WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. Elise Stefanik is likely to face questions about her lack of foreign policy experience, her powerful support for Israel and her views on funding the United Nations at her confirmation hearing to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations on Tuesday are confronted by its many agencies.
The Harvard graduate and fourth-ranking member of the U.S. House of Representatives was elected to Congress in 2015 as a moderate Republican and leaves Congress a decade later as one of President Donald Trump’s most ardent allies. She hugged Trump after the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, when he denied losing the election to Joe Biden.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “looks forward to working with President Trump again in his second term,” U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said Monday.
When Trump announced her appointment, his former national security adviser John Bolton told The Associated Press that he viewed Stefanik as the modern version of Trump’s U.N. ambassador in his first administration – Nikki Haley. Haley unsuccessfully challenged him for the GOP nomination last year.
Stefanik “wants to run for president in 2028,” said Bolton, who also served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in the Bush administration. “She recognizes that she has no experience in foreign policy. So what could be better than becoming a UN ambassador? She stays for two years and then it starts.”
When she appears before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Stefanik is likely to be questioned about her views on the wars in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and elsewhere, as well as the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs – all issues on the U.N. agenda .
The United States pays about a fifth of the U.N.’s regular budget and is expected to be asked about her comments on cutting the U.N. budget and continuing to support its many organizations. They address everything from health, education and migration to reproductive rights and nuclear proliferation.
Stefanik saw her profile rise after she aggressively questioned a trio of university presidents last year about anti-Semitism on their campuses, leading to two of them resigning — a feat Trump repeatedly praised.
It has been very vocal about its support for Israel, especially since Hamas’ cross-border attacks on October 7, 2023, in which militants killed about 1,200 people and took about 250 hostage. This led to war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, where a US-brokered ceasefire was reached.
Stefanik has accused the United Nations of being a “den of anti-Semitism” for criticizing Israel’s air and ground strikes on Gaza, which local health authorities say have resulted in more than 46,000 Palestinian deaths. They do not distinguish between civilians and militants but say women and children make up more than half of the dead.
If confirmed, Stefanik said she plans to confront what she describes as anti-Semitism in the world body.
Her constrained foreign policy experience will almost certainly come up with senators. She recently served on the House Armed Services Committee and was a member of the coveted House committee that oversees the national intelligence community.
Stefanik was born and raised in upstate New York. He worked in the White House of then-President George W. Bush in the Domestic Policy Council and the Office of the Chief of Staff.
At just 30 years senior, she was the youngest person in her freshman class in Congress and became the only woman to join the House leadership team in 2021.
Unlike Senator Marco Rubio, who is expected to survive Senate confirmation as secretary of state, no Democrat has publicly supported Stefanik’s confirmation so far.
But like Rubio, she benefits from being considered by the Senate at the same time as several of Trump’s controversial Cabinet picks.
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Lederer reported from the United Nations.
