Stefanik will face questions about wars and nukes at her confirmation hearing to be UN ambassador

WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. Elise Stefanik is likely to face questions at her confirmation hearing on Tuesday to become the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations about her lack of foreign policy experience, her strong support for Israel and her views on funding the U.N. and its many agencies.

Harvard-educated and the fourth-ranking member of the U.S. House, she was elected to Congress in 2015 as a moderate Republican and is leaving a decade later as one of President Donald Trump’s most ardent allies. She embraced Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol as he denied he lost the election to Democrat Joe Biden.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “looks forward to working again with President Trump on his second term,” U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said Monday.

When Trump announced Stefanik’s appointment, his former national security adviser John Bolton told The Associated Press that he sees her as the new version of Trump’s U.N. ambassador in his first administration — Nikki Haley. Haley went on to challenge him, unsuccessfully, for the GOP nomination last year.

Stefanik “wants to run for president in 2028,” said Bolton, who also served as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. in President George W. Bush’s administration. “She realizes she has no foreign policy experience, so what better way than to become U.N. ambassador. She stays two years, and then away we go.”

When she appears before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Stefanik is likely to be grilled about her views on the wars in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and elsewhere as well as the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs — all issues on the U.N. agenda.

The United States pays about one-fifth of the U.N.’s regular budget, and she is expected to be questioned about her comments on cutting the U.N. budget and continuing support for its multiple agencies. They tackle everything from health, education and migration to reproductive rights and nuclear proliferation.

Stefanik saw her profile rise after her aggressive questioning last year of a trio of university presidents about antisemitism on their campuses, leading to two of their resignations — a performance Trump repeatedly praised.

She has been very vocal about supporting Israel, especially since the Hamas cross-border attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, in which militants killed about 1,200 people and took some 250 hostage. It led to the Israeli-Hamas war in Gaza, where a ceasefire that the U.S. helped broker has taken hold.

Stefanik has accused the U.N. of being a “den of antisemitism” for criticizing Israel’s air and ground attacks on Gaza, which have resulted in more than 46,000 Palestinian deaths, according to local health officials. They do not distinguish between civilians and militants but say women and children make up more than half the dead.

If confirmed, Stefanik said she plans to confront what she says is antisemitism at the world body.

Her limited foreign policy experience outside Capitol Hill is almost certain to come up among senators.

Stefanik most recently was the most senior and longest-serving woman on both the House Armed Services Committee and the coveted House committee that oversees national intelligence. Stefanik was also tapped to be on a select committee focused on strategic competition between the U.S. and China and spent years as part of a group of House members negotiating the annual defense authorization bill, which determines funding for the military. In 2023, she also led a bipartisan delegation of members to the Indo-Pacific including Japan, Singapore and Thailand to meet with various government, military and cultural leaders in the region.

Born and raised in upstate New York, Stefanik worked in Bush’s White House on the domestic policy council and in the chief of staff’s office.

She was the youngest person in her freshman class in Congress — just 30 — and ascended to the House leadership team in 2021, becoming the only woman.

Unlike Sen. Marco Rubio, who was confirmed in a unanimous vote Monday night, only one Democrat — Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania — has publicly said he would vote to confirm Stefanik thus far. But, many other Democrats have left meetings with her indicating their support, including Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada, who is Jewish and noted their discussions on how Stefanik “plans to push back on politically motivated actions” against Israel when at the U.N.

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This story has been corrected to show that one Democrat has publicly endorsed Stefanik, not that no Democrats have publicly endorsed her.

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Lederer reported from the United Nations.