Waltz leaves White House security post as Trump moves him to UN role

# Waltz leaves White House security post as Trump moves him to UN role

On the event date, May 1, 2025, President Donald Trump announced that Mike Waltz would leave his post as national security adviser and be nominated as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, a move that ends one chapter of the White House’s national security reset while opening another.

CBS News reported that the president made the announcement after reports had already surfaced that Waltz was departing the National Security Council. Trump also said that, in the interim, Secretary of State Marco Rubio would serve as national security adviser while continuing his work at the State Department.

The shift matters because Waltz’s departure is tied to the broader fallout from the Signal episode that caused major embarrassment inside the administration. CBS says Waltz came under scrutiny in March after he set up a Signal chat and mistakenly included journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, exposing discussions about military strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.

The report says Waltz’s move is not an unceremonious ouster. Instead, Trump is giving him a different high-profile role that still keeps him within the administration and leaves him subject to Senate confirmation as ambassador.

CBS also said it was not immediately clear whether Alex Wong, Waltz’s deputy, would remain at the National Security Council. Wong’s status remained uncertain as of Thursday afternoon in the CBS account, which suggests the personnel changes may not have ended with Waltz alone.

The report traces the factors behind the change to a mix of the Signal saga, concern that Waltz had not adequately vetted NSC staff, and a broader judgment that he was not the right fit for the senior team. At the same time, it says Trump still respects him and wanted to avoid a public break that would resemble the fate of figures pushed out of the first term.

That balancing act is central to how the White House appears to be handling the shift: acknowledge the problem, but preserve loyalty and political flexibility.

Waltz himself posted that he was honored to continue serving the president and the country. If confirmed by the Senate, he would move from the White House’s security core to the diplomatic arena at the UN.

For now, the administration is presenting the change as a reorganization rather than a purge. Whether that framing holds will depend on what happens next with the NSC and with the Senate confirmation process.