President Donald Trump‘s Cabinet nominees pulled from the House despite Speaker Mike Johnson‘s (R-LA) slim majority have made the most headlines during his second administration.
Trump, while putting together his Cabinet, tapped three House members for his administration: now-former Reps. Matt Gaetz as attorney general and Mike Waltz as national security adviser, and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) as U.N. ambassador
However, all three Republicans have either had to bow out of consideration or have been subject to criticism while on the job. Trump announced on Thursday that Waltz, who had been serving in his post at the National Security Council, would be his new U.N. ambassador pick after previously withdrawing Stefanik’s nomination earlier this year.
Waltz and his deputy Alex Wong were reportedly poised to be pushed out of Trump’s national security team after Waltz in March mistakenly added a journalist to an administration group chat on the unsecured messaging app Signal, discussing military operations against the Houthis in Yemen. However, Trump’s Thursday announcement showed that Waltz was, in fact, not leaving the administration.
“From his time in uniform on the battlefield, in Congress and, as my National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz has worked hard to put our Nation’s Interests first,” Trump wrote on social media. “In the interim, Secretary of State Marco Rubio will serve as National Security Advisor, while continuing his strong leadership at the State Department.”
Waltz, who did not accompany Trump to Michigan on Tuesday for the president’s first 100 days rally in Michigan despite traveling to Joint Base Andrews with him on Marine One, welcomed the news, at least publicly.
“I’m deeply honored to continue my service to President Trump and our great nation,” he wrote.
The White House disputed the reports regarding Waltz Thursday morning, but Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff‘s name had already circulated as a potential permanent replacement for him. Since inauguration, Witkoff’s policy portfolio has expanded to include the Russia–Ukraine war over Keith Kellogg, Trump’s original special envoy for that conflict.
“President Trump’s Cabinet was confirmed at record speed because he picked highly-qualified men and women who understood the American people’s mandate to Make America Great Again,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “As shown by this week’s two-hour Cabinet meeting, all of President Trump’s nominees are quickly carrying out the President’s agenda while delivering historic transparency to the press and the public.”
However, Waltz’s move comes after two other former House members had to withdraw their nominations before their confirmation hearings across the Capitol complex in the Senate.
The first was Gaetz, another Republican from Florida, who had to withdraw his nomination as attorney general during transition last November amid a House Ethics Committee investigation into allegations he paid for sex, including with a 17-year-old, and used drugs as a member. An earlier Justice Department investigation found there was not enough evidence to charge him with child sex trafficking and statutory rape.
Gaetz, who has denied any wrongdoing, had resigned from the House on the same day as his nomination. Rep. Jimmy Patronis (R-FL) beat Democrat Gay Valimont in their respective special election last month, but Democrats outperformed their 2024 election results by 17 percentage points and flipped Escambia County for the first time since 1992.
Attorney General Pam Bondi was eventually nominated and confirmed to the post.
Gaetz’s withdrawal came months before Stefanik had to do the same for her U.S. ambassador to the U.N. nomination but for other reasons.
Trump withdrew Stefanik’s nomination in March because Johnson needed her vote in the House, as her resignation would have left the Republican majority on a tightrope as they try to advance Trump’s agenda.
After stepping down from her House leadership position for the post, Stefanik holds a new position in GOP leadership made for her and is speculated to be considering running for New York governor in 2026.
For Brookings Institution’s Darrell West, a senior fellow with the liberal think tank’s governance studies program, the Waltz and Gaetz examples are instances of Trump not picking “the best people for his team” and reaping “the consequences of his choices.”
“Some have been inexperienced, while others have made costly mistakes that created problems for the president,” West told the Washington Examiner. “He had lots of staff turnover in his first administration, and now seems to be headed in the same direction. Staff miscues have distracted his folks from important issues and sometimes forced special elections that cost a lot of time and money.”
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Northeastern University political science professor Costas Panagopoulos differentiated the “woes” concerning each of the cases but said, “It is not unusual for former House members to struggle to perform in senior administration positions.”
“Oftentimes, House members lack the breadth of experience and judgment to excel in these posts, in part because serving in the legislature as a representative of a district is a very different enterprise that requires different skill sets,” Panagopoulos told the Washington Examiner. “When House members are plucked out of Congress mainly for patronage reasons to serve in executive capacities, they sometimes stumble and fail. Even for seasoned politicians, or for those with specialized expertise, the challenges of senior-level posts can be daunting.”