Trump Names Morgan Ortagus for Deputy Middle East Peace Envoy

‘She will hopefully be an asset to Steve [Witkoff], a great leader and talent, as we seek to bring calm and prosperity to a very troubled region,’ Trump said.

Morgan Ortagus is seen in a file photograph. Riccardo Savi/Getty Images for Concordia Summit

President-elect Donald Trump has named Morgan Ortagus to be a deputy special presidential envoy for Middle East matters, while indicating some reservations.

Trump announced the appointment in a Jan. 3 post on his social media platform, Truth Social. The incoming president noted that Ortagus would work directly under Steven Witkoff, whom he named in November 2024 to serve as his special envoy to the Middle East.

Ortagus has previously worked in multiple political campaigns and government positions. She joined Trump’s first presidential administration, working as a spokeswoman for the State Department from 2019 to 2021.

Ortagus has also made a name for herself as a national security analyst. She contributed political and foreign policy commentary to Fox News for several years and founded the nonprofit Polaris National Security.

Ortagus also currently serves as an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve, a point Trump noted in his announcement.

Trump Hopes Ortagus ‘Learned Her Lesson’

Trump said he was “pleased to announce Morgan Ortagus” for the Middle East policy position, but he noted that they’ve had a contentious history.

Ortagus supported Jeb Bush during the 2016 Republican presidential primary and repeatedly expressed reservations about Trump’s candidacy.

In one April 2016 appearance on the Fox Business channel, Ortagus took issue with Trump’s foreign policy outlook after he said he didn’t want the United States to be “the policeman of the world.”

“I fundamentally disagree with his isolationist approach to foreign policy,” Ortagus said at the time.

Despite their contentious past, Ortagus joined the Trump administration. Trump also endorsed Ortagus’s 2022 run for Congress in Tennessee’s Fifth Congressional District, although she was subsequently disqualified from the primary contest.

In his Jan. 3 announcement, Trump referred to their past enmity and signaled some apprehension about bringing Ortagus back for his second presidential administration.

“Early on Morgan fought me for three years, but hopefully has learned her lesson,” he said. “These things usually don’t work out, but she has strong Republican support, and I’m not doing this for me, I’m doing it for them.”

Middle East Turmoil

The president-elect expressed hope that Ortagus can advance his Middle East policy at a time when the region is racked by multiple overlapping conflicts and political upheaval.

“Let’s see what happens. She will hopefully be an asset to Steve, a great leader and talent, as we seek to bring calm and prosperity to a very troubled region,” Trump said.

The incoming president went on to credit Ortagus for playing a role in advancing the Abraham Accords, his model for stabilizing relations between Israel and its neighbors throughout the region. The accords saw Israel normalize diplomatic relations with Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Sudan, and Morocco in the last few months of Trump’s first term.

The Biden administration had hoped to build on the Abraham Accords, including by normalizing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, an influential actor in the region.

Those Saudi–Israeli normalization efforts have faltered amid the ongoing Israel–Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. Over the past year, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan has signaled that normalization with Israel will not proceed until there’s a resolution to the decades-old Israeli–Palestinian conflict that includes Palestinian statehood.

In her own statement following the announcement, Ortagus said she was honored Trump had chosen her for the role.

“To be given the opportunity to once again represent my country and the Trump Administration in a crucial diplomatic role is [a] dream come true,” she said. “The most important thing is that through President Trump, we bring peace and stability to a troubled region, and I’m grateful to play a small role in that endeavor.”

In a December 2024 interview with Fox Business, Ortagus said the balance of power in the Middle East has shifted in Israel’s favor over the past year, largely because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been willing to ignore the Biden administration’s calls for restraint. In that same interview, she praised Trump’s decision to order the January 2020 strike that killed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani and said his return to the White House sends a strong signal throughout the region.

“We have to give large credit to President Donald Trump being reelected,” she said. “I can tell you every terrorist in that region remembers what he did in 2020 to Qasem Soleimani.”