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applegrove

(118,617 posts) Fri Dec 7, 2018, 09:14 PM Dec 2018

Trump Picks the Former Fox News Anchor Heather Nauert as His U.N. Ambassador

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-picks-a-former-fox-anchor-as-his-un-ambassador/amp?__twitter_impression=true

By Robin Wright at the New Yorker

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Nauert is better known for her sharp elbows, tart tongue, and flippant responses during briefings at the State Department. One correspondent described her as smart—with the aid of a binder loaded with talking points—but “snippy.” She took grief from the media for her comment in June that seemed to confuse the state of U.S.-German relations during the Second World War. “When you talk about Germany, we have a very strong relationship with the government of Germany,” she said at a briefing. “Tomorrow is the anniversary of the D-Day invasion. We obviously have a very long history with the government of Germany, and we have a strong relationship with the government.”

The appointment underscores Trump’s disdain for the world body. The position—which has had cabinet status—is also reportedly being downgraded. Nauert must be confirmed by the Senate, a process that is likely to be contentious given the widespread skepticism about her qualifications. Her past experience includes reading for a major role in a Robert De Niro movie. During the Monica Lewinsky scandal, she gained fame as one of the conservative “pundettes” who pontificated about President Clinton on television. She once told the Washington Post that, at the age of sixteen, she had known that she wanted to be on television. In a profile, from 2000, the Postquestioned whether she deserved even that. “Who the heck is Heather Nauert? Why, other than looking like the younger sister of another Heather (Locklear), is she on TV at all?” the critic Paul Farhi wrote. “From what well of life-shaping experiences do our anointed dispensers of video wisdom draw their opinions?”

Nauert, a political appointee, had a strainedrelationship with her first boss at the State Department, former Secretary Rex Tillerson. She did not always travel with him on foreign trips, uncommon for the spokesperson of America’s top diplomat. Since he was fired, in March, her rise has been meteoric. As an undersecretary, she has been in charge of public diplomacy, which includes improving America’s image abroad through outreach to allies and more than two hundred and seventy overseas missions. She has travelled frequently with the current Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, including to North Korea.

Nauert’s appointment as U.N. Ambassador came as Tillerson finally broke his silence about his falling out with President Trump. “We did not have a common value system,” Tillerson told CBS’s Bob Schieffer at a fundraiser, in Houston, on Thursday night. “When the President would say, ‘Well here’s what I want to do. And here’s how I want to do it.’ And I’d have to say to him: ‘Well, Mr. President, I understand what you want to do but you can’t do it that way. It violates the law, it violates a treaty.’ You know. He got really frustrated.”

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