FILE - In this Aug. 9, 2017, file photo, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert speaks during a briefing at the State Department in Washington. President Donald Trump is expected to nominate Nauert to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Two administration officials confirmed Trump’s plans. A Republican congressional aide said the president was expected to announce his decision by tweet on Friday morning, Dec. 7, 2018. The officials were not authorized to speak publicly. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
FILE - In this Aug. 9, 2017, file photo, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert speaks during a briefing at the State Department in Washington. President Donald Trump is expected to nominate Nauert to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Two administration officials confirmed Trump’s plans. A Republican congressional aide said the president was expected to announce his decision by tweet on Friday morning, Dec. 7, 2018. The officials were not authorized to speak publicly. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File) Credit: Alex Brandon

Washington — President Donald Trump announced on Friday he’s nominating State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

“She’s very talented, very smart, very quick, and I think she’s going to be respected by all,” Trump said on Friday before departing the White House for an event in Kansas City, Mo.

If she is confirmed by the Senate, Nauert, a former Fox News Channel reporter who had little foreign policy experience before becoming State Department spokeswoman, will replace Nikki Haley.

Haley, a former South Carolina governor, announced in October that she would step down at the end of this year. Nauert would be a leading administration voice on Trump’s foreign policy.

Trump told reporters last month that Nauert was “excellent,” adding, “She’s been a supporter for a long time.”

Plucked from Fox by the White House to serve as State Department spokeswoman, Nauert catapulted into the upper echelons of the agency’s hierarchy when Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was fired in March and replaced with Mike Pompeo. Nauert was then appointed acting undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs and was for a time the highest-ranking woman and fourth highest-ranking official in the building.

That role gave her responsibilities far beyond the news conferences she held in the State Department briefing room. She oversaw public diplomacy in Washington and all of the roughly 275 overseas U.S. embassies, consulates and other posts. She was in charge of the Global Engagement Center that fights extremist messaging from the Islamic State group and others, and she has a seat on the U.S. Agency for Global Media that oversees government broadcast networks such as Voice of America.

Just 18 months ago, she wasn’t even in government.

Nauert was a breaking news anchor on Trump’s favorite television show, Fox & Friends, when she was tapped to be the face and voice of the administration’s foreign policy.

With a master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, she had moved to Fox from ABC News, where she was a general assignment reporter.

She hadn’t specialized in foreign policy or international relations.