WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump has tapped U.S. Rep. Michael Waltz, a retired National Guard officer and war veteran, to be his national security adviser, a person familiar with the matter said Monday.
The nod came despite simmering concerns on Capitol Hill about Trump’s tapping of House members, where the final count is still uncertain and there are concerns about Republican members withdrawing from the House because that would trigger new elections force to fill the empty seat. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the matter before Trump made a formal announcement.
The move would put Waltz at the forefront of a litany of national security crises — ranging from the ongoing efforts to arm Ukraine and escalating concerns about the growing alliance between Russia and North Korea to the continued attacks in the Middle East by Iranian allies and the pursuit of a ceasefire between Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah.
Waltz, a three-term Republican congressman from east-central Florida, was the first Green Beret elected to the U.S. House and easily won reelection last week. He served as chairman of the House Armed Services Preparedness Subcommittee and as a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Waltz is a staunch Trump lawyer who supported efforts to overturn the 2020 election. He is seen as hawkish toward China and called for a U.S. boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing over his involvement in the origins of COVID-19 and continued mistreatment of the Uyghur minority Muslim population.
He has been a sharp critic of the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan and has called on the US to hold accountable those responsible for the deaths of the 13 US service members at Abbey Gate and for “thousands of Americans and allies behind enemy lines”. . ”
He has also echoed Trump’s frequent complaints about a so-called “woke” military that the former president has derided as soft and too focused on diversity and equality programs.
Last year, Waltz said in a statement as head of the readiness subcommittee: “I am ready to get to work on better equipping our military and shifting our focus from woke priorities and back to winning wars. Our national security depends on it.”
A graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, Waltz was a Green Beret. He served in the active military for four years before moving to the Florida Guard. While in the Guard, he served multiple combat tours in Afghanistan, the Middle East and Africa and received four Bronze Stars, including two for valor.
He also worked in the Pentagon as a policy advisor when Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates were defense chiefs.
“President-elect Trump will soon begin making decisions on who will serve in his second administration,” said Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the Trump transition. “These decisions will be announced as soon as they are made.”
Richard Goldberg, who served on the National Security Council during Trump’s first term, called Waltz an impressive choice whose background as an elite U.S. military officer and experience on Capitol Hill will be of great value to Trump.
“With fires raging around the world right now, Waltz is well positioned to help the president put out those fires,” said Goldberg, who is now a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington.
Waltz’s selection was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
– AP writers Jill Colvin in New York and Zeke Miller and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed.
