Mike Waltz

Overview

In a single week of September 2026, Mike Waltz — the United States ambassador to the United Nations — told NBC’s Meet the Press that American negotiators had offered to sell Iran uranium for a civilian nuclear programme, told CNN’s State of the Union why Washington rejected Tehran’s bid to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, stood at the UN Security Council and called the Taliban a “sadist” regime holding American citizens as bargaining chips, condemned “in the strongest terms” any attempt to broaden the Ukraine war, and co-signed a Foreign Policy argument for a Sudan-wide arms embargo (Al Jazeera; Lokmat Times; WE News English; Reuters; The National). It is a striking second act for a man whose first months of 2025 ended in one of the most embarrassing episodes of the second Trump administration: the Signal chat scandal that cost him the job of national security advisor (Associated Press). Waltz is a retired Army colonel and Green Beret — the first Special Forces soldier ever elected to Congress — who represented Florida’s 6th district for three terms before joining the Trump administration (OpenSecrets).

September 2026: Waltz at the Security Council

Waltz’s busiest public stretch as ambassador came during the 81st UN General Assembly session. On September 27 he appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press and disclosed that, as part of earlier negotiations aimed at ending the war with Iran, U.S. negotiators had offered to sell Tehran uranium for use in a civilian programme — “Heck, our negotiators even offered to sell them uranium,” he said — modeled on the arrangement with the United Arab Emirates, which runs a peaceful programme under international inspection (Al Jazeera). Iran refused. Waltz said the Trump administration was open to Iran keeping a civilian nuclear programme under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, provided Tehran handed over highly enriched uranium and accepted that it could not reconstitute it (Al Jazeera). The disclosure landed against a grim backdrop: the IAEA had flagged Iran’s “continued noncompliance” earlier that month, had not had access to key Iranian nuclear facilities since the 12-day war of June 2025, and Iran was estimated to hold more than 440kg of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity — uncomfortably close to the roughly 90 percent needed for a weapon (Al Jazeera).

The day before, on CNN’s State of the Union, Waltz had explained Washington’s rejection of Iran’s proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days: Tehran, he said, was “asking for everything up front, with a promise that they would then talk” — demanding access to “billions in frozen assets” and the lifting of sanctions before any nuclear negotiation (Lokmat Times). He called the offer “a pretty cynical attempt to put something on the table that they knew was unacceptable,” while adding that Trump would keep all options on the table and that some type of agreement would ultimately be needed (Lokmat Times). He reminded viewers that “there has been not one, not two, but seven UN Security Council resolutions over the last 20 years saying Iran cannot and should not have a nuclear weapons programme,” and that the IAEA had referred Iran to the Council over refused inspections (Lokmat Times). Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi disputed the account on the same NBC programme, saying he was “surprised that the ambassador is talking about a seven-day plan, as he has not read it” and suggesting Waltz had not been given a copy (Lokmat Times).

On September 16 Waltz had used a Security Council session on Afghanistan to accuse the Taliban of using American and other foreign nationals as bargaining tools, describing the group as a “sadist” regime (WE News English). “The United States will not tolerate the Taliban taking American citizens hostage. Period,” he told the council, adding that Washington would not be “intimidated or coerced by a Taliban that cruelly uses American citizens as bargaining chips” in pursuit of international legitimacy (WE News English). He said the State Department had designated Taliban-ruled Afghanistan a “State Sponsor of Wrongful Detention,” accused the authorities of detaining citizens of multiple nationalities for ransom or political concessions, and cited UNESCO estimates that about 2.2 million Afghan girls were shut out of education — “the only country in the world where girls and women are barred from secondary and higher education” (WE News English). He welcomed the extension of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan’s mandate while questioning how many more reports and resolutions would be needed before the Taliban showed measurable change (WE News English).

On September 23, at another Council meeting, he condemned “in the strongest terms” any attempts to broaden the war in Ukraine, calling such a spread dangerous and unacceptable (Reuters). And earlier in the month he joined Massad Boulos, Trump’s senior adviser for Arab and African affairs, in a Foreign Policy opinion piece arguing that the Security Council had an opening to choke off the weapons flows sustaining Sudan’s civil war (The National). The United States had submitted a draft resolution to expand the existing Darfur arms embargo to the entire country — explicitly covering drones and related technology — and the Council granted a one-month extension to negotiate rather than simply rolling the sanctions over for a year (The National). The push faced firm opposition from Russia and from Sudan’s army-backed government, both reported in the same week to be linked to a secretly built chemical-weapons stockpile (The National).

The Signal chat and the fall of the NSA

Waltz’s path to the UN ran through a scandal. Trump selected him as national security advisor on November 11, 2024, days after winning the election, and Waltz resigned his House seat on January 20, 2025, to take the post (OpenSecrets). He served, in the Associated Press’s phrase, “for mere weeks” before being ousted in May after mistakenly adding a journalist to a private Signal chat used by top officials to discuss sensitive military plans — plans for an imminent U.S. bombing campaign against Yemen’s Houthis, which The Atlantic then reported (Associated Press). Waltz has denied being removed from the post and insisted the chat met the administration’s cybersecurity standards; the Pentagon’s inspector general was investigating at the time of his confirmation (Associated Press). Secretary of State Marco Rubio stepped in as acting national security advisor (Associated Press).

In May, Trump tapped Waltz to represent the United States at the United Nations, filling the vacancy left when the previous nominee, Representative Elise Stefanik, was withdrawn over concerns about the Republicans’ narrow House majority (Associated Press). After eight months of delays — including a procedural hurdle that sent his nomination back to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — the Senate confirmed him on September 19, 2025 (Associated Press). At his confirmation hearing he echoed his bosses’ call for sweeping reform of the 80-year-old organization: “We should have one place in the world where everyone can talk,” he told senators, “but after 80 years, it’s drifted from its core mission of peacemaking” (Associated Press).

Green Beret, congressman, contractor

Waltz was born January 31, 1974, in Boynton Beach, Florida, and grew up in Jacksonville, graduating from Stanton College Preparatory School in 1992 (LegiStorm). At the Virginia Military Institute he studied international relations, economics and Spanish, boxed, completed Airborne School and graduated as a Distinguished Military Graduate in 1996 (LegiStorm). Commissioned as an Armor officer, he went on to Ranger School and selection for the Green Berets, deploying on multiple combat tours to Afghanistan, the Middle East and Africa; he earned four Bronze Stars, two of them for valor, and at one point led Bravo Company in the search for captured soldier Bowe Bergdahl (OpenSecrets; LegiStorm). He served on active duty from 1996 to 2000 and in the Army National Guard until 2023, retiring as a colonel (LegiStorm).

Between deployments he built a policy career: defense policy director in the Pentagon under Secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates, then counterterrorism advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney in the George W. Bush administration (OpenSecrets). In 2010 he founded Metis Solutions, a defense and intelligence advising firm that grew to more than 450 employees serving the intelligence community and defense customers (OpenSecrets; ExecutiveBiz). In November 2020 a PAE subsidiary agreed to acquire Metis for $92 million in cash (ExecutiveBiz). That headline number is often quoted as Waltz’s payday; his own financial disclosure put his personal proceeds from the sale between $5.5 million and $26 million (OpenSecrets).

Elected to the House in 2018 with 56.31 percent of the vote in Florida’s 6th district, he became the first Green Beret ever elected to Congress (LegiStorm; OpenSecrets). He won re-election in 2020 with 60.61 percent, in 2022 with 75.33 percent, and in 2024 with 66.53 percent, serving on the Armed Services, Foreign Affairs and Intelligence committees until his January 20, 2025 resignation (LegiStorm; OpenSecrets). In Congress he was a hawk on China — sponsoring a Beijing Winter Olympics boycott and legislation to shield universities from Chinese espionage — condemned the Biden administration’s Afghanistan withdrawal, and introduced a bill authorizing U.S. military force against Mexican drug cartels (OpenSecrets). He co-chaired the India Caucus with Democrat Ro Khanna, sponsored a bill enabling U.S. weapons sales to India, and led a bipartisan delegation to New Delhi in August 2023 (OpenSecrets).

Money and family ties

OpenSecrets’ money-in-politics reporting gives Waltz’s career a financial shadow that most biographies skip. Across his congressional career, eight of his top 20 contributors were defense-industry companies, totaling $292,000 through individuals and PACs — RTX at $34,000, Boeing at $28,000, Northrop Grumman at $27,500, Honeywell at $26,000, AT&T at $29,000, General Dynamics at about $37,850, Sierra Nevada at $28,600 and Total Military Management at $73,700 (OpenSecrets). In the 2024 cycle his top contributor was the American Israel Public Affairs Committee at $102,900, followed by Starkey Hearing Technologies and the defense firm General Atomics (OpenSecrets). His disclosed assets ran between almost $1.4 million and $3.4 million in 2018, rising to between $4 million and $9 million by 2024 (OpenSecrets).

Waltz is also a managing member of Warrior Diplomat LLC, a defense consulting company whose owner is Daniel Nesheiwat — his wife’s brother (OpenSecrets). His wife, Julia Nesheiwat, whom he married in September 2021, served as homeland security adviser in Trump’s first administration; Trump later nominated her sister, Janette Nesheiwat, to be surgeon general (OpenSecrets; LegiStorm).

What this profile does not claim

This profile does not state the outcome of the Pentagon inspector general’s investigation into the Signal chat — no source read for this profile confirmed where it stands. It does not give a number of children for Waltz, because sources disagree and none was verified as authoritative. It does not repeat the $92 million Metis figure as Waltz’s personal gain; that was the acquisition price PAE agreed to pay, while his disclosure put his own proceeds at $5.5–26 million. It makes no claims about his books beyond what the cited sources state, and it does not describe any role for him in 2026 Gaza or Board of Peace diplomacy, which the sources read here did not cover.