US President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday has extended an offer to Republican Representative Elise Stefanik for the position of US ambassador to the United Nations, CNN reported.
Trump announced on Saturday that neither Nikki Haley nor former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo would be invited to join his administration. During Trump’s previous term, Haley served as US ambassador to the United Nations
“I am honored to nominate Chairwoman Elise Stefanik to serve in my Cabinet as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Elise is an incredibly strong, tough, and smart America First fighter,” Trump said in a statement to the newspaper.
The UN job — a high-profile national security role that comes with offices and a residence in New York City — would bring one of Trump’s highest-profile congressional allies into his administration. Stefanik is currently the fourth-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives.
“I am truly honored to earn President Trump’s nomination to serve in his Cabinet as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations,” Stefanik, 40, said in a separate statement also provided to the Post.
“During my conversation with President Trump, I shared how deeply humbled I am to accept his nomination and that I look forward to earning the support of my colleagues in the United States Senate.”
Stefanik’s office and the Trump transition team didn’t respond to a request for comment on the appointment. CNN reported late Sunday that Trump had offered the congresswoman the job.
In an interview Friday on 77 WABC radio in New York, Stefanik said she is ready to help Trump any way she can, including as a member of his administration because, she said, “he needs strong allies.”
“And you know, I’m honored to have my name in the mix, but I’m focused on serving the president however that sees fit, whether that’s passing the agenda in Congress or serving in his administration,” Stefanik said.
In Trump’s first administration, he appointed former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley as his original UN envoy. Haley mounted an unsuccessful bid for the Republican nomination against Trump this cycle before ultimately dropping out and endorsing him.
In the final days of this year’s presidential campaign, the Harvard University graduate quickly stepped up to publicly respond to billionaire Mark Cuban’s assertion that Trump did not surround himself with strong and intelligent women — pointing to herself as proof that he was wrong.
“I’m proud to be the highest-ranking woman in the United States Congress,” Stefanik said in a video. “When I ran, I was the youngest woman ever elected. I’m the most senior woman on the House Arms Services Committee, the House Intelligence Committee and I proudly am voting and endorse President Trump.”
Stefanik has spoken publicly in the past about how much she loved the university, from which she graduated in 2006. She focused there on government studies, and wrote for the student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson. She taught civics to public school students in Boston and Cambridge, and helped run a study group for the late Ted Sorensen, who wrote speeches for former President John F. Kennedy.
But Harvard removed Stefanik from an advisory board after she made comments supporting Trump’s false claims of fraud in the 2020 election.
Before Harvard, Stefanik had attended a tony all-girls prep school in Albany. After college she worked as a staffer to George W. Bush and developed a reputation for working across the aisle with Democrats. At age 30, she became then the youngest woman elected to Congress.
But by 2019 she had made a rightward turn, even describing herself as “ultra-MAGA,” in reference to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.
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