President Donald Trump defended his National Security Adviser Mike Waltz in the wake of the Signal app scandal, calling him a ‘good man’ who ‘learned a lesson.’
His support comes amid calls for the national security adviser to step down, with one official calling him a ‘f***ing idiot.’ Waltz started the text chain to discuss the plans to bomb the Houthis in Yemen and added The Atlantic magazine’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg.
‘Everyone in the White House can agree on one thing: Mike Waltz is a f***ing idiot,’ the source, identified as a ‘person close to the White House’, bluntly told Politico.
Trump, however, told NBC News: ‘Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man.’
In the Signal app group, entitled ‘Houthi PC small group,’ Goldberg was privy to conversations between Waltz, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance and other top administration officials.
He wrote about how operational details were discussed and claimed Hegseth shared sensitive information that could be damaging to the country if it fell in the wrong hands.
The story blew up the internet when it was posted on Monday. Several critics asked why the administration was discussing sensitive material on an app instead of government systems designed to communicate classified data.
Trump dismissed the story as a non-issue, saying that Goldberg’s presence on the chat had ‘no impact at all.’ The attacks, he said, were ‘perfectly successful.’
He also said he wasn’t worried about the amount of attention the story received, saying it was ‘the only glitch in two months, and it turned out not to be a serious one.’
President Donald Trump defended his National Security Adviser Mike Waltz in the wake of the Signal app scandal
Goldberg was critical of Waltz for adding him to the conversation. It’s unclear who Waltz meant to include.
‘I’m thinking to myself, I’m glad Mike Waltz didn’t invite a Houthi into the group or a Russian spy, or an adversary of the United States,’ Goldberg told MSNBC.
Other officials in the conversation included Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. A CIA representative, Trump adviser Stephen Miller and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles were also listed in the group.
An official called the move ‘reckless.’
‘It was reckless not to check who was on the thread. It was reckless to be having that conversation on Signal. You can’t have recklessness as the national security advisor,’ one official told Politico.
Meanwhile, the White House doubled down on its defense.
‘No ‘war plans’ were discussed’ and ‘No classified material was sent to the thread,’ White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt posted on X Tuesday.
She also said the White House counsel’s office has ‘provided guidance on a number of different platforms’ for staff to use to communicate.
Goldberg said he initially thought it was a scam or someone ‘masquerading’ as the Trump advisor. He eventually realized it was genuine.
The National Security Council confirmed the Signal app chat was authentic.
‘This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain,’ Brian Hughes, the spokesman for the National Security Council, said.
‘The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials. The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to troops or national security.’
The group chat was accidentally shared with Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine
Trump ordered the strikes against the Iran-backed rebels in Yemen as a warning to Tehran. The Houthi rebels were targeting ships on the Red Sea from countries with ties to Israel, including the U.S. and UK.
Waltz started the principles group on Signal to coordinate on it, naming it ‘Houthi PC small group.’
Goldberg had his doubts when he found himself added, admitting he was worried that the text chain was a ‘disinformation operation.’
But he also found, as he watched the texts flow, that the statements in it sounded genuine and some of the details matched up.
In a lengthy article for The Atlantic, where he laid out what happened, Goldberg writes he voluntarily held back information that was in a lengthy text written by Hegseth because if it ‘had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel.’
‘What I will say, in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of this Signal conversation, is that the Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing,’ Goldberg added.
Speaking out for the first time since the story took over the news cycle Monday, Goldberg said he was fascinated by Vance’s thoughts, breaking with Trump and also questioning his knowledge on the subject
Hegseth, meanwhile, lashed out at Goldberg, calling him a ‘deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who has made a profession of peddling hoaxes, time and time again.’
He cited various stories The Atlantic has run on Trump’s alleged connections to Russia, his ‘very fine people’ comments after the Charlottesville riots being taken out of context and the alleged ‘suckers and losers’ comments on soldiers killed in war.
‘This is a guy who peddles in garbage. This is what he does,’ Hegseth added.
He praised American troops fighting the Houthis in Yemen and criticized the Biden administration for their own performance.
A reporter asked Hegseth: ‘Why were those details shared on signal?’
Hegseth replied: ‘I’ve heard how it was characterized. Nobody was texting war plans and that’s all I have to say about that.’
Goldberg fought back, telling CNN Monday night, that the chat included ‘attack plans,’ locations and identities of targets and the ‘sequence’ of strikes against the Houthis, adding that Hegseth’s denial was ‘a lie.’
‘No, that’s a lie. He was texting war plans, he was texting attack plans. When targets were gonna be targeted, how they were gonna be targeted, who was at the targets, when the next sequence of attacks were happening,’ he said.
