Heather Nauert, the former Fox News host and Trump loyalist who is not qualified for her current post at the State Department will be nominated as the ambassador to the United Nations, according to a “senior administration official.” UPDATED

In early November, I wrote that Nauert had reportedly been offered the job. That was after only a year and a half at the State Department. She arrived there without a single credential in government, foreign policy or diplomacy. Just a few days before, however, she had promoted Ivanka Trump’s shoes. Less than a year later, Nauert got her own big promotion and became the fourth highest-ranking person at the State Department. Eight and a half months later, she is about to be nominated for the position of U.N. ambassador.

It’s not as though Nauert has distinguished herself at State. Business Insider wrote in August:

But some career staffers argue that while Nauert presents a friendly, measured face to the press and public, she lacks the substantive expertise to both answer the demands of a wonky press corps and direct the government’s efforts to build soft power.

[…]

She presents herself very well, the camera loves her, she looks great when she briefs, she’s very poised,” the senior department official said of Nauert. “On the substance, it’s been a very tough road. She requires a lot of hand-holding, and getting her up to speed on the issues requires us having to brief her over and over, often on the same issues because she doesn’t absorb the information well.”

NPR noted yesterday:

[S]he faced some criticism for a tourist-like Instagram post from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on a trip that was meant to focus on the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

There have been other missteps, including the time when she cited D-Day — the Allied invasion of Normandy against the Nazis — as an example of America’s strong relationship with Germany.

But NPR also noted,, 

She’s been a strong defender of Trump’s at the podium, something he has clearly noticed.

She’s also a propagandist par excellence, as I previously wrote in March:

She was a foot soldier for the War on Christmas; she helped blame President Barack Obama and Black Lives Matter for the shooting death of a police officer – which was later revealed as a suicide; she dishonestly gushed over Kentucky’s dismantling of its health insurance exchange; and she joined in the adoration of an adaptation of the old Christmas song, “Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” into a Trump paean, “Most Wonderful Time In Eight Years,” in December, 2016.

The position of U.N. ambassador requires Senate confirmation.

(Nauert image via screen grab)

3:42 PM UPDATE: Trump confirmed today that he will nominate Nauert. My previous update, saying that she has already been nominated, seems to have been premature.