Congress

Waltz vows to take take Trump’s chainsaw to the United Nations

Published

11 months ago

July 15, 2025

Former national security adviser Mike Waltz pledged Tuesday to push for reform at the United Nations, portraying the body as bloated, ineffectual and overly politicized during his confirmation hearing to serve as President Donald Trump’s ambassador to international organization.

Echoing the administration’s approach to slashing the federal government, Waltz said that the administration was conducting a number of reviews of the United Nations to examine how it is spending its funds, calling for the body to refocus on its founding principles.

He also criticized the “radical politicization” of the body, citing U.N. reports about racism among U.S. law enforcement and the seizure of land from Native Americans.

“We should have one place in the world where everyone can talk,” said the former Republican representative from Florida. “But after 80 years, it’s drifted from its core mission of peacemaking.”

Waltz also vowed to push back against China at the U.N. amid Beijing’s rising influence at the global body.

The United States is the largest single financial contributor to the U.N., accounting for more than a quarter of its overall budget. Waltz indicated this could be used as leverage in pushing for reform.

“If you look at when reform has actually happened,” he said, “it is when the United States has said, ‘You know what, we need to actually see things before the U.S. taxpayer continues to write checks.’”

The administration is looking to cancel some $1 billion in federal funding to the U.N. as part of its rescission package, which seeks to claw back almost $10 billion in federal funds.

The Senate is set to vote on the measure as early as this week, bringing cuts to a world body already facing a deep financial crisis.

Waltz questioned the number of bodies at the U.N. that focus on climate change and environmental protection, including the U.N. Environment Program and the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

At one point during the hearing, he read from a list of U.N. 455 entities that he claimed received U.S. funding and appeared to question their relevance.

Trump has said the U.N. needs to get its “act together” and has called on the body to focus on its “primary purpose” of conflict resolution, a view which was shared by Waltz on Tuesday.

Administration officials have been quick to criticize the organization, founded in the wake of World War II, though they have not outlined a clear vision on how to improve it.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) later quizzed Waltz on how the administration planned to reconcile its efforts to cut its contributions to the international body, while maintaining its influence.

“You’ve just waved here’s this great big list of organizations. Many of them do critical things,” Coons said.

Waltz’s hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee marked his first major public appearance since he stepped down as Trump’s national security advisor in May, having reportedly clashed with several senior officials over whether to pursue military strikes against Iran.

Democrats also used the hearing to tear into Waltz over his role in the Signalgate scandal, in which a journalist from The Atlantic was added to a group chat on the encrypted messaging app Signal where top administration officials discussed plans to launch air strikes on Houthi militants in Yemen. But the Democratic senators balanced that with queries about plans for the U.N. and the administration’s plans to check China’s influence.

Throughout the hearing, Waltz offered a sharp criticism of what he described as antisemitism at the U.N., citing a disproportionate number of resolutions passed against Israel in the General Assembly and reports that a number of staffers from the body’s Palestinian aid agency participated in the Hamas-led attacks on Israel in 2023.

Waltz said that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency should be defunded and dismantled and that its humanitarian work handed over to other bodies.

A former Army Green Beret, Waltz’s initial appointment as national security adviser was greeted with a sigh of relief among allies and lawmakers on Capitol Hill who viewed him as an experienced foreign policy hand.

Democrats questioned Waltz at the hearing on the administration’s decision to dismantle USAID and the Global Engagement Center, a body within the State Department that sought to counter Russian and Chinese disinformation.

The role of the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations is the last of Trump’s Cabinet positions to be filled.

The president had initially tapped Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) for the role, but withdrew her nomination in March in a bid to preserve the GOP’s thin majority in the House of Representatives.

Congress

Capitol agenda: Trump faces GOP critics who want a reset

Published

1 minute ago

June 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump Wednesday will come face-to-face with Senate Republicans for the first time in months as the party struggles to set its priorities heading into the midterms.

After weeks of shadowboxing with each other, Trump is scheduled to visit Capitol Hill and press the conference to pass his signature election security bill that has languished for months. Senate Republicans — several of whom have openly agonized that Trump isn’t focused enough on helping their party keep its tenuous control of Congress — have their own agenda for talks.

Let’s be clear: Wednesday’s lunch isn’t going to change the fate of the GOP election bill. Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Tuesday that “people at some point have to come to grips” with the fact that there aren’t the votes to nix the filibuster or pass Trump’s No. 1 priority.

But Trump is showing no sign of being ready to accept that — and indicated he intends to make the case for doing whatever it takes during the lunch with Senate Republicans.

“We’re just going to talk about SAVE America. … We have to pass it so we’re going to have to talk about that and many other things,” Trump told reporters.

Asked about Thune saying the party lacks the votes for passage, he added: “That’s what being a leader is about. … John is a leader and hopefully he can get the votes.”

While Trump wants to focus on the SAVE America Act, GOP senators expect a wider-ranging conversation, including how both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue can turn their collective attention off of a string of recent intraparty fights and toward Democrats.

“My question is how do we get all on the same page and get unified rather than squabbling amongst ourselves,” Sen. John Cornyn said he’ll ask Trump. Cornyn told reporters it’ll be his first time speaking with the president since losing his primary against Trump-backed Ken Paxton.

That may mean Trump and senators Wednesday confront festering questions about the highly unpopular Iran war in the lead up to elections.

Senate Republicans openly criticized Trump’s agreement last week to end the Iran conflict, including a $300 billion reconstruction fund. And congressional Republicans are chafing at the idea Trump is asking for tens of billions of dollars in fresh military funding without briefing most of Congress on the plan.

As lawmakers prepare for a roughly $80 billion emergency Pentagon funding request to land as soon as this week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is also set to meet with the Republican Study Committee Wednesday. While the briefing is meant to focus on the funding requests, Speaker Mike Johnson suggested it could be lawmakers’ only chance for the time being to get questions answered about the administration’s Iran endgame.

“I’m sure he’ll provide a lot of information,” Johnson said when asked about further briefings beyond Hegseth’s. “I mean, we’ll see what the secretary does, and then evaluate after that.”

Also on our radar Wednesday: Democratic lawmakers are teeing up a host of amendments on the war against Iran at a House Appropriations markup of the fiscal 2027 Defense bill, where more funding talks are guaranteed to take place.

What else we’re watching:

— DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY SPLIT SCREEN: A Zohran Mamdani-backed trio of progressives pulled off a string of upsets during New York’s primary elections Tuesday, dealing a blow to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and his leadership allies.

—- HOUSE GOP HUDDLES ON RECON 3.0: Johnson and key House Republicans will meet Wednesday to discuss the next steps for a possible third reconciliation bill as the clock ticks to get a budget resolution moving before the July 4 recess. The speaker said he will know more about the timing for any budget resolution to kick off another party-line bill afterwards. Still, several Budget Committee Republicans are still skeptical the effort will actually gain momentum.

Madison Fernandez and Nick Reisman contributed to this report.

Congress

Mamdani-backed socialist ousts Espaillat in NY-13

Published

9 hours ago

June 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

NEW YORK — Darializa Avila Chevalier has ousted five-term House member Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, in a massive victory for the Democratic Socialists of America.

Her win marks another rebuke of the Democratic establishment in New York following Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral election last year, cementing the DSA as one of the city’s most potent political forces. The upset reflects a political climate in which voters have become increasingly willing to cast aside longtime incumbents in favor of outsiders promising change.

Avila Chevalier focused much of her campaign on attacking Espaillat for accepting donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and real estate interests during his career.

“I really feel that this is a fight to make sure that we are representing working-class New Yorkers who have been left behind by a politics that only serves the interests of corporations, of corporate landlords, of special interest groups that are making life in New York deeply unaffordable for so many,” Avila Chevalier said last month, during an appearance with Mamdani on MS NOW where the mayor endorsed her campaign.

Espaillat, who is the first formerly undocumented person to serve in Congress, came up short despite having the support of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Gov. Kathy Hochul, New York Attorney General Letitia James and New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin.

Avila Chevalier, 32, was a leading organizer in the pro-Palestinian encampment at Columbia University in 2024 and is a sociology Ph.D. student at the CUNY Graduate Center. She has served as an investigator for a public defender’s office and is originally from South Florida.

For most of the race, Espaillat was widely viewed as the favorite, but Mamdani’s late May endorsement of Avila Chevalier jolted a contest that began to show signs it was tightening. An April poll from Avila Chevalier’s campaign showed her down 14 points.

Her victory came despite intense outside spending in support of Espaillat, including from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’ campaign arm.

Avila Chevalier’s election to New York’s 13th district also shows a changing of the guard in Upper Manhattan and parts of the Bronx. Espaillat has served at the helm of a political alliance, known as the “Squadriano,” that has ruled over those areas of the city, home to large Dominican American and African American populations.

At times during the race, Espaillat and his supporters sought to frame the primary battle as a contest between gentrifiers and long-term residents.

“Those that choose or want to parachute in, after the men and women of this city, the working men and women of the city, have built our neighborhood, we’re gonna send them back home packing wherever they came from,” the 71-year-old member of Congress said last month.

The story of his political ascendance and reign in Upper Manhattan has also been characterized by an intense rivalry with Manhattan Democratic Party Chair Keith Wright, an ally of the late Rep. Charles Rangel, whom Espaillat challenged for Congress in 2012 and 2014.

But this year’s primary seems to have calmed the bitter rivalry between Espaillat and Wright amid the encroachment of the Democratic Socialists of America on disputed turf. Earlier this month, Espaillat endorsed Wright’s son , state Assemblymember Jordan Wright, who was also facing a DSA-backed challenger.

The peace pact wasn’t enough to fend off the challenge from Avila Chevalier, who seized on a progressive swing in the district ever since Mamdani handily beat former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the mayoral primary there.

“We have come a long way from where we used to be as a party,” Mamdani said in the interview where he announced his endorsement of Avila Chevalier. “It’s time we have a new generation that not only takes us back to that ambition, but takes us forward to the tomorrow that so many New Yorkers are waiting for.”

Congress

Former Utah Rep. Ben McAdams is on track to return to Congress

Published

10 hours ago

June 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Former Rep. Ben McAdams won his primary Tuesday, paving the way for his return to Congress.

McAdams, a moderate, staved off a roster of progressive challengers in Utah’s newly redrawn 1st District, a rare deep-blue Salt Lake City district in a deep-red state that came as a result of a messy, decadelong redistricting saga.

McAdams will enter November as the heavy favorite in a district former Vice President Kamala Harris won by nearly 24 points in 2024.

McAdams won a GOP-leaning seat in the 2018 Democratic wave and governed as a centrist, Blue Dog Democrat who pushed for a balanced budget amendment — but he lost his reelection bid in 2020. He was one of the first Democrats to signal interest in running in the new 1st District and quickly garnered support from Utah elected officials and national centrist Democrats.

His progressive opponents attempted to paint him as too conservative, pointing to his previous mixed record on abortion. One opponent, state Sen. Nate Blouin, called on the other candidates to consolidate their support behind one person to avoid splitting the progressive vote. None agreed, and McAdams — who raised more money than the three other Democrats combined — prevailed.