16 November 2024

Who Is Michael Waltz, Trump’s Pick to Be National Security Adviser?

Catie Edmondson

Representative Michael Waltz of Florida, whom President-elect Donald J. Trump has chosen to be his national security adviser, is a former Green Beret and three-term congressman who established himself early on Capitol Hill as a key hawkish voice on matters of national security.

Mr. Waltz, who received four Bronze Stars after multiple combat tours in Afghanistan and Africa, has the pedigree of the type of conservative who once espoused the G.O.P. orthodoxy on foreign policy. At the Pentagon, he worked as a defense adviser to defense secretaries Donald H. Rumsfeld and Robert M. Gates. He advised then-Vice President Dick Cheney on counterterrorism.

But during his time in Congress, Mr. Waltz has espoused a national security doctrine that has increasingly jelled with Mr. Trump’s worldview. A member of the Armed Services, Intelligence and Foreign Affairs Committees, he has chastised NATO allies for not meeting their military spending commitments and taken a hard line on China and Iran.

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