At Reuters Steve Holland, Gram Slattery and Erin Banco report:
WASHINGTON, May 1 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump ousted his national security adviser Mike Waltz on Thursday and named Secretary of State Marco Rubio as his interim replacement in the first major shakeup of Trump’s inner circle since he took office in January.
Trump, in a social media post, said he would nominate Waltz to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, adding that “he has worked hard to put our nation’s interests first.”
UN ambassador is a sort of off-again, on-again cabinet position so I guess that’s a demotion but it’s not entirely surprising—he broke a cardinal rule: don’t embarrass the boss. But he wasn’t entirely “ousted” either so I guess it’s more of a slap on the hand.
Or to take another President — “Better to have them inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in”.
I am surprised Trump will put Waltz through Senate confirmation hearings where Signalgate will be relitigated.
I guess he wasn’t enough of a sycophant. Let’s quote Bondi to show how it’s done. (From recent Edward Luce piece in FT.) If Waltz had claimed that Trump had personally saved the lives of 300 million Americans I bet he keeps his position.
“But my favourite bit was when Bondi announced that Trump had seized 3,400kg of fentanyl at the border, “which saved — are you ready for this media? — two hundred and fifty eight million lives.” There we have it. Three-quarters of America would have died since January had Trump not nobly returned to power.”
Steve