Vice President Vance said he supports President Trump’s Thursday decision to nominate national security adviser Mike Waltz to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Waltz had been at the center of a controversy involving a group chat on the Signal app in which national security and defense officials shared key details of a military strike in Yemen. Waltz is said to have inadvertently invited Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic, to the chat.
“I like Mike. I think he's a great guy. He's got the trust of both me and the president, but we also thought that he'd make a better U.N. ambassador as we get beyond the stage of the reforms that we've made to the National Security Council,” Vance said during a Thursday interview with Fox News’s “Special Report.”
The vice president denied claims that Waltz's move was a demotion or a direct result of Pentagon leaks.
“I think the media wants to frame this as a firing. Donald Trump has fired a lot of people. He doesn't get them Senate-confirmed appointments afterwards,” Vance told Fox.
“What he thinks is that Mike Waltz is going to better serve the administration, most importantly the American people in that role, and I happen to agree with him,” he added.
Waltz will now navigate Senate confirmation hearings for the post that Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) was originally nominated to hold.
However, lawmakers have questioned the shift and whether Secretary of State Marco Rubio can appropriately handle his current role amid added pressures as the interim national security adviser.
“The job of the National Security Advisor is more than a full-time job. The same is true for the Secretary of State,” Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement.
“No serious leader would believe one person can manage both — let alone amid multiple international emergencies,” he continued.
The Democrats said Trump’s move shows a “blatant disregard” for the “scale and seriousness” of the global crises the nation faces.
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