Mike Waltz seemed like a natural and well-qualified pick to be national security adviser. He has a strong foreign policy and military background, and his nomination was lauded by foreign-policy hawks. But he’s out, lasting barely past the 100-day mark of Donald Trump’s second term, after a tenure marked by dysfunction, interagency tension, and, ultimately, a loss of confidence by the president. Some of these issues spilled out into the public view, such as The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg’s addition to a Signal chat in which national security officials discussed a strike on Yemen-based Houthi rebels. Potentially more damning, however, was the dysfunction that was largely out of view of the public eye. Waltz’s ouster, seemingly months in the making, leaves several questions as to the future of Trump foreign policy.
Reports suggested Waltz had run afoul of White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, to the point that the relationship was likely untenable. Waltz had tried to sideline Wiles in national security matters and exclude her from National Security Council meetings. Whatever his reasoning was here, it seems tactically unwise to anger or dismiss the second most important person in the White House if one wishes to continue working there. At a minimum, it demonstrated Waltz couldn’t properly appreciate and navigate the power dynamics within the Trump White House. In fact, both Wiles and Vice President J.D. Vance had advised President Trump to dismiss Waltz several weeks ago. Waltz’s only saving grace seemed to have been the president’s desire not to award a perceived victory to his critics and detractors in the aftermath of the Signal chat story.
Beyond butting heads with Wiles, several personnel decisions Waltz made had caused distrust among some of the president’s most ardent supporters, both before inauguration and more recently. During the transition, close Trump supporters and former staffers had publicly complained that Waltz was taking insufficient steps, in their eyes, to conduct a more thorough purge and rebuilding of the National Security Council staff. The failure to target the “deep state” holdovers created a sense of distrust that Waltz may not have been completely aligned with the president’s priorities or interested in building the kind of staff these advocates felt would best serve Trump.
This complaint spread from the world of former government officials into the fever swamps of red-pill conspiracy mongers, where it found a ready torchbearer in Laura Loomer. She railed for months against Waltz and the NSC staff, culminating in an April 2 showdown in the Oval Office wherein she demanded the firing of several NSC staff and successfully walked out with four scalps. It took nearly a month longer for Trump to oust Waltz and announce that he’d be appointing him as U.N. ambassador, but Loomer and others who want the U.S. to recede from global leadership are now celebrating the removal of a man they claim was a misaligned neocon.
In Waltz’s stead, President Trump has named Secretary of State Marco Rubio to also serve as acting national security adviser, a merging of offices previously held by Henry Kissinger for two years. It’s unclear how long this arrangement will continue, or if Rubio will be merely a short-term placeholder but the role will require a tightening up of a currently sloppy process and coordinating a fragmented national security team.
The president’s foreign policy inner circle is reported to be divided between those who favor a more robust and forceful foreign policy, and those who favor restraint, retraction, and more discussion—even with bad actors who use negotiations as a delaying tactic or as a legitimization of their cause. Debates on how to handle the Iranian nuclear program reportedly have Vance, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Wiles on one side, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and, until last week, Waltz on the other. Whoever takes the job coordinating the future policy discussions and debates (hopefully via means other than Signal), could help tip the balance as to what advice the president hears on issues spanning a range of global tinderboxes.
While Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, was initially floated as a possible Waltz replacement, this was almost immediately shot down, following reports that Witkoff himself did not want the job. If Trump had been seriously considering Witkoff, it suggests the primary, and possibly sole, consideration was someone with whom he has rapport, trust, and confidence. But such a pick would not augur well in regards to foreign policy instincts. Witkoff, being a neophyte in international and security affairs, seemed like unmolded clay as he assumed the negotiator role and, like clay, carried away impressions of those he pressed against. He suggested Iran could maintain enriched uranium at levels President Trump himself had previously said were unacceptable. He suggested a final peace in the Ukraine conflict would be best achieved by acceding to all Russian demands. And he admitted that he had been hoodwinked in negotiations with Hamas.
Whoever leads the NSC next, be it Rubio on an enduring basis or a player to be named later, the president and the country will be best served by someone who not only can overcome the organizational and hierarchical difficulties Waltz created for himself, but who can also balance the advice of the administration’s senior advisers, who lean toward favoring restrained American global leadership. Trump has shown himself to be neither a traditional isolationist nor a fan of the previous U.S. role in multinational relationships, therefore he should receive all perspectives on foreign policy decisions. The next national security adviser should see his or her role as acting neither as a gatekeeper nor as one who tries to create foreign policy sua sponte, but as one who helps the president receive, sort, and most importantly, weigh the advice against the president’s stated goal of “peace through strength.” With so many on the team advocating weakness, the president would do himself a favor selecting someone who understands the benefits, limits, and appropriate use of American power and influence and, most importantly, the costs of pretending the United States can ignore the dark clouds that gather in various corners of the world.
