Vice President JD Vance said on Thursday that President Donald Trump replaced Mike Waltz as the national security adviser because he believed the Florida native would be more effective as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Vance described Waltz's new role as potentially a "promotion" for the former congressman.
Speaking to Bret Baier on Fox News' Special Report, Vance said that both he and Trump "like Mike" but believed that he would be a better fit in the role of UN ambassador, especially now that the key changes to the National Security Council are complete. Waltz was removed from his role of Trump's National Security Adviser on Thursday morning.
Promotion for Waltz
"We brought Mike on to do some serious reforms of the National Security Council. He has done that," Vance told Fox News "Special Report" host Bret Baier. "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 UN ambassador as we get beyond this stage of the reforms that we've made to the National Security Council."
"I think you can make a good argument that it's a promotion," the Vance said.
Earlier on Thursday, Trump announced that he was nominating Waltz as the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, a position that will need approval from the Senate.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been named the interim national security adviser while he will continue to serve as the nation's top diplomat. "I think the media wants to frame this as a firing," Vance said.
"Donald Trump has fired a lot of people. He doesn't give them Senate-confirmed appointments afterwards. What he thinks is that Mike Waltz is going to better serve the administration, most importantly, the American people in that role."
Not a Simple Termination
Those close to the White House were shocked by Trump's decision to reshuffle his staff, as few expected Waltz to be fired from his post—let alone tapped as the next UN ambassador. Initially, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) had been chosen for the ambassador role, but she was later asked to remain in Congress to help strengthen the GOP's majority in the House.
Waltz is the first high-profile figure to be removed from Trump's second-term administration, having served just 102 days as national security adviser.
Trump had previously defended Waltz after he mistakenly added The Atlantic's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, to a private Signal group where top officials were discussing military plans to strike the Houthis in Yemen.
Vance, who was also part of that Signal group, voiced doubts at the time about launching strikes against the Houthis, criticizing the move as yet another example of the U.S. "bailing Europe out."
However, the vice president told Baier on Thursday that he was merely talking about communication strategies. "If you go back to when those messages were leaked, what we were doing is having a private strategic conversation about how to message this to the American people," Vance said.
"It's always important to explain what you're actually doing, how to ensure that some of the frankly, our allied countries that are under spending on their own defense, are actually carrying some of the burden. That was a concern that I raised about this particular operation, but I wasn't overruled."
