President-elect Donald Trump picked Florida congressman Mike Waltz as his national security adviser, a person familiar with the matter said, elevating the former Army Green Beret and combat veteran to become one his closest aides.
Waltz, who served multiple tours in Afghanistan, will hold a critical position of power, coordinating foreign policy from within the West Wing and briefing the president on global crises. But it also could be a perilous role given that Trump churned through four national security advisers in his first term.
The person familiar with the appointment asked not to be identified discussing the selection. Waltz’s congressional office didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. The Wall Street Journal first reported the move on Monday.
Waltz is the second current House member — alongside Elise Stefanik, who Trump will nominate as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations — selected by the president-elect so far for his new administration, threatening to cut into what will likely be a slim GOP majority in the lower chamber. Trump also selected former congressman Lee Zeldin as his Environmental Protection Agency administrator, part of a push of loyalists named in the transition’s early days.
The job will give Waltz enormous influence over Trump. Successive administrations have imbued more power into the national security adviser role, giving the office a bigger and far more influential staff. The job has become so central that the influence of the national security adviser now usually eclipses the secretary of state, who is nominally responsible for implementing the president’s foreign policy.
He will have challenges from the very start. Trump has promised to end the war in Ukraine and has pressed Israel to wrap up its campaign against Hamas and Hezbollah.
The new administration will also need to confront an increasingly assertive China.
“The next president should act urgently to bring the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East to a swift conclusion, and finally focus strategic attention where it should be: countering the greater threat from the Chinese Communist Party,” Waltz said in an article he co-wrote in a recent issue of the Economist.
On Capitol Hill, Waltz distinguished himself among Republicans with aggressive questioning of Biden administration witnesses over the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. He served as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee’s readiness panel, and criticized the Pentagon over everything from the teaching of Critical Race Theory at military institutions to an overpriced bag of metal bushings for the Air Force.
Waltz has also criticized what he’s said was the Biden administration’s “focus on climate change as a national security priority.”
The national security adviser job had the highest turnover of any top position in Trump’s first term. The first person to hold the role was Michael Flynn, who was pushed out after less than a month for giving Trump and Vice President Mike Pence what he said was “incomplete information” about his interactions with Russia’s ambassador.
Two others were HR McMaster, who said Russian President Vladimir Putin manipulated Trump, and John Bolton, who later wrote a memoir and said Trump was unfit for office. Trump’s final first-term national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, has been mentioned as a possible secretary of state in Trump’s second term.
Waltz’s military career is unique in that he deployed to Afghanistan on several combat tours as a Reservist Army Special Forces soldier even as he was an Afghanistan policy adviser at the Pentagon under then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Waltz was award four Bronze Stars for his actions.
He’s also been a notable cheerleader of both Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, who donated millions to aid the president-elect’s campaign and has emerged as an influential adviser during the transition process.
In a recently published book, Waltz credited Musk by saying that few entrepreneurs “have had the extraordinary record of endeavor and achievement of Elon Musk.”
Waltz was elected to represent Florida’s 6th Congressional District, which includes Daytona Beach, in 2018. Separate from military service, Waltz led a defense and intelligence consultancy called Metis Solutions.
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