Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee Statement on the President’s Intent to Nominate Heather Nauert as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Robin Chand
December 7, 2018 202-228-3816
Press Statement
Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee Statement on the President's Intent to Nominate Heather Nauert as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations
Jackson Lee – "As a key member of our foreign policy team, the position of United States Ambassador to the United Nations is too important to be given to a political novice as a personal favor. The position requires expertise of issues disrupting the global order, experience dealing with competing international interests, and an ability to persuade and mobilize leaders to discern shared interests and act accordingly. Instead, the president has nominated a television personality, and not much more, much the same way the country elected a television personality, and not much more, and we are collectively daily living with the consequences."
Washington, DC – Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, a senior member of the House Committees on Judiciary, Budget and Homeland Security, Ranking Member of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security and Investigations, issued this statement following news the President intends to nominate Heather Nauert as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations:
"This morning, the President announced his intention to nominate Heather Nauert to serve as the Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations. If confirmed, she will follow in the tradition of diplomatic legends, such as: Adlai Stevenson, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Andrew Young, Madeline Albright, Tom Pickering, Susan Rice and the man whom we lost and mourned this week, the 41st President of the United States: George Herbert Walker Bush.
"The United States Mission to the United Nations is a representation of our nation's commitment to maintain a freer, safer world since well before the formation of the United Nations. Which is why the intent to nominate Heather Nauert is all the more confounding. At best, Ms. Nauert has fleeting political or policy experience. Her sole qualifications for the position appears to be a congenial television manner—i.e., time served as an anchor on the President's favorite morning television news show, and later as press secretary of the State Department—and a positive rapport with our current Secretary of State. If confirmed, she would be the third Fox News television personality whom the President has selected for service in the administration.
"A closer look at her qualification yields no tangible training or experience for the position to which she will be nominated. In this respect, nominating individuals unqualified for the positions in which they would serve is a proud tradition for the Trump Administration, and Ms. Nauert's likely nomination follows in a long line of dubious appointments, such as: his son-in-law to lead our efforts to bring peace to the Middle-East; his personal bodyguard to be head of Oval Office Operations; the president's personal medical doctor to serve the Secretary of the Veterans Administration; a former surgeon, with no experience in urban planning or municipal issues, to be Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; and a stay-at-home grandmother, and sister of a putative subject of the Special Counsel's investigation into Russian interference into the 2016 election to be the nation's education secretary.
"But, as a key member of our foreign policy team, the position of United States Ambassador to the United Nations is too important to be given to a political novice as a personal favor. The position requires expertise of issues disrupting the global order, experience dealing with competing international interests, and an ability to persuade and mobilize leaders to discern shared interests and act accordingly. Instead, the president has nominated a television personality, and not much more, much the same way the country elected a television personality, and not much more, and we are collectively daily living with the consequences. I implore the United States Senate to conduct a fulsome and searching inquiry of this candidate, and her fitness to serve in this position, and to subject her to the most exacting scrutiny to ensure that she is equipped to discharge the responsibilities attendant to this position."
Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat representing the 18th Congressional District of Texas, is a senior member of the House Committees on Judiciary, Homeland Security and the Budget. She is a Ranking Member of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations.