Rubio becomes interim national security adviser as Waltz is sent to UN

David Catanese, Miami Herald on May 1, 2025

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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is tapping Secretary of State Marco Rubio to replace Mike Waltz as his national security adviser, handing one Floridian two powerful titles just as he demotes another.

Trump described Rubio’s new role as an “interim” one, leaving his options open as he overhauls his National Security Council in the wake of Waltz’s departure.

Waltz, who was pushed out of his role as the president’s chief security adviser, will head to New York to be ambassador to the United Nations, an entity Trump has long been hostile to.

The personnel changes mark the first significant staff shake-up of the second Trump administration and come five weeks after The Atlantic broke the explosive news that Waltz inadvertently added journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to a Signal messaging group where top U.S. national security officials discussed sensitive military plans for strikes against Houthi rebels.

While the Signal snafu badly damaged Waltz’s public credibility, it was his internal organizational and operational skills that placed him in Trump’s crosshairs.

The elevation of Rubio to a dual role is unusual but not unprecedented. The last secretary of state to simultaneously serve as national security adviser was Henry Kissinger, who held both roles from 1973 to 1975 under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

The sudden reshaping of the second Trump administration even took top staffers by surprise.

At Thursday’s State Department briefing, spokeswoman Tammy Bruce was informed by a reporter of Trump’s decision to appoint her boss to a new role.

“It is clear that I just heard this — from you,” Bruce said. “I have some insights as to the potential of some things that might happen. But when the president, and this of course, is all presidential decisions, right? So I’m with the State Department.”

“Things don’t happen until the president says they’re going to happen,” Bruce continued, appearing blindsided by the news.

Waltz’s nomination to the United Nations will require Senate confirmation. The position has been open for the entirety of Trump’s second term after the president’s original appointee, Rep. Elise Stefanik, failed to receive a vote.

Republicans feared losing Stefanik’s vote in a closely divided House, and Trump eventually requested the New York congresswoman stay in her seat in the lower chamber to fortify the slim GOP majority there.

Waltz, who has not commented on the reason for his ouster as national security adviser, posted online that he was honored to continue serving the president in a new capacity.