Trump names State Dept. spokeswoman Nauert as new US envoy to UN

US. President Donald Trump announced Friday he’s nominating State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

“Heather Nauert will be nominated,” Trump said Friday before departing the White House on Marine One for an event in Kansas City. “She’s very talented, very smart, very quick, and I think she’s going to be respected by all.”

If she is confirmed by the Senate, Nauert, a former Fox News Channel reporter who had little foreign policy experience before becoming State Department spokeswoman, will replace Nikki Haley. Haley, a former South Carolina governor, announced in October that she would step down at the end of this year. Nauert would be a leading administration voice on Trump’s foreign policy.

Trump told reporters last month that Nauert was “excellent,” adding, “She’s been a supporter for a long time.”

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 Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was fired in March and replaced with Mike Pompeo. Nauert was then appointed acting undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs and was for a time the highest-ranking woman and fourth highest-ranking official in the building.