WASHINGTON—President-elect Donald Trump is expected to nominate Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida as Secretary of State and has asked Rep. Mike Waltz, a Green Beret veteran, to be his White House national security adviser, according to people familiar with his thinking.
Trump could change his mind on the Rubio move, as he remains fond of others lobbying for the secretary of state role. But people familiar with the Rubio decision said that Trump feels good about going with him, who he once considered for the vice president slot.
Spokespeople for the Trump transition and Rubio didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
The national security adviser is a highly influential post appointed by the president that doesn’t require Senate confirmation. The job entails coordinating among all the top national security agencies, briefing the president and executing his policies.
Waltz will step into his role amid prolonged conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, and Trump is expected to try to prevent further escalation abroad by building deterrence against foreign rivals while favoring transactional policies with U.S. allies.
Trump, in his first term in office, went through four national security advisers, the first of whom served only 22 days. The others, including Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster and John Bolton, were eventually pushed out by Trump over their disagreements over certain policy issues. Robert O’Brien, Trump’s last national security adviser, served through the Covid-19 pandemic and the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol and was among the names Trump has considered for a cabinet job in his coming term.
Waltz, (R., Fla.), has been an outspoken Trump supporter in recent years, echoing the former president’s no-tolerance on illegal immigration and skepticism of America’s support for Ukraine.
Last year, Waltz penned an opinion piece for FoxNews.com in which he argued that “the era of Ukraine’s blank check from Congress is over.” He has echoed Trump in calling on Europe to do more to ensure the collective defense of members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
“Stopping Russia before it draws NATO and therefore the U.S. into war is the right thing to do,” Waltz wrote. “But the burden cannot continue to be solely on the shoulders of the American people, especially while Western Europe gets a pass.”
This month, he told NPR that Trump’s vow to negotiate between Ukraine and Russia is “perfectly reasonable” and said that if Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn’t cooperate, the U.S. has “leverage, like taking the handcuffs off of the long-range weapons we provided Ukraine as well.”
Waltz is among the most hawkish members of Congress on China, serving on the House China Task Force that coordinates policy on how the U.S. should compete with China. He also has echoed Trump’s calls for accountability after the Biden administration’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Waltz, 50, is the latest West Wing official to hail from Florida, the state Trump now calls home. He was born in Boynton Beach, Fla., and grew up in Jacksonville.
Waltz served 27 years in the U.S. Army and National Guard, retiring during his second term in Congress. After being commissioned as an Army lieutenant, Waltz graduated from Ranger School and was selected for the elite Green Berets, serving worldwide as a Special Forces officer with several combat tours in Afghanistan, the Middle East and Africa. He was awarded four Bronze Stars, including two for Valor.
In government, he has served in various capacities at the White House and the Pentagon, including as a defense policy director for Secretaries of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates.
In 2018, he was elected to serve as congressman for Florida’s sixth congressional district, replacing Ron DeSantis, who that year was elected the state’s governor. Waltz’s wife Julia Nesheiwat, a fellow combat veteran who served in several presidential administrations, served as a homeland security adviser to Trump during his first administration.