Mike Waltz

Michael George Glen Waltz (born January 31, 1974) is an American politician, diplomat, businessman, author, and former Army Special Forces officer who has served as the 32nd United States ambassador to the United Nations since September 2025 in the second Trump administration. He previously served as the 29th national security advisor from January to May 2025 and was the U.S. representative for Florida's 6th congressional district from 2019 to 2025.

In 2018, Waltz was elected to the House of Representatives, defeating former ambassador Nancy Soderberg and succeeding Ron DeSantis, who was elected governor of Florida that same year. Waltz was re-elected in 2020, 2022, and 2024 with over 60% of the vote in each election. He was chair of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness for the 118th United States Congress. Waltz was considered one of Congress's most hawkish members with regard to China, believing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is in a cold war with the U.S. and the West.

In 2021, Waltz was the first member of Congress to call for a full U.S. boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing over what he described as the CCP's genocide and internment of Chinese Uyghur populations and the enslavement, forced labor, and internment camps of ethnic minorities in China. On November 12, 2024, President-elect Trump announced he would appoint Waltz to serve as national security advisor (NSA) in his second administration. Waltz resigned his House seat prior to taking office on January 20, 2025.

On May 1, 2025, it was reported that Waltz, along with Deputy National Security Advisor Alex Wong, would leave their posts following group chat leaks on the messaging platform Signal. Waltz served as NSA for 101 days, the second shortest tenure for a non-acting officeholder in the position (Mike Flynn, Trump's initial first term NSA, lasted 24 days). The same day, Trump announced via social media that he intended to nominate Waltz to serve as Ambassador to the United Nations (replacing the withdrawn nomination of Elise Stefanik) and that Marco Rubio would take on an acting role as National Security Advisor.

Waltz was born on January 31, 1974, to a single mother in Boynton Beach, Florida, and grew up in Jacksonville, where he graduated from Stanton College Preparatory School. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in international studies from the Virginia Military Institute in 1996, graduating with honors as a Distinguished Military Graduate.

Waltz was commissioned as an armor officer in the U.S. Army in 1996. He served on active duty in the Army from 1996 to 2000, including as an M1A1 Abrams tank platoon leader, and later graduated from Ranger School and graduated from the Special Forces Qualification Course. Waltz subsequently served as a Green Beret, deploying multiple times to Afghanistan, the Middle East and Africa. For his actions in combat, Waltz was decorated with four Bronze Stars, including two for valor.

From 2002 to 2011 and 2016 to 2023, Waltz served in Company B, 2nd Battalion, 20th Special Forces and Special Operations Detachment-NATO in the MD-ARNG. From 2012 to 2015, he served with Special Operations Detachment-Africa in the TX-ARNG.

He was the first Army Special Forces soldier to be elected to Congress. He served in the Bush administration as a defense policy director in the Pentagon and as counterterrorism advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney.

Waltz worked in the Pentagon as a defense policy director for secretaries of defense Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates. He went on to serve in the White House as the vice president's counterterrorism advisor.

Upon becoming the national security advisor under President Donald Trump, Waltz retired from the Army National Guard at the rank of colonel.

Waltz ran for Florida's 6th congressional district in 2018 to succeed incumbent Republican Ron DeSantis, who retired before being elected governor of Florida. He defeated John Ward and Fred Costello in the Republican primary before facing Democratic nominee Nancy Soderberg, a former Alternate US Ambassador to the United Nations and the former deputy national security advisor, in the general election. Waltz won with 56.31% of the vote to Soderberg's 43.69%.

Waltz was challenged by Democratic nominee Clint Curtis. He received 265,393 votes (60.64%) to Curtis's 172,305 (39.36%).

Waltz was sworn in to the 116th United States Congress on January 3, 2019.

In April 2020, Waltz joined the National Guard's COVID-19 response efforts as a colonel on the planning staff. On November 6, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, he tested positive for the virus.

In December 2020, Waltz was one of 126 Republican members of the House of Representatives to sign an amicus brief in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania, a lawsuit filed at the United States Supreme Court contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election, in which Joe Biden defeated incumbent Donald Trump. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case on the basis that Texas lacked standing under Article III of the Constitution to challenge the results of an election held by another state. Shortly thereafter, the Orlando Sentinel editorial board rescinded its endorsement of Waltz in the 2020 election. They wrote, "We had no idea, had no way of knowing at the time, that Waltz was not committed to democracy." Ultimately, Waltz voted to confirm the electoral victory of Joe Biden.

On November 12, 2024, President-elect Donald Trump announced that he would appoint Waltz to serve as his national security advisor.

On January 18, 2025, Waltz met with the families of American-Israeli hostages held by Hamas and pressed for full implementation of the Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal.

On January 20, 2025, Waltz tendered his resignation from the U.S. House of Representatives in order to take up his appointment with the Trump administration. He would assume office the same day. Shortly after becoming National Security Advisor, Waltz publicly echoed Trump’s position on TikTok, reversing his previous stance supporting a ban in the United States.

On January 28, 2025, Waltz held a meeting attended by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to "discuss implementing President Trump's vision of securing the nation and prioritizing American interests on both domestic and international fronts."

On February 18, 2025, American and Russian delegations, headed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, respectively, met in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in order to develop a framework for further peace negotiations on the war in Ukraine. Rubio was accompanied by Michael Waltz and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff.

On May 1, 2025, President Trump nominated Waltz to serve as the next United States Ambassador to the United Nations. During his confirmation hearing by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Rand Paul attempted to delay the vote, but Democratic senator Jeanne Shaheen voted alongside Senate Republicans to advance Waltz to a full floor vote. In the committee hearing, Waltz promised to "Make the UN Great Again."

On July 24, 2025, the committee approved of Waltz's nomination by a 12–10 vote for a full Senate confirmation vote. On September 19, 2025, he was confirmed for the office in a 47–43 vote by the U.S. Senate and was sworn in the following day. Waltz took office after presenting his credentials to Secretary-General António Guterres on September 21, 2025. On September 29, 2025, Waltz was also confirmed by the Senate as the United States representative to the United Nations General Assembly.

In October 2025, Waltz condemned the Venezuelan government under Nicolás Maduro, calling him an "illegitimate leader, convicted in the Southern District of New York".

In November 2025, Waltz helped secure passage of a United States-backed resolution to authorize an international stabilization force in Gaza. He called the resolution "historic and constructive", which included overseeing the borders for demilitarization, safety and security, as well as authorizing a Board of Peace to coordinate the redevelopment of Gaza.

On January 15, 2026, Waltz addressed the UN Security Council to express his strong support for the demonstrators involved in the 2025–2026 Iranian protests. He warned that all options, including military action, remain available to stop what he described as the "slaughter" of protesters. On March 11, 2026, Waltz said that Iran's strikes on other Gulf nations during the 2026 Iran war will unite countries against Iran and will ultimately backfire on them.

Waltz has been described as a neoconservative in the Bush–Cheney tradition.

In a 2017 interview with The National Interest, Waltz described his views on Afghanistan as primarily oriented around ideological objectives, rather than material objectives. He assessed that Afghanistan could be won through slow cultural conversion by unconventional forces, described as "multiple generations of winning hearts and minds", and anticipated 100 years before such objectives could be achieved, saying:We are in a war of ideas and we are fighting an ideology. It is easy to bomb a tank, but incredibly difficult to bomb an idea. We need a long-term strategy that discredits the ideology of Islamic extremism ... We are in a multi-decade war and we are only 15 years in. He reiterated his views at CPAC 2017 as well as an anecdote about his time serving in Afghanistan during the public announcement of the Obama-era troop withdrawals.

In August 2021, during the final stages of the second US withdrawal from Afghanistan, Waltz called on President Biden to reverse course on the war in Afghanistan, urging for the redeployment of special forces on the ground and the use of aerial bombardment of Taliban positions by the US Air Force. In an op-ed for Fox News, he predicted that a return to Afghanistan was inevitable, and viewed withdrawal as a temporary act that would "decimate" local allies and civilians, saying "thousands will die".

Waltz voted against the Honoring our PACT Act of 2022 which expanded VA benefits to veterans exposed to toxic chemicals during their military service.

In 2024, Waltz published a video on X expressing support for Canadian opposition leader Pierre Poilievre, who he said was going to send Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau "packing in 2025 (finally) and start digging Canada out of the progressive mess it's in". He has frequently criticized Trudeau for not being sufficiently tough on China, criticizing Trudeau for abstaining on a Parliament vote on declaring the persecution of Uyghurs in China as a genocide, allowing the sale of a lithium mine to a Chinese-state owned entity and the pledging of Chinese donors to donate $1 million to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, and warned about Chinese government interference in Canadian elections. When asked by Kristen Welker if Donald Trump is serious about annexing Canada, Waltz deflected: "I think the Canadian people would—many of them would—love to join the United States with no tariffs, with lower taxes."

Waltz is married to Julia Nesheiwat, an Army veteran who served in the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations, most recently as Trump's homeland security advisor. Waltz and Nesheiwat have a son together. Waltz also has a daughter from a prior marriage.