Trump taps Iran hawks Marco Rubio, Mike Waltz for top national security roles

(JTA) — WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump is filling out his national security team with pro-Israel hawks who favor maximum pressure on Iran to stand down from its belligerence in the region.

Reports Monday said Trump planned to name two Floridian allies to top jobs: Sen. Marco Rubio will be tapped to be secretary of state, and Rep. Michael Waltz will be his national security adviser.

Both men have said Israel should not be prevented from staging a direct attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons program. That stance echoes Trump who, before the election, urged Israel to “​​Do what you have to do.” Trump had criticized President Joe Biden for confining Israel to only hitting military sites, but not nuclear ones, in a retaliatory strike.

In naming Waltz, Trump announced Tuesday, “Mike has been a strong champion of my America First Foreign Policy agenda and will be a tremendous champion of our pursuit of Peace through Strength!”

Trump has yet to formally name Rubio, but his pending appointments has been widely reported and the Republican Jewish Coalition, which has a longstanding relationship with Rubio, congratulated him.

“President Trump’s choice of Senator Rubio for this critical role sends a message loudly and clearly: The days of weakness and appeasement are over,” the RJC said in a statement on Monday night. “We know that with Senator Rubio leading the State Department, America will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our allies and confront our enemies.”

The nominations signal that, despite isolationist leanings among some in Trump’s inner circle, the party’s traditional posture toward Israel is prevailing in the coalescent Trump White House. The president-elect this week also named New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, a prominent pro-Israel hawk in Congress, as ambassador to the United Nations.

Rubio diverged from his otherwise hawkish voting record on Israel earlier this year when he opposed a combined emergency defense aid package for Israel and Ukraine, which passed. But he said he voted no because the package did not include sufficiently tough immigration measures. The House voted separately on each component of the Senate bill: Waltz and Stefanik both voted for the Israel component and against the Ukraine component.

Both Waltz and Rubio, when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, backed a robust alliance with the beleaguered country. More recently they have shifted to arguing for diminished American involvement in the war, which is more in line with Trump’s accommodationist posture toward Russia and aversion to U.S. involvement in foreign wars.

Rubio came up in Florida politics in part because of the backing of billionaire auto dealership magnate Norman Braman, a past president of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation. He is known to be close to Miriam Adelson, the pro-Israel casino magnate who funneled $100 million into Trump’s campaign this year.

In the 2016 election, she and her late husband, Sheldon Adelson, were close to deciding whether they would back Rubio or Texas Sen. Ted Cruz as the Republican nominee. Then Trump pulled ahead of the pack and Sheldon Adelson decided to endorse the reality TV star.

Rubio has said for years that the United States should not stand in the way of an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear program.

“I think Israel has a right to act in its self-defense, which it did in the past when it struck facilities in Syria and in other places,” Rubio told The Atlantic in 2015, when he was considered a frontrunner in the next year’s presidential race. Regarding reports that the United States had stopped Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from striking Iran’s nuclear facilities, Rubio added, “It’s not clear exactly what would have happened as a result of that attack. I think that such an attack would have been successful.”

In October, after Iran barraged Israel with missiles, and as Israel’s conflict with the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah was escalating, he tweeted, “Israel should respond to Iran the way the U.S. would respond if some country launched 180 missiles at us. And they should do in Lebanon what we would be demanding our leaders do if terrorists were launching anti-tank rockets at us from a neighboring country, forcing 60000 Americans to evacuate their homes and farms for almost a year.”

Waltz has been among Israel’s most robust backers in the U.S. House of Representatives and has also said Israel should not hesitate to hit Iran’s nuclear sites and oil fields. Biden had discouraged such actions, fearing such attacks would trigger a full-scale regional war which would draw in the United States.

“So far…it’s important to note what hasn’t been hit in Iran,” Walz said in an Oct. 25 tweet, listing an Iranian oil facility and a nuclear facility. “This might be Israel’s last best chance to diminish Iran’s nuclear program and shut down their cash. Did Biden/Harris pressure Israel once again to do less than it should?”

Trump’s decision to choose the pair may have less to do with their pro-Israel bonafides than their loyalty: Rubio chose not to run for president this year and was wholly behind Trump. That separates him from other Iran hawks who might have hoped for a return to a Trump administration, including former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, who ran an unsuccessful primary campaign, or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who flirted with a run. Trump says neither will join his administration.

Rubio appears set for smooth sailing through a Senate confirmation, with Republicans set to hold the majority and at least one Democrat, Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, ready to back him.

“Unsurprisingly, the other team’s pick will have political differences than my own,” Fetterman said on X. “That being said, my colleague @SenMarcoRubio is a strong choice and I look forward to voting for his confirmation.”