Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free
Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world
Donald Trump has chosen Elise Stefanik to be the US ambassador to the UN, picking a loyal ally in Congress and a critic of the international organisation to serve on his national security team.
“I am honored to nominate Chairwoman Elise Stefanik to serve in my Cabinet as US Ambassador to the United Nations,” Trump said in a statement on Monday. “Elise is an incredibly strong, tough, and smart America First fighter.”
The president-elect’s decision is one of his first cabinet-level appointments and signals that the incoming Trump administration will probably be more protective of Israel at the UN than its predecessor.
The New York Republican congresswoman went viral last year for questioning Claudine Gay and Liz Magill, the then-presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania respectively, about antisemitism on their campuses. Both ultimately resigned after they struggled to give clear responses to Stefanik’s questions about whether calling for the genocide of Jews would violate school conduct policy.
Stefanik, 40, has risen quickly in the political world. After graduating from Harvard in 2006, she worked in George W Bush’s White House and in 2012 helped Republican vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan with debate preparation.
In 2014, she was elected at age 30 to represent a US House of Representatives district in upstate New York, making her then the youngest woman elected to Congress in US history. Over the past decade, she has gone up the House Republican leadership and serves on the intelligence and armed services committees.
Stefanik is a staunch critic of the UN and has repeatedly accused the international body of being antisemitic for its frequent criticism of Israel and its conduct of its war against Hamas in Gaza. The UN has long opposed the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians in the West Bank.
Stefanik in October called for a “complete reassessment of US funding of the United Nations” and has backed blocking US support for UNRWA, the UN Palestinian refugee aid organisation which is the main provider of assistance for Palestinians living in occupied territories.
House majority leader Steve Scalise and other Republicans praised Trump’s pick. ‘There is nobody better to represent President Trump’s foreign policy and America’s values at the United Nations than Elise Stefanik,” said Scalise.
The New York Post first reported the appointment.