President-elect Trump nominated Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) to function U.S. ambassador to the United Nations on Monday, additional elevating her seismic rise within the Republican Social gathering.
It’s a main nod to the chair of the Home Republican Convention — and the highest-ranking GOP girl within the decrease chamber — who has been considered one of Trump’s fiercest defenders and supporters in recent times.
However Stefanik, a Harvard College graduate who was additionally thought-about within the working to be Trump’s working mate, has additionally been intensely scrutinized as her star energy has grown.
Listed below are 5 issues to learn about Stefanik:
Underwent pro-Trump transformation
Like many different Republicans when Trump rose to energy, Stefanik initially saved her distance from him, even publicly breaking with him on insurance policies like Trump’s 2017 govt order to ban residents of seven majority-Muslim international locations from coming into the U.S.
However that quickly modified throughout Trump’s first time period, stunning some political observers.
By Trump’s first impeachment proceedings in 2019, Stefanik was considered one of Trump’s prime defenders on Capitol Hill. As a member of the Home Intelligence Committee, she took a combative method and challenged its then-Chair Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) throughout impeachment hearings.
That led Trump to put up on social media of Stefanik: “A new Republican Star is born.”
Her posture stayed sturdy all through the years, with Stefanik not solely being amongst Trump’s sharpest defenders as he confronted quite a few authorized troubles, but in addition taking actions resembling submitting an ethics grievance in opposition to particular counsel Jack Smith.
Stefanik was the primary member of GOP management in Congress to endorse Trump’s presidential bid in 2022.
Changed Liz Cheney as convention chair
Home Republicans eliminated former Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), one of many 10 Home Republicans who voted to question Trump after the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, because the chair of their convention in Might 2021 amid her continued criticism of the previous president.
Stefanik had the repute of being a powerful Trump defender by that time and rapidly earned the endorsement of then-Minority Chief Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Trump. She simply gained the place over Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who additionally ran.
On the time, convention chair — a place tasked with main the social gathering’s messaging — was the No. 3 place within the Home GOP. When Republicans took the bulk after the 2022 midterms, Stefanik remained within the position as an alternative of searching for to maneuver as much as Home majority whip, and he or she grew to become the No. 4 Republican within the Home.
Went viral for taking over college presidents on antisemitism
Whereas Stefanik has had a spot on the nationwide stage for years, her prominence shot up final 12 months after she, at a congressional listening to, pressed three college presidents about antisemitism on faculty campuses following Hamas’s Oct. 7 assault on Israel — a line of questioning that went viral.
Two out of three of the college presidents testifying resigned after the listening to amid blowback from their appearances, a improvement that Stefanik celebrated.
“TWO DOWN,” she wrote on the social platform X after Harvard President Claudine Homosexual resigned.
The listening to — which passed off earlier than the Home Training and Workforce Committee — earned Stefanik approval from each side of the aisle, with Democrats and Republicans backing her push to have the college presidents faraway from their positions.
Stefanik has since emerged because the face of the Home GOP’s efforts to fight antisemitism — and defend Israel in opposition to Hamas. In Might, she gave a speech earlier than the Israeli Knesset, making her the highest-ranking member of the Home to go to Israel since Hamas’s terrorist assault on Israel.
Stefanik has additionally used that place to go after the United Nations. In October, for instance, she wrote in an announcement that the group had been “allowed to rot with antisemitism” and appeared to threaten future funding for the group.
“American taxpayers have no interest in continuing to fund an organization that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have allowed to rot with antisemitism,” she mentioned.
Targeted on lifting up feminine Home GOP candidates
Stefanik put important power into supporting feminine candidates for Congress, beginning a political motion committee — Elevate PAC — to recruit and help Republican ladies working for the Home.
She began the efforts after the variety of Republican ladies within the Home dwindled to only 13 within the 116th Congress, after the 2018 “Blue wave.” That rose to 23 Republican ladies within the subsequent session, beginning in 2021.
Stefanik’s efforts included making performs in GOP primaries to help the feminine candidates, which at instances put her at odds with others in Home GOP management. After then-Nationwide Republican Congressional Committee Chair Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) mentioned it will be a “mistake” for Stefanik to intervene in GOP primaries, Stefanik fired again: “NEWSFLASH… I wasn’t asking for permission.”
One former candidate supported by Stefanik: Karoline Leavitt, the nationwide press secretary for Trump’s 2024 marketing campaign, who ran for a Home seat in New Hampshire in 2022.
Youngest girl in Home when elected
Stefanik made historical past when she gained her seat within the Home in 2014, changing into the youngest girl ever elected to Congress at age 30.
Now 40, Stefanik might change into one of many youngest people to function U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
