove him from his current role as national security adviser and nominate him to become the UN ambassador instead.
Thursday’s revelation comes after a morning of intense speculation that Waltz and his assistant commander, Deputy National Security Adviser Alex Wong, have been kicked out of their role.
“We are pleased to announce that we will nominate Mike Waltz as the next U.S. ambassador for the United Nations,” Trump writes about his social media platform, True Social. “Mike Waltz has worked so hard to put our country’s interests first. He knows he will do the same in his new role.”
Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio will continue his role as the country’s top diplomat once he stepped into the role of national security adviser in return.
“Together, we will continue to fight tirelessly to make America and the world safe again,” Trump said.
The president’s message appeared to confirm the initial major staffing reforms of his second term. Earlier that day, an anonymous source told the US Major’s news agency that Waltz was kicked out after his relationship with Trump was cooled.
Waltz’s reputation suffers from an incident that appears to have added journalists to private chats with a signal from an app that contains details of the US military attack.
However, Trump was openly standing by the Waltz and refused to issue a punishment for the signal scandal.
During his first term, Trump also practiced circulating national security advisers. During his four years in office, he had four different national security advisers. It started with Lt. Col. Michael Flynn, which lasted only four weeks.
Waltz was a former member of the US Congress and represented Florida’s 6th District in 2019. He was re-elected to his seat in 2024, but he resigned from his Congressional role in January to join the Trump administration.
Previously, he served in the US military as a Green Beret, a special forces branch.
“Mike is a strong champion on my first American foreign policy agenda and will be a tremendous champion in the pursuit of peace by strength,” Trump wrote on November 12 when he first announced the Waltz as his choice of national security advisor.
However, the background to Waltz’s foreign policy was a source of scrutiny. Trump has pledged to end global conflicts by positioning himself as “peacemakers and unifiers” during the second term, but critics point out that the Waltz has historically taken a more hawkish stance.
He served as Vice President Dick Cheney’s anti-terrorism advisor under former President George W. Bush’s administration, opposed the massive withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan without concessions from the Taliban.
That led Waltz and his staff to target some of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” (Maga) base. At the White House meeting in April, far-right social media personality Laura Lumer reportedly criticised national security authorities, including Waltz.
After that meeting, Trump fired six National Security Council officials, but Waltz and Wong were not among them.
On Thursday, the room appeared to celebrate the waltz and Wong’s departure on social media. “Hopefully, they’ll be fired, but the rest of the people who were given promotions at NSC under the waltz have also left,” she wrote.
But the Waltz’s position in the White House was particularly weakened after the revelation that Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg was added to the private chat.
In his record of the case, Goldberg said he received an unexpected invitation from a signal account identified as Waltz’s. At first, Goldberg questioned whether the invitation was authentic. However, after accepting, he found himself in the midst of conversations with individuals, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegses, Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Rubio.
They appeared to be discussing future plans to bomb targets related to Yemen-based armed group Houthis. These details shared by Hegseth include the exact timing and aircraft used in the bombing campaign.
Waltz has acknowledged his role in the scandal, and the White House has since said the issue is a “case close.”
“I’m fully responsible. I’ve built a group,” Waltz told Fox News in March. Of Goldberg, he added: “I have the best technical mindset to look into how this happened. But I can tell you 100%. I don’t know this guy.”
To fulfill his new role as UN ambassador, Waltz will face a Senate confirmation hearing. His involvement in the “Signalgate” scandal is likely to play a central role in the Senate interrogation.
The position of UN ambassador has been opened on the premise that her seat in Congress is too valuable and too vulnerable to catch a special election since President Trump pulled the nomination of Representative Elise Stefanik on March 27th.
Waltz confirmed his appointment as ambassador in a one-line social media post Thursday.
“We are deeply honored to continue our service to President Trump and our great nation,” he wrote.