US President Donald Trump has appointed Secretary of State Marco Rubio as interim acting national security adviser to replace Mike Waltz, who was at the center of a scandal over the leak of classified information in the Signal messenger. About this informs The Guardian.
Donald Trump has announced that Marco Rubio will temporarily serve as US national security adviser while remaining as secretary of state. At the same time, Trump nominated Mike Waltz for the post of US Permanent Representative to the United Nations.
“I am pleased to announce that I am nominating Mike Waltz to be the next United States Ambassador to the United Nations. As my National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz has worked hard to put our nation’s interests first. 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 to fulfill his mandated duties at the State Department.” Trump emphasized.
The last time such a combination of positions took place was in the 1970s, when Henry Kissinger simultaneously served as secretary of state and national security adviser. The discussion of replacement candidates lasted several weeks. The plan to remove Volz has intensified in recent days. Mike Waltz and his deputy Alex Wong will leave their positions in the White House.
The personnel changes were prompted by an incident in March, when national security adviser Michael Waltz accidentally added The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to a closed group at Signal where administration officials were discussing action against the Houthis in Yemen. After the publication of the material by Goldberg, a scandal broke out around the situation.
Trump, commenting on the incident, said that Waltz had learned a “lesson”. Volz himself took responsibility for the mistake. The president, however, said at the time that he had no intention of firing any members of the national security team.
