Following the announced eventual departure of U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley from the Trump administration, a search has been underway to find her replacement.
Reports emerged on Thursday which named State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert, formerly a journalist and Fox News host, as having been offered the job to succeed Haley at the U.N.
Fox News, among other media outlets, cited an unnamed “senior administration official” in the report on Nauert, though it was unclear if she had accepted the offer.
The White House would only admit that Nauert “is under strong consideration.”
New ambassador to the U.N.?
President Donald Trump, however, told reporters on Thursday that he hasn’t offered the job to Nauert yet, although “she’s under very serious consideration.”
That denial doesn’t necessarily bode ill for Nauert, though, as Trump said, “She’s excellent.” He added, “She’s been with us a long time. She’s been a supporter for a long time.”
“We will probably make a decision next week. We have a lot of people that want the job, and there are a lot of really great people. But we will be talking about that next week sometime,” Trump said.
Successful in current roles
The rumor that Nauert had been offered the position as U.N. ambassador likely arose from the fact that Nauert was spotted meeting with Trump in the Oval Office on Monday.
Nauert was hired on as State Department spokeswoman in April 2017 and has served admirably under both former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and current Secretary Mike Pompeo.
Earlier in 2018, Nauert took on the additional role of acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs after it opened up in the shakeup surrounding Tillerson’s resignation.
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We will likely have to wait until next week to learn for sure whether Nauert will be the next ambassador to the U.N. or not, but she does appear to be the frontrunner for the position.
Filling Haley’s shoes will be no easy task, but Nauert has proven herself to be competent, knowledgeable and loyal to both the nation and the president in her current positions at the State Department, and all indicators point to her being an excellent choice for the U.N. as well.