President-elect Donald Trump has reportedly decided to appoint Florida Republican Congressman Mike Waltz as his national security adviser.

Waltz, a Trump loyalist who also served as a colonel in the National Guard, has criticized Chinese activities in the Asia-Pacific and voiced calls for the United States to be ready for a potential conflict in the region.

Marco Rubio, another prominent China hawk, is also expected to be appointed Trump’s secretary of state barring a last-minute change of heart, the New York Times reported.

Last week, Waltz won re-election to the U.S. House of Representatives seat representing east-central Florida, which includes Daytona Beach. He defeated Democrat James Stockton, a pastor and former president of a local NAACP chapter.

Waltz is a battle-decorated Green Beret and former White House and Pentagon policy advisor. He was first elected in 2018, replacing Republican Ron DeSantis, who was running for governor, in Florida’s sixth congressional district.

Waltz served multiple combat tours in Afghanistan and received four Bronze Stars.

Walt was one of the lawmakers appointed in July to serve on a bipartisan congressional task force to investigate the attempted assassination of Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania in July.

After leaving the U.S. Army, Waltz worked at the Pentagon in the George W. Bush administration as policy director for former Defense Secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates.

Under former Vice President Dick Cheney, Waltz served as a counterterrorism adviser.

In 2021, after Joe Biden ordered a chaotic evacuation from Afghanistan, Waltz asked Biden to change course and relaunch military operations in the region. The war in Afghanistan began under Bush after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The Intercept reported that before running for Congress in 2018, Waltz headed a lucrative defense contracting company with offices in Afghanistan.

Waltz has consistently expressed the need to protect the Afghan people, saying that American “soldiers are going to have to go back.” Government reports say U.S. nation-building efforts have led to the deaths of more than 48,000 civilians, more than 66,000 Afghan police and military personnel, and widespread torture.

In the latest development of Trump’s appointments, the newly elected president is expected to also appoint Senator Rubio of Florida as his secretary of state, the Times said. Rubio, an unsuccessful challenger to Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, was rumored to be one of the leading contenders for Trump’s vice presidential pick before J.D. Vance was announced.

Since his failed bid for president, Rubio has served as an informal foreign policy adviser and helped Trump prepare for his first debate against Biden in 2020.

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has been selected to become the next secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, CNN reported Tuesday, citing two sources.

Earlier this year, Noem was widely seen as a potential presidential running mate for Trump. She lost it after recycling a 20-year-old story meant to illustrate decisive leadership, in which she shot and killed a puppy that didn’t hunt and had bitten members of her family.