CIPHER BRIEF REPORTING – The announcement was made on the 101st day of the second Trump administration, and while some insiders said they saw it coming, it caught even some administration officials by surprise. President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that Mike Waltz was no longer his National Security Advisor – that job would go to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, on at least an interim basis – and that Waltz would be nominated to be the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.
Such high-level shakeups were common during the first Trump administration – he had four National Security Advisors during those four years, and fired the first of them, Michael Flynn, less than one month into his term. But this was the first major shakeup since Trump’s second inaugural.
“From his time in uniform on the battlefield, in Congress and, as my National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz has worked hard to put our Nation’s Interests first,” Trump wrote in a post on social media. “I know he will do the same in his new role. In the interim, Secretary of State Marco Rubio will serve as National Security Advisor, while continuing his strong leadership at the State Department.”
The changes atop the national security leadership came a little over a month after Waltz inadvertently added a journalist to a Signal group chat which was used to discuss pending U.S. strikes against Houthi militants in Yemen. Waltz said at the time that he took “full responsibility” for the mishap, and President Trump stood by Waltz after the revelation.
But the episode damaged Waltz within the administration – Axios reported Thursday that he had been a “dead man walking” for the last month – and multiple reports suggested that Waltz had other issues with Trump and his top aides. He was seen by some as too hawkish on Russia, Iran and China, to name three different American adversaries, for a President who has vowed a retreat from U.S. military intervention, and has appeared eager to pursue deals with some of those countries.
Waltz had argued that any new nuclear deal with Iran include the complete dismantling of its nuclear program, which went further than Trump’s demand that the program never be used to produce a nuclear weapon. Waltz had also called recently for sharp sanctions against Russia if it failed to agree to a ceasefire with Ukraine. Trump has shown only occasional willingness to be tough on Russia during the negotiations.
A “chaotic” image
Beyond the reasons for the shakeup, some Cipher Brief experts said that it suggested disarray at the highest level of the U.S. national security leadership.
Cipher Brief expert Admiral James Stavridis (Ret.) posted on X after the announcement, “Imagine how unsettled our already unsettled allies, partners and friends overseas are – seeing the turmoil within the U.S. national security establishment.” He also said that “of all President Trump's national security team – Mike Waltz was the most qualified for his job. If he is losing it, let's hope there is an able successor.”
“It looks chaotic,” said Beth Sanner, a Cipher Brief expert who served as Deputy Director for National Intelligence at ODNI and as daily briefer to President Trump in his first term. “It looks to adversaries like another sign that we don't have our act together, that there's not consistency in our policy.”
Sanner also told The Cipher Brief that while the Signal leak itself was damaging for Waltz, the details of the conversations were as well – for what they revealed about Waltz’s role in the deliberations.
Looking closely at the messages in the Signal chat, Sanner said: “He doesn't step in, as you would expect the National Security Advisor to do, to provide policy guidance and that strategic rationale. He takes no responsibility for conveying concerns to the president, and he doesn't tell the participants that the time for debate has passed and the president has made a decision. All of those things I would expect of the National Security Advisor — those didn't happen.”
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Rubio’s new job – and the Kissinger precedent
Marco Rubio now becomes only the second person to hold the jobs of Secretary of State and National Security Advisor at the same time. Henry Kissinger held both positions from September 1973 to November 1975. Rubio has also been serving as the acting head of the U.S. Agency for International Development – which has been all but gutted since President Trump returned to office – and acting archivist for the National Archives and Records Administration. A New York Times headline dubbed Rubio “Secretary of Everything.”
The Secretary of State serves as the country’s top diplomat, principal advisor to the President on foreign policy, and leader and manager of the State Department. It’s a job that can involve all manner of public engagements on the global stage, private diplomacy, the negotiation of treaties and more. It has existed since the birth of the republic; Thomas Jefferson was the first to hold the job.
The National Security Advisor is a more recent addition to the top echelons of policymaking. The role was created in the early years of the Cold War, along with the National Security Council, to coordinate defense, foreign affairs, intelligence and global economic policy. Robert Cutler was the first to hold the job, serving under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The National Security Advisor has traditionally been the White House point person on all national security issues, and the author of an annual document outlining the U.S. national security strategy.
As New York Times national security correspondent David Sanger wrote Thursday, “The Kissinger experiment has not been considered a success by most historians,” because the National Security Advisor is expected “to help resolve differences among the State Department, the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies, among others.” Kissinger was widely viewed as too forceful a figure to play that role.
Sanner, the former Deputy Director for National Intelligence at ODNI, added that times have changed – and today’s proliferation of global threats and crises would make it challenging for anyone to hold down both jobs.
“I think that that is harder today than when Kissinger did it,” Sanner said. “We're in a different time and place. And to have one person do both of those jobs with everything going on, it's too much."
Recent weeks have provided a reminder of those challenges for the country’s national security leaders – whoever they are: the ongoing – and faltering – efforts to pursue peace in Ukraine and Gaza; the high-stakes negotiation to reach a new nuclear deal with Iran; a long slate of issues involving U.S. competition with China; and the fear that a war may be looming between the nuclear armed nations of India and Pakistan. Secretary of State Rubio was busy on that last issue before the Waltz news was made public Thursday, having spoken with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankarin an effort to de-escalate a crisis between the two countries.
Analysts noted that with Waltz out as National Security Advisor, Steve Witkoff, the Trump administration’s special envoy for several of those global hot spots, may become an even more influential figure in the administration. Witkoff has already represented the U.S. in Moscow, Kyiv, the Middle East and in the Iran negotiations.
Meanwhile, in a tumultuous moment, this much is clear: Trump’s next choice for National Security Advisor will inherit as complex a landscape as any of his or her predecessors.
Ethan Masucol contributed reporting.
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