US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump is expected to announce his nomination of State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert as the next US ambassador to the United Nations.
Two administration officials confirmed Trump’s plans on Thursday. A Republican congressional aide said the president was expected to announce his decision by tweet on Friday morning.
The officials were not authorised to speak publicly before Trump’s announcement.
Trump has previously said Nauert was under serious consideration to replace Nikki Haley, who announced in October that she would step down at the end of this year.
If Nauert is confirmed by the Senate, she would be a leading administration voice on Trump’s foreign policy.
Trump told reporters last month that Nauert was “excellent,” adding, that she has “been a supporter for a long time”.
Still, with Trump, no staffing decision is final until he makes the formal announcement, as the president has been known to change course in the past.
Nauert, who did not respond to requests to Associated Press for comment, was a reporter for Fox News Channel before she became State Department spokeswoman under former secretary Rex Tillerson.
Plucked from Fox by the White House to serve as State Department spokeswoman, Nauert catapulted into the upper echelons of the agency’s hierarchy when Tillerson was fired in March and replaced with Mike Pompeo.
Just 18 months ago, she wasn’t even in government.
Nauert was a breaking news anchor on Trump’s favorite television show, “Fox & Friends”, when she was tapped to be the face and voice of the administration’s foreign policy.
With a master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, she had come to Fox from ABC News, where she was a general assignment reporter.
In March, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders described Nauert as “a team player” and “a strong asset for the administration”.
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