Trump is pursuing China hawk Mike Waltz as national security adviser

Donald Trump asked Florida Republican Congressman Mike Waltz to serve as national security adviser, multiple news point of sale ratio.

“President-elect Trump will begin making decisions about who will serve in his second administration soon,” said Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for Trump’s transition team. The Independent. “These decisions will be announced when they are made.”

The Independent has contacted Waltz for comment.

Reacting to the reported offer, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush praised Waltz on X as a “great choice” and a “patriot”.

If Waltz joins Trump’s White House, he will face a series of complicated national security issues, including Israel’s expanding regional war with Hamas and Lebanon, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and competition with China.

The highly influential position does not require Senate confirmation.

Waltz, a former Green Beret and policy adviser to Defense Secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates, is known for supporting a tougher stance on Iran and China, a country that he argues is locked in a new Cold War with the US

In 2023, Waltz PUT a bill calling for greater US cooperation with Indo-Pacific nations to counter Chinese and other “malign” influences in the Asia-Pacific region.

He has plead for Europe to do more to support Ukraine’s fight against Russia and a called on the US to more clearly define its goals and timetable in supporting the country, raising the current policy as a “blank check” for Ukraine.

“The Biden administration has not explained either the American objective in Ukraine or its strategy to achieve it,” Waltz said he wrote in a Fox News op-ed last year. “Will US military spending continue until Ukraine pushes Russia back to its pre-war borders? Its pre-2014 borders? Or until the Putin regime collapses?”

Waltz has been a sharp critic of the Biden administration’s national security policy on issues such as the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and Chinese espionage in the US. His wife, Dr. Julia Nesheiwat, served as Homeland Security Advisor in the Trump administration.

“I’ve never in my life seen the world fall apart like it is under Joe Biden,” Waltz said said Florida politics in July. “We had a president who defeated ISIS, broke Iran, stood by Israel, always stood by our allies, made China pay. You haven’t seen any spy balloons under President Trump, have you?

He also claimed that the military under Joe Biden focused on “DEI” and “pronouns.”

After Trump won in 2024, Waltz said NPR the new administration has a strong “mandate” to return to previous Trump administration policies on issues like the border.

He also called for greater Pentagon oversight.

“We still have a Pentagon that can’t audit itself, despite years and years of trying the basics to understand where every tax dollar is going,” he said. “Apparently they can go through weapon systems. Only, time and time again, it costs twice as much, delivers half as much, and takes twice as long as originally planned. And there are a bunch of new technologies from Silicon Valley and elsewhere that are actually eating a little bit to help us with our defense and security problems, and they can’t get through the red tape.”

The Trump transition team has held a number of key positions in recent days, selecting New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik to serve as ambassador to the UN Stephen Miller, a deputy chief of staff for policy to Tom Homan the border tsar and former New York Republican representative Lee Zeldin will lead the EPA.