President-elect Trump’s nomination of Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations units the stage for one of many group’s most vocal and combative critics to have a strong seat at its desk.
Stefanik, 40, the fourth-ranking Home Republican and a loyal Trump loyalist, has little international coverage expertise. However she has constructed a fame over the past yr as a number one champion of Israel, partially by repeatedly hammering the U.N. for its reproach of the nation’s navy response to final yr’s assaults by Hamas. In September, she accused the group of being contaminated by “antisemitic rot.”
Her nomination as America’s prime envoy to the U.N. sends an early sign that Trump intends to aspect squarely with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a conservative Trump ally who has ignored President Biden’s requires a regional cease-fire, because the Center Japanese battle expands and intensifies.
The posting additionally sends a broader message to the world that Trump’s “America First” strategy — which envisions a shrinking position for the US in world diplomacy and world affairs — is prone to reign supreme in his second time period.
That technique is prone to floor most prominently in Ukraine, the place Trump has declined to commit extra navy help as Kyiv continues the years-long battle in opposition to Russia’s invading forces. Stefanik known as for “devastating action” to defeat Russian President Vladimir Putin early within the conflict, however voted in opposition to a multibillion-dollar help bundle to Ukraine earlier this yr.
In accepting the nomination Monday, Stefanik defended Trump’s shift towards isolationism, suggesting it will nudge America’s allies into taking a extra energetic position within the pursuit of worldwide peace.
“America continues to be the beacon of the world,” she stated in a press release, “but we expect and must demand that our friends and allies be strong partners in the peace we seek.”
Trump’s Republican allies on Capitol Hill shortly hailed the nomination on Monday, praising Stefanik as a “fantastic choice” for the place.
“She is extremely qualified for this new role in public service, and the House’s loss will be a huge gain for the Trump Administration and the country. There is nobody better to represent President Trump’s foreign policy and America’s values at the United Nations than Elise Stefanik,” Home Majority Chief Steve Scalise (R-La.) stated in a press release.
However her promotion to world envoy is bound to ring alarm bells amongst each conventional conservatives, who nonetheless help a muscular protection of NATO and America’s abroad allies, and Democrats, who take into account Stefanik to be an unscrupulous political opportunist and a blind sycophant to Trump.
“Trump’s pick of Rep. Stefanik is a gift to Vladamir Putin,” stated Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), a senior member of the Home International Affairs Committee. “She abandoned Ukrainians in April, and this further signals Donald Trump and MAGA’s retreat from the global stage.”
Stefanik’s imminent bounce to the administration instantly sparked the race to interchange her in GOP management, with a handful of GOP lawmakers already saying their bids. It may additionally complicate Trump’s bold 100-day legislative agenda by reducing into what’s already anticipated to be a slim majority for the Home Republicans.
Though Stefanik serves on the Home Armed Providers and Intelligence committees, she has made larger waves from her perch as a senior member of the Training and Workforce Committee, the place she was in line for the gavel earlier than leaping into Home management.
However the New York Republican noticed her star rise quickly in December when, throughout a listening to of the Training committee, she questioned a trio of college presidents about antisemitism on their campuses following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, assault on Israel — an episode that went viral and prompted two of the three leaders to resign from their posts.
Since then, the Home GOP convention chair has made combating antisemitism a chief a part of her portfolio on Capitol Hill, a posture that has included incisive criticism of the United Nations.
In October, for instance, the New York Republican appeared to threaten U.S. funding for the U.N. over the Biden administration’s alleged “silence” concerning perceived antisemitism within the group. The assertion was in response to the Palestinian Authority eyeing an effort to expel Israel from the United Nations.
“Should the Palestinian Authority succeed in their antisemitic pursuit, it would result in a complete reassessment of U.S. funding of the United Nations. American taxpayers have no interest in continuing to fund an organization that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have allowed to rot with antisemitism,” Stefanik wrote.
She additionally took a jab on the United Nations in her Might deal with earlier than the Israeli Knesset, when she turned the highest-ranking Home member to go to Israel after the Oct. 7 assault.
“When the enemy is inside the gates of the United Nations, America must be the one to call it by its name and destroy it,” Stefanik stated. “President Trump understood that, and B’ezrat hashem, we will return to that strategy soon.”
Stefanik is already making clear that Israel will stay a prime precedence of hers if she is confirmed as ambassador: The congresswoman is scheduled to satisfy with Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Tuesday, in accordance with The Instances of Israel.
The nomination highlights Trump’s penchant for rewarding his most loyal allies with plum assignments. It additionally marks the fruits of Stefanik’s head-snapping flip from reasonable lawmaker with a fame for reaching throughout the aisle to fierce partisan who emerged as one among Trump’s most ardent defenders on Capitol Hill. That help first gained prominence throughout Trump’s first impeachment in 2019, and it solely grew louder within the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.
That loyalty to the previous president was shortly rewarded within the months following the rampage when Home Republicans — infuriated that Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), a member of their very own management ranks, had voted to question Trump for his position within the assault — voted to oust Cheney and promote Stefanik because the convention chair.
As Home investigators started inspecting the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, Stefanik blamed then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for the rampage. It was a well-recognized argument — one initiated by Trump.
