General Discussion

On the one hand, Waltz joins an ignominious group of failed Trump WH national security advisers (Flynn, McMaster, Bolton).

On the other, he also joins an ignominious group of failed House Republicans tapped for key second-term posts (Gaetz, Stefanik, and now Waltz).

As recently as Wednesday, during the latest White House Cabinet meeting, national security adviser Mike Waltz seemed to go out of his way to offer effusive praise for Donald Trump. The president’s difficulties with Waltz have been well documented, especially in the wake of the recent Signal chat scandal, but the adviser took the opportunity to make clear that he was pleased to be part of the White House team.

Less than 24 hours later, it appears Waltz is losing his White House job — while being nominated for a different job. Trump wrote on his social media platform:

I am pleased to announce that I will be nominating Mike Waltz to be the next United States Ambassador to the United Nations. ... In the interim, Secretary of State Marco Rubio will serve as National Security Advisor, while continuing his strong leadership at the State Department.

This is, among things, deeply odd — in part because Waltz has no meaningful diplomatic experience, in part because there's so little overlap between his current position and the U.N. ambassadorship, and in part because it's difficult to imagine how one person is supposed to be the nation's chief diplomat at the State Department and the president's top national security adviser in the West Wing.

What's more, with this latest appointment, Rubio now has four rather large roles to manage: secretary of state, acting archivist of the United States, acting administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development, and interim national security adviser......

Publicly, the White House backed Waltz, but NBC News reported that Trump had privately “expressed frustration” with his aide. That coincided with a Politico report on a private presidential meeting in which top officials, including Vice President JD Vance, told Trump to “consider showing him [Waltz] the door.”

A day later, The New York Times reported that the president sought the counsel of a variety of people, asking whether to oust Waltz.

The public chatter ultimately died down, but there was ample evidence that Waltz had been privately sidelined in the West Wing, putting his future in jeopardy.

As for his next gig, the ambassadorship to the United Nations is a Senate-confirmed position, and Waltz's confirmation hearings are bound to be interesting. Observers should expect a great many questions about his ability to handle and protect classified information.