Trump's UN Ambassador Pick, Heather Nauert, Withdraws from Consideration

The department released a statement on Saturday evening Washington time saying Nauert had withdrawn and another nominee would be announced “soon”.

Nauert said she was grateful to Trump and the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, for “the trust they have placed in me for considering me for the position of US ambassador”.

“However, the past two months have been grueling for my family and therefore it is in the best interest of my family that I withdraw my name from consideration,” Nauert said, The Guardian reported.

Trump appointed Nauert to the role in December. She had been working as a spokeswoman in the state department and is a former Fox News anchor.

Trump called her “very talented, very smart, very quick” and said he thought she would be “respected by all.” In the wake of November elections that strengthened Republican control of the Senate, her confirmation appeared likely, if not easy. Yet Trump never put Nauert’s name forward with the Senate and no confirmation hearing was scheduled.

With no policymaking or negotiating experience, and after 20 months as a spokeswoman for the state department, Nauert would have taken her seat on the UN Security Council alongside counterparts with decades of experience.

During Nauert’s tenure at the state department, press briefings went from being daily events to being held once or twice weekly. Nauert was mostly a polished and unflappable defender of administration policy, smoothing over frequent rifts between Trump’s first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, and the White House.

But her inexperience sometimes shone through: in June she cited the D-day landings as evidence of the longstanding relationship between Washington and Berlin.

The most recent permanent US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor, resigned at the end of 2018. She also had little experience in world affairs before taking the ambassador position.

Jonathan Cohen, the deputy permanent representative for the US at the UN since June 2018, has been the acting US ambassador since Haley’s resignation came into effect on 1 January. He is a career diplomat.

The White House had not yet formally submitted Nauert’s nomination to the Senate.

Of Nauert’s decision to not take up the UN role, Pompeo said: “Her personal decision today to withdraw her name from consideration to be the nominee for the United States ambassador to the United Nations is a decision for which I have great respect.”