President Trump has tapped Florida chief resilience officer Julia Nesheiwat to be his White House homeland security advisor.
Nesheiwat replaces Rear Adm. Peter Brown, who spent six months in the position.
A former U.S. Army Captain, Neishewat spent four years as deputy special presidential envoy for hostage affairs and before that was the deputy assistant secretary of state for implementation in the Bureau of Energy Resources.
Charged with leading Florida’s complex adaptation to a changing climate, Neishewat credited her time in government and in the military with helping her to fully grasp the task at hand, including “how the environment and climate issues really tie into the nexus of our foreign policy, our economic policies, our national security overall,” she said in an interview this week with an environment-focused news outlet.
“It hit me first when I was deployed right after 9/11 in various combat zones and having to see firsthand—local villages and communities affected by the turmoil, whether it’s a natural disaster or a manmade disaster, not having running water, not having the resources necessary.”
Her appointment as Florida’s climate czar by Gov. Ron DeSantis last came under fire, with the Miami Herald pointing to a lack of “any obvious experience with climate change or resilience.”
Her new White House position means that she will again work alongside national security adviser Robert O’Brien, with whom she worked at the State Department.
