Waltz: “All Gas, No Brakes” on Trump Priorities at White House NSC

Incoming National Security Adviser’s remarkable shift from GOP independent to Trump loyalist

Incoming NSC Director Michael Waltz (Florida Politics photo)

In the six years that Rep. Michael Waltz served in Congress, the Florida Republican  established a reputation as an independent lawmaker whose support for military aid to Ukraine and other traditional GOP foreign policies set him apart from Donald Trump’s isolationist acolytes on Capitol Hill.  Not only that, he incurred MAGA world’s wrath for certifying Joe Biden’s victory in November 2020.

“We have received threats. We reported those threats to the Capitol Police,” he told a Florida TV station. “I think it’s sickening. It breaks my heart.”

But ever since Trump tapped Waltz to be his national security adviser just a few days after his election, the former Green Beret has saluted smartly and given his full-throated support to the president-elect’s America-first MAGA national security agenda.

Appearing on ABC’s “This Week” on January 12, Waltz easily could have been describing himself when he remarked how quickly many mainstream Republicans who had supported the Biden administration’s policy of open-ended U.S. military and economic assistance to Kyiv had fallen in line behind Trump’s rejection of that strategy since his November 2024 election victory.

“It's been striking to me, just since President's election, how many people have gone from just unqualified, blank check, as long as it takes, whether that's months, years, decades in terms of perpetuating this war, which really has bogged down to a World War One-style meat grinder of people and resources, with World War Three consequences, to now,” he told the show’s host, Jonathan Karl. 

“Even President Zelenskyy, walking in the room in Paris and saying, ‘Ready to work with you to end this war,’” Waltz continued, referring to the Ukranian leader’s meeting with Trump in Paris last month on the sidelines of ceremonies marking the reopening of fire-damaged Notre Dame cathedral.  “Let's end it justly, responsibly, in a way that protects Ukraine's future,” Waltz added, “but ends this thing so the entire world can move on from it."

Loyalty Oath

The national security adviser-designate also has shown his fealty to Trump when it comes to the president-elect’s suspicions about what he and his most ardent supporters refer to as the “deep state” — their term for a suspected  cabal of national security officials and institutions, including the courts and the national media, whom they claim worked behind the scenes during Trump’s first term to undermine his authority, block his policy agenda and level charges that led to his two impeachments. 

Last week, moreover, Waltz announced a sweeping directive to immediately terminate all NSC staffers detailed from other federal government departments and agencies who serve in apolitical, non-partisan senior staff roles.