The United Nations came into existence to vanquish Germany, as 26 nations jointly pledged in 1942 not to surrender to “savage and brutal forces seeking to subjugate the world.”
Three-quarters of a century later, the woman who would soon become President Trump’s pick to represent the United States at the United Nations cited the D-Day landings — a cornerstone of this unwavering Allied pledge and the basis of the Nazi defeat on the Western Front — to showcase the strength of German-American relations.
“When you talk about Germany, we have a very strong relationship with the government of Germany,” Heather Nauert, the State Department’s spokeswoman, said in June. As evidence of that long-standing friendship between the United States and Germany, Nauert added: “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.” She also pointed to the example of the Marshall Plan, which rebuilt Western Europe in the ashes of Adolf Hitler’s quest for global domination.
The D-Day comment raised eyebrows over the summer, when some suggested it demonstrated a lack of historical understanding from the former “Fox & Friends” presenter who gained prominence on television during the Monica Lewinsky scandal but has no diplomatic experience. This critique is emerging again as she prepares to move to New York as the American ambassador to the United Nations, a role to which President Trump plans to nominate her.
With the appointment, Trump would solidify the symbiotic relationship between his administration and Fox News, from which he has drawn top communications advisers as well as policy ideas (which, in one case, happened to be a talking point of white nationalists). The move to install a television personality and loyal spokeswoman as one of the nation’s top diplomats would also further transform his foreign policy into an instrument of branding in line with his “America First” agenda.
“In terms of what we normally look for at the United Nations, her resume is very thin,” David Gergen, the veteran presidential aide, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Thursday night. He said the role of U.N. representative was not a “communications job” but rather “a place where we conduct active diplomacy with nations around the world.”
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert withdrew herself from consideration to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Saturday, saying in a statement that “it is in the best interest of my family.” Behind the scenes, her nomination faced complications because Nauert hired a foreign-born nanny about 10 years ago who didn’t have the proper work visa and Nauert didn’t pay proper taxes on time, according to two officials involved in her nomination process.
President Trump announced his intent to nominate Nauert to be America’s top diplomat at the United Nations this past December, but he never officially sent the nomination over to the Senate for consideration. That’s because her security investigation was delayed while the administration tried to figure out how to deal with the revelation that Nauert had hired the nanny despite the nanny’s lack of a proper work visa, and the fact that Nauert didn’t pay taxes on the nanny at that time, the officials said. But Nauert paid the back taxes years later, they said. The officials requested anonymity to discuss internal and sensitive information. Nauert declined to comment.
One of the officials said that Nauert voluntarily disclosed the nanny issue to investigators as well as to senior officials at the beginning of her vetting process. The issue would likely have been part of the public record during her Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing, if she ever had one. On top of the already tepid response that Nauert’s expected nomination provoked from Senate Democrats, her confirmation process would have been grueling for her family, the officials said, so Nauert was honest when she said in her statement that she decided to withdraw with her family’s interests at heart.
