Donald Trump said on Saturday he was nominating Tammy Bruce, the state department spokesperson, as the next US deputy representative to the United Nations, which would make the former Fox News commentator an ambassador.
The president made the announcement on Truth Social, where he praised Bruce as a “Great Patriot, Television Personality, and Bestselling Author”.
She has been serving as the chief spokesperson for the state department since Trump took office this year.
Trump said Bruce, who had no prior foreign policy experience before being named state department spokesperson in January, “will represent our Country brilliantly at the United Nations”.
Bruce is a former radio host who was a commentator on Fox News for more than 20 years, where she also served as an occasional guest host of Trump favorite Sean Hannity’s show. She served as the president of the National Organization for Women’s Los Angeles chapter from 1990 to 1996. Before her political conversion to conservatism, she hosted a radio show where her outspoken views were broadcast widely on Los Angeles station KFI, and she was one of the few radio commentators representing the progressive movement at that time.
Bruce was fired from her radio job after she vocally protested OJ Simpson’s 1995 acquittal and later became a critic of progressive feminism.
She rose to national prominence thanks to her conservative TV appearances and writing. In 2002, Bruce published her book The New Thought Police, in which she claimed to “expose the dangerous rise of Left-wing McCarthyism”. She was also briefly a contributor to the Guardian’s opinion pages.
Bruce, a lesbian who was given an award by the Log Cabin Republicans at a Mar-a-Lago gala in 2022, has been outspoken in her opposition to transgender rights. She has shared articles that spread misinformation about the trans community, including pieces featuring anti-trans “detransitioner” activist Chloe Cole.
As a spokesperson, she has defended the Trump administration’s foreign policy decisions, ranging from its mass deportation policies to its handling of the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza, which Trump had promised on the campaign trail he would quickly end.
If Bruce is confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate, she could be in post before the man nominated to be her boss, Mike Waltz. The former national security adviser’s Senate confirmation for US ambassador to the UN has reportedly been stalled by Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican who clashed with Waltz over his prior support for keeping US troops in Afghanistan.