President-elect Donald Trump has nominated New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, one of his closest allies in Congress, as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

“I am honored to nominate President Elise Stefanik to serve in my Cabinet as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Elise is an incredibly strong, tough and smart America First fighter,” the president-elect said in a statement to the Daily Beast through a spokesperson for the transition team.

Stefanik was first elected to represent New York’s 21st District in 2014 at the age of 30, becoming the youngest woman elected to Congress at the time. She was appointed chair of the House Republican Conference in 2021.

Although she started her career as a moderate conservative, Stefanik has spent the last few years are closely coordinated with Trump, defending him during scandals like the January 6 Capitol riots and the lawsuits for sexual abuse and defamation brought to you by columnist E. Jean Carroll.

Stefanik has little foreign policy experience, but she used her position on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce to do just that lead the load to Ivy League administrators during hearings on anti-Semitism on campus after the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war last year.

The highly publicized hearings ultimately led to the resignations of University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill and Harvard University President Claudine Gay.

Politics first reported that Stefanik was being considered for a diplomatic post by the new Trump administration. Her appointment to the UN job was reported by CNN, which learned about the job offer from two anonymous sources.

Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley served as Trump’s first UN ambassador during his first administration. Haley left the job in December 2018 and was eventually replaced by Kelly Craft, Trump’s former U.S. ambassador to Canada.

Haley, who ran against Trump in the 2024 Republican primaries, is not under consideration for a cabinet position in the new government, the president-elect said on Saturday.

In a statement on social media, Stefanik thanked the president-elect and accepted the nomination.

“The work ahead is enormous as we see anti-Semitism skyrocket coupled with four years of catastrophically weak American leadership that has significantly weakened our national security and diminished our standing in the eyes of allies and adversaries alike,” Stefanik wrote .

Stefanik also thanked her colleagues in the House of Representatives and her constituents in New York state, but said she was “excited about this next chapter,” which will require her to vacate the seat she has won six years in a row.

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