President-elect Donald Trump has nominated New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, one of his closest allies in Congress, to serve as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
“I am honored to nominate Chairwoman Elise Stefanik to serve in my Cabinet as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Elise is an incredibly strong, tough, and smart America First fighter,” the president-elect said in a statement sent to the Daily Beast by a transition team spokesperson.
Stefanik was first elected to represent New York’s 21st District in 2014 at age 30, becoming the youngest woman ever elected to Congress at the time. She was named the chair of the House Republican Conference in 2021.
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Although she began her career as a moderate conservative, Stefanik has spent the last few years closely aligning herself with Trump, defending him during scandals like the Jan. 6 Capitol riots and the sexual abuse and defamation lawsuits brought by columnist E. Jean Carroll.
Stefanik has little foreign policy experience, but she used her position on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce to lead the charge against Ivy League administrators during hearings on campus antisemitism after the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war last year.
The highly publicized hearings eventually lead to the resignations of University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill and Harvard University President Claudine Gay.
Politico first reported that Stefanik was under consideration for a diplomatic post by the incoming Trump administration. Her appointment to the U.N. job was reported by CNN, who learned about the job offer from two anonymous sources.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley served as Trump’s first U.N. ambassador during his first administration. Haley left the job in December 2018 and was eventually replaced by Kelly Craft, Trump’s former ambassador to Canada.
Haley, who ran against Trump in the 2024 Republican Primary, is not under consideration for a Cabinet position in the new administration, the president-elect said on Saturday.
In a statement posted on social media, Stefanik thanked the president-elect and accepted the nomination.
“The work ahead is immense as we see antisemitism skyrocketing coupled with four years of catastrophically weak U.S. leadership that significantly weakened our national security and diminished our standing in the eyes of both allies and adversaries,” Stefanik wrote.
Stefanik also thanked her colleagues in the House of Representatives and her constituents in upstate New York, but said she was “excited for this next chapter” that will require her to vacate the seat she held for six years.
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