One of President-elect Donald Trump’s most vocal supporters in the House is on the short list to become his next ambassador to the United Nations, according to five people familiar with the potential appointment.
Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) tops the list of people the Trump transition team is considering for the influential diplomatic post.
Stefanik has repeatedly attacked the United Nations over accusations that the world body is antisemitic. Last month she called for a “complete reassessment of U.S. funding of the United Nations” in response to efforts by the Palestinian Authority to expel Israel from the United Nations as war rages in the Middle East.
On the domestic front, Stefanik has emerged as one of Trump’s most outspoken supporters. She gained national prominence during Trump’s first impeachment trial in 2019 with fiery defenses of the former president, and refused to certify the 2020 election results after the Jan. 6 insurrection, backing Trump’s false claims of a stolen election.
Stefanik this year drew praise from Republicans and Jewish leaders after she grilled college presidents in a House hearing on their handling of campus demonstrations over the Israel-Gaza war.
Her questioning over whether calling for the genocide of Jewish students considered bullying — and subsequent equivocations from the higher education leaders — led to the resignations of the Harvard and University of Pennsylvania presidents.
Stefanik and the Trump transition team did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
At the United Nations, international diplomats are bracing for a drastically more combative U.S. administration when Trump takes office. Four foreign diplomats working on U.N. issues — all granted anonymity to freely discuss a sensitive matter — say they expect Trump to steeply cut funding to U.N. programs and withdraw from the World Health Organization and U.N. Global Compact on Migration.
Whomever Trump picks as ambassador, would be the standard-bearer of this more hostile approach.
The role is seen as a stepping stone in American politics, underscoring Stefanik’s reputation as a rising star in the Trump-era GOP. Past U.S. envoys to the United Nations have become secretary of State (Madeleine Albright), national security adviser (John Bolton) and even U.S. president (George H.W. Bush.) Trump’s former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley ran unsuccessfully for president in the 2024 primary cycle before dropping out to endorse Trump.
Tapping Stefanik for a top administration job would trigger a special election in her New York district, which poses a risk if Republicans have a narrow one- to two-seat majority in the House, control over which is still up for grabs. Still, the seat is in a region that has not elected a Democrat to the House in a decade.
Eric Bazail-Eimil and Jack Detsch contributed to this report.
