Trump picks Rep. Elise Stefanik for UN ambassador

CNN
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President-elect Donald Trump has named Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik as his choose for UN ambassador.

“I’m honored to appoint Chairwoman Elise Stefanik to serve in my Cupboard as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Elise is an extremely robust, robust, and sensible America First fighter,” Trump mentioned in an announcement, confirming CNN’s reporting Sunday that Stefanik was provided the position.

The New York congresswoman, the fourth-ranking Home Republican, has been a robust ally of the president-elect and a significant fundraiser for the GOP.

CNN has reached out to Stefanik for remark.

The selection of Stefanik alerts a extra combative US posture towards the UN. Stefanik has incessantly criticized the worldwide group, significantly over its criticism of Israel, and final month mentioned the Biden administration ought to contemplate a “full reassessment” of US funding for the UN if the Palestinian Authority continues to pursue a push to revoke Israel’s UN membership.

Stefanik, the Home Republican Convention chair, has for years been certainly one of Trump’s staunchest supporters in Congress. Her aggressive efficiency throughout his 2019 impeachment hearings made her a “Republican star,” as Trump himself mentioned on the time. And once more she stepped up for Trump after his 2020 defeat, when she objected to certifying President Joe Biden’s win within the Home and promoted Trump’s false claims about election fraud.

However she wasn’t all the time Trump’s greatest fan: The New York Republican, who was the youngest lady ever elected to Congress on the time of her first win in 2014, voted towards certainly one of his signature legislative victories – his 2017 tax plan. A self-styled “impartial voice” who had evinced a reasonable persona, she’d beforehand received excessive reward from former Home Speaker Paul Ryan, who wrote in Time journal that Stefanik was a “builder – no simple feat in an age when a lot of politics is about tearing individuals down.” She’d labored for Ryan throughout Mitt Romney’s 2012 marketing campaign.

As soon as a Trump skeptic — and occasional outright critic — throughout his 2016 presidential marketing campaign and into the early days of his presidency, she shifted from detractor to defender — a transfer she defined was due partly because of Trump’s reputation in her upstate New York district.

As Trump sought the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, she was amongst a handful of potential operating mates, a job for which she overtly jockeyed. She additionally advised CNN earlier this 12 months that she’s “proud to be a prime surrogate” and “would proudly serve in a future Trump administration.”

Stefanik changed then-Rep. Liz Cheney as GOP convention chair in Could 2021 after the Wyoming Republican known as out Trump’s election falsehoods. She is a member of the Armed Providers Committee and the Home Everlasting Choose Committee on Intelligence, amongst different committees. Stefanik made headlines final 12 months along with her marketing campaign to oust faculty leaders who didn’t, as she and others noticed it, adequately denounce antisemitism throughout a Home listening to on the matter.

Trump mentioned Saturday in a social media submit that he “won’t be inviting” again Nikki Haley, who served as UN ambassador below his first administration. Haley, the previous governor of South Carolina, later ran a bitter major marketing campaign towards Trump earlier than dropping out and at last endorsing him months later.

This story has been up to date with further developments and data.

CNN’s Gregory Krieg, Andrew Kaczynski, Em Steck, Kaanita Iyer and Jack Forrest contributed to this report.