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Trump picks Florida Rep. Mike Waltz as national security adviser
Washington — President-elect Donald Trump is expected to name Rep. Michael Waltz, a Florida Republican, as his national security adviser, two sources familiar with the plans confirmed to CBS News.
The national security adviser is a top aide to the president who plays a major role in foreign and national security policy decision-making. The role does not require Senate confirmation.
Waltz, a Green Beret veteran who served multiple combat tours in Afghanistan, the Middle East and Africa, was elected to Congress in 2018, replacing Ron DeSantis who had been elected Florida’s governor.
The Wall Street Journal was first to report that Trump had selected Waltz.
Waltz, a China hawk, serves on the House China Task Force that seeks to develop solutions to address the Chinese Communist Party’s influence.
He has also been skeptical of giving more aid to Ukraine as it fights Russia’s invasion. He has said that the U.S. has “leverage” over both Ukraine and Russia to get them to the table to negotiate an end to the war.
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
“We have leverage, like taking the handcuffs off of the long-range weapons we provided Ukraine as well. And then, of course, I think we have plenty of leverage with Zelenskyy to get them to the table,” he told NPR earlier this month.
He served nearly three decades in the U.S. Army and National Guard, retiring from the military during his second term in Congress. He was awarded four Bronze Stars, including two for valor.
Before his election to Congress, Waltz served in various roles at the Pentagon and White House, including as defense policy director for Secretaries of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates.
Waltz’s wife, Julia Nesheiwat, served as Trump’s Homeland Security adviser in the last year of his first term. She has also served in various roles in the Bush and Obama administrations.
Trump had three national security advisers in his first administration. Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster (now a CBS News contributor) was the first, and Trump fired him after 13 months. John Bolton replaced McMaster, and he lasted 17 months in the job before he was also ousted from the administration. Trump’s final national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, remained in the post until the end of Trump’s first term.
The House Ethics Committee, which has been conducting an investigation into sexual misconduct and obstruction allegations against Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, scheduled a vote for Friday on whether to release its report, according to three sources with knowledge of the committee’s work.
Hours after President-elect Donald Trump said he planned to nominate Gaetz to be attorney general, Gaetz resigned his congressional seat, effective immediately.
“I do not intend to take the oath of office for the same office in the 119th Congress, to pursue the position of Attorney General in the Trump Administration,” Gaetz said in his resignation letter obtained by CBS News
House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters that there was about an eight-week period during which Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis could fill his seat by setting the date for a special election.
Now that Gaetz has resigned, it is unclear whether the panel will vote on releasing the report, since Gaetz is no longer in Congress.
There is precedent in Congress on the Senate side for an ethics committee report to become public after a member resigns from Congress, however. In 2011, this happened when Sen. John Ensign of Nevada resigned amid allegations that he tried to hide an extramarital affair.
But it’s not clear that that would apply to the House, leaving open the possibility that the report on Gaetz would not be released.
In June, the House Ethics Committee released a statement saying it was investigating a range of allegations against Gaetz, including sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, and bribery.
Multiple sources at the time told CBS News that four women had informed the House Ethics Committee that they had been paid to go to parties that included sex and drugs, and that Gaetz had also attended. The committee has Gaetz’s Venmo transactions that allegedly show payments for the women.
Gaetz has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and has called the committee’s investigation a “frivolous” smear campaign.
Some of the allegations of sexual misconduct under review by the committee were also the subject of a previous Department of Justice probe into Gaetz. Federal investigators sought to determine if Gaetz violated sex trafficking and obstruction of justice laws, but no charges were filed.
The House Ethics Committee resumed its investigation into Gaetz in 2023, following the Justice Department’s decision not to pursue charges against him.
Gaetz has long blamed then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, also a Republican, for the probe. And Gaetz later led the movement to sack McCarthy as speaker.
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