Washington — President-elect Donald Trump will nominate New York Rep. Elise Stefanik to function U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, tapping a key Home ally to affix his administration.
Stefanik, 40, has been certainly one of Trump’s most vocal defenders in Congress. She’s prone to be confirmed by the brand new, GOP-led Senate when the president-elect takes workplace in January, which can arrange a race not solely to fill Stefanik’s seat within the decrease chamber, but additionally to succeed her as chair of the Republican convention.
Tom Williams/CQ Roll Name/Bloomberg by way of Getty Photographs
“I’m honored to appoint Chairwoman Elise Stefanik to serve in my Cupboard as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations,” Trump stated in an announcement to CBS Information. “Elise is an extremely robust, powerful, and good America First fighter.”
Here’s what to know in regards to the New York Republican.
Stefanik’s file in Congress
Stefanik was elected to signify New York’s twenty first Congressional District in 2014 and on the age of 30, grew to become the youngest girl elected to Congress. Presently in her fifth time period, she cruised to reelection in November, defeating Democrat Paula Collins with greater than 62% of the vote.
Stefanik serves on the Armed Companies, Training and Workforce, and Intelligence Committees. She is also a member of the Choose Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Authorities, which was created in 2023 when Republicans took management of the Home. The weaponization panel was a nod to what many Republicans believed was federal investigators’ unfair remedy of Trump.
The New York Republican is the highest-ranking girl within the Home, serving in management because the GOP convention chair. She changed former Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming within the submit after Cheney was ousted for her criticisms of Trump following the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.
Stefanik has been certainly one of Trump’s staunchest defenders within the Home, having emerged as a vital ally throughout his first impeachment proceedings in 2019. She additionally launched a nonbinding decision final 12 months that sought to “expunge” each of Trump’s impeachments by the Home.
Throughout this Congress, Stefanik made headlines for her grilling of college presidents throughout a listening to about their response to antisemitic incidents following the Oct. 7, 2023, terror assaults on Israel by Hamas. The presidents of Harvard, Stefanik’s alma mater, and the College of Pennsylvania resigned following the listening to.
Whereas Stefanik supported earlier packages sending help to Ukraine, she voted towards a plan to ship $60.8 billion to help Ukraine in its struggle towards Russia in April.
Stefanik and the 2020 election
The congresswoman was amongst a bunch of greater than 100 Home Republicans who signed onto a friend-of-the-court temporary filed with the Supreme Courtroom after the 2020 election in a longshot bid to overturn the election ends in 4 battleground states. She additionally joined GOP lawmakers in objecting to certifying Pennsylvania’s election outcomes.
“Tens of tens of millions of People are involved that the 2020 election featured unconstitutional overreach by unelected officers and judges, ignoring state election legal guidelines,” Stefanik stated throughout a speech on the Home flooring after the Capitol assault. “We will and we should always peacefully focus on these issues.”
However the congresswoman additionally condemned the violence of Jan. 6 throughout the identical speech, calling it a “really tragic day” for the nation.
“All of us be part of collectively in totally condemning the harmful violence and destruction that occurred in the present day in our nation’s Capitol,” she stated. “People will at all times have the liberty of speech and the Constitutional proper to protest, however violence in any kind is totally unacceptable, it’s anti-American, and have to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the regulation.”
Earlier this 12 months, Stefanik wouldn’t decide to certifying the outcomes of the election, telling NBC Information in January it might rely on whether or not “this can be a authorized and legitimate election.”
Stefanik earlier than Congress
Stefanik graduated from Harvard College and labored within the White Home for President George W. Bush on the Home Coverage Council and within the chief of workers’s workplace. She additionally was an adviser to former Home Speaker Paul Ryan in the course of the 2012 presidential marketing campaign, when he was the Republican vice presidential nominee.
Stefanik and her husband, Matt, have one son, Sam.
