By admin 
President-elect Donald Trump is turning to Congress for his first choice for top diplomatic posts, choosing to elevate partisan fighters rather than individuals with management experience in the private sector or government.
Trump said Monday he would nominate Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., as ambassador to the United Nations and many news outlets reported that Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., was his choice for secretary of state. Trump has not publicly confirmed the Rubio news.
Rubio is the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee and the No. 2 GOP member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Stefanik serves on the House Armed Services and Intelligence panels and is also chairman of the House Republican Conference.
The choice of Stefanik, 40, and the expected choice of Rubio, 53, underscore Trump’s second choice of national security representatives who have shown a willingness to defend his behavior both in and out of power. His first administration was initially marked by discord within his foreign policy and national security teams.
Both Stefanik and Rubio started out in Congress as hawkish internationalists but have recalibrated their positions to align with Trump’s “America First” foreign policy.
Stefanik has distinguished herself lately more for her loyalty to Trump and her heated partisan attacks as the fourth Republican in the House of Representatives than for her diplomatic tact.
“Elise is a strong and very smart ‘America First’ fighter,” Trump said in a statement, noting that she was the first member of Congress to endorse his 2024 candidacy and “has always been a fierce advocate.”
Although Stefanik has not served on the House Foreign Affairs or House State-Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee committees that oversee United Nations-related matters, her fifth-term experience in military and intelligence matters given in many areas. national security concerns that dominate Republicans’ traditional interests at the UN, especially at the Security Council.
She is also an aggressive defender of Israel.
In an October statement in response to reports that the Palestinian Authority, which has observer status at the UN, was trying to build support for a vote to expel Israel from the body’s General Assembly, Stefanik warned that such a move “would result in a complete reassessment of U.S. funding of the United Nations.”
“American taxpayers have no interest in continuing to fund an organization that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have allowed to rot through anti-Semitism,” she continued.
Her comments late last year about the president of Harvard University, her alma mater, and the presidents of two other elite American universities over their responses to campus protests over the war in the Gaza Strip and anti-Semitism went viral.
“She is a warrior, and President Trump could not have chosen a more capable person to represent America’s interests abroad,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said in a statement congratulating Stefanik.
Both Stefanik and Rubio voted in April against giving Ukraine nearly $61 billion in additional defense and economic aid as part of the supplemental national security bill.
Stefanik received a “poor” grade from the Republicans for Ukraine project, which is run by Defending Democracy Together, an advocacy group founded by conservatives to push the Republican Party to continue its internationalist foreign policy. Stefanik’s appreciation stems from her anti-Ukrainian statements and votes against bills to provide security assistance to Ukraine, the group said.
Rubio: From neoconservative to ‘America First’
Rubio, previously a candidate to become Trump’s vice presidential pick, called the foreign aid legislation to Ukraine, as well as Israel and Taiwan, “legislative blackmail” because the broader measure did not include a border control measure. But Rubio voted against an earlier version of the supplement in February 2024, which did include a bipartisan compromise border security measure, after Trump opposed it.
Rubio, who has publicly speculated about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mental health and called him a “butcher,” has made a particularly dramatic turn since the Republican Party’s 2016 presidential primaries, when he mocked rebuked Trump’s inherited wealth and bankruptcies and his isolationist views.
“You don’t have to be a fan of Vladimir Putin to want the war to end,” Rubio said in an interview with NBC’s Today show after Trump’s victory last week. “I think the Ukrainians have been incredibly courageous and strong in their uprising against Russia, but what we are ultimately financing here is a stalemate war that must be brought to an end because that country will be in trouble. Back 100 years.”
Rubio, a former speaker of the Florida House, rode to the Senate during the Tea Party wave of 2010. Once there, he distinguished himself not as a budget hawk but as a foreign policy specialist and neoconservative. His years of bipartisan work on the intelligence and foreign relations panels are expected to ensure a smooth confirmation process in the Senate.
Senate Foreign Relations Democrats are expected to be relieved to have a familiar face leading Foggy Bottom and representing the US around the world, amid global uncertainty over what a second Trump presidency means for the regional alliances that the Biden administration has sought to rebuild and expand after Trump’s turbulent crisis. first administration.
Since Trump left office, Rubio has pushed for legislation to limit the executive branch’s options on Russia. He co-sponsored a provision with Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., in the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act that would prohibit Trump or any U.S. president from withdrawing from NATO without approval by a two-thirds majority of the Senate or a decision of Congress. . And he has introduced multiple Russian sanctions bills this Congress.
But Rubio’s aggressive stance is most closely linked to China. He chose to specialize in the country years before many of his Republican colleagues concluded that Beijing posed the most serious strategic threat to long-term American interests. He has sponsored more than 50 China-related bills in the current Congress.
Rubio, a Cuban American, would become Spain’s first foreign minister. He has long been the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere and has used that position to argue against relaxing the trade embargo on Cuba and in favor of tough sanctions on Venezuela.