← Videos · Foreign Policy & Defense

Waltz Testifies at His Senate Foreign Relations Confirmation Hearing, Jul. 15, 2025

July 15, 2025 · CBS News · 2:25:01

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Mike Waltz testified on July 15, 2025, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the confirmation hearing on his nomination to be U.S. Representative to the United Nations. CBS News carried the hearing in full. It was his first appearance before senators since his removal as National Security Advisor in May 2025, after a journalist was added to a Signal group chat used to discuss military plans, according to the Associated Press.

Waltz told the committee the United Nations should be the one place where China, Russia, Europe and the developing world can come together and resolve conflicts, but that after 80 years it had “drifted from its core mission of peacemaking,” according to the Associated Press. His agenda, as he described it, was combating China’s influence, reviewing U.S. funding to U.N. agencies with what he called duplicative and wasteful mandates, and rooting out antisemitism within the U.N. system. He noted that U.N. revenue had quadrupled in 20 years without a quadrupling of world peace, and that the United States pays more than 183 countries combined, as reported from his testimony.

Senator Jacky Rosen pressed Waltz on reporting that he had continued to receive his White House salary after leaving the National Security Advisor role; Waltz replied that he was not fired and had been kept on as an advisor during a transition, and called the reporting “fake news,” according to Senator Rosen’s office account of the exchange. The Senate confirmed Waltz on September 19, 2025, by a vote of 47–43, and he was sworn in the following day.

Why it matters

This hearing is the founding document of Waltz’s ambassadorship: the “back to basics” reform doctrine, the funding-review commitment, and the China-competition framing he stated here are the commitments his tenure at the U.S. Mission is measured against on this site. It also carries, on the record, the central attributed criticism of his appointment — the circumstances of his move from the National Security Council and the salary reporting — alongside his answers to it.

Scoreboard watch

This is a candidate item for the weekly scoreboard: Waltz’s July 15, 2025 confirmation commitments — U.N. reform and funding review, countering China’s influence, and action on antisemitism in the U.N. system — each as stated at the hearing, to be checked against his work in office.

Sources: Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing, July 15, 2025 (full hearing as carried by CBS News, embedded above); Associated Press, July 15, 2025, on Waltz’s testimony and the hearing’s background; Senator Rosen’s office, July 15, 2025, on the salary exchange. All figures and characterizations as stated by Ambassador Waltz and committee members at the hearing.