Mike Waltz’s decent interval expired.
The conventional wisdom said the White House would wait several weeks after the Signal debacle to oust the national security adviser, who fat-fingered journalist Jeffrey Goldberg into that notorious thread, and so it has proved.
The hawkish former Republican congressman was a good, stabilizing voice in a White House susceptible to isolationist influence and Trump’s own whims. But, whatever the White House and its most fervent allies insisted at the time, the Signal chat was a major embarrassment. Already distrusted and targeted by so-called restrainers from within the administration and without, Waltz saw his standing erode further. A couple of weeks ago, the provocateur Laura Loomer got the White House to force the firing of some of his aides, which was a little like taking personnel advice from Lyndon LaRouche. Without strong personal relationships to fall back on, Waltz was wounded and exposed and inevitably hunted down on the bureaucratic Serengeti.
His consolation prize is a nomination to the U.N. ambassadorship. We wish him well, but the confirmation hearings — with Democrats relentlessly hounding him on the Signal thread — won’t be any fun.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is going to fill in as national security adviser, which, one hopes, is a very temporary expedient. Rubio is a capable man with sound foreign policy views, but this dual role was a mistake when Henry Kissinger took it on in the Nixon administration.
The national security adviser is supposed to be an honest broker among the various national-security players. That is impossible when he himself heads a major agency. Rubio’s plate is also, notionally, very full. He’s the head of USAID and the National Archives, too. What’s next? (We hear the chairmanship of the Federal Reserve is going to be open next year.)
Although the restrainers look to be in the ascendancy, President Trump should realize that his goals of eliminating Iran’s nuclear program and forging a peace deal in Ukraine (at least one worth having) won’t be achieved without the sort of tough measures that Waltz was vilified for advocating. The more Trump bends to the dovish faction of MAGA, the more likely his foreign policy is to end in failure.