White House insiders have vented their anger at National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, with one reportedly calling him a ‘f***ing idiot’ after it emerged that he added a prominent journalist to a secret group chat revealing highly sensitive war plans.
‘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.
The Atlantic magazine’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg revealed yesterday that he was invited by Waltz to join a chat on the encrypted app Signal entitled ‘Houthi PC small group.’
Goldberg was then privy to conversations between Waltz, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance and other top administration officials, about military strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.
‘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.
It remains unclear who Waltz intended to invite to the group chat and why such a large volume of classified information was being shared on a commercial messaging app.
‘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.
The news site reported late last night that some officials believe that Waltz must now be pushed out or resign to save President Trump from being put in a ‘bad position’.
National Security Advisor Michael Waltz appears to be the most endangered Trump official after The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief revealed he had been invited to a group chat to discuss an attack on Houthi rebels
Some White House officials believe that Waltz will need to be pushed out or resign to save President Trump from being put in a ‘bad position’
The secret Signal messages were mistakenly sent to Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic magazine
A senior administration official told the site that they are involved in a number of text threads about Waltz’s future at the White House.
‘Half of them saying he’s never going to survive or shouldn’t survive,’ the official said.
Two high-level White House aides floated the idea that Waltz should resign to protect President Trump being put in a ‘bad position,’ while a third source told Politico that Trump has spoken to Waltz about the matter.
Republican Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski told news outlet Semafor: ‘Think about what we would do if Biden were president and this came out… we would raise the roof.
‘It’s going to be interesting to see if anybody loses their job over this,’ she added.
Don Bacon, a Republican congressman from Nebraska, told news outlet Axios that the administration’s action was ‘unconscionable’.
‘None of this should have been sent on non-secure systems,’ he said of Waltz’s messaging. ‘Russia and China are surely monitoring his unclassified phone.’
Former Democratic Party presidential candidate and long-term Trump adversary Hillary Clinton responded to news of the leaked messages on X, saying: ‘You have got to be kidding me.’
Reflecting on his reaction when he first received a connection request from Waltz’s account on March 11, before being added to the chat two days later, Goldberg said he initially thought it was a scam or someone ‘masquerading’ as the Trump advisor.
But The White House has since confirmed that the chat appears to be authentic, adding that it is now reviewing ‘how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.’
Aside from the security implications of the information reaching someone outside the administration, Goldberg said another aspect of the fiasco which shocked him was those involved in the group chat, which discussed sensitive military information.
‘I’m reading this and I’m wondering – not only ‘why am I reading this?’ – but why would the Secretary of the Treasury need to know the precise attack sequence of this upcoming operation?’ he said.
Emojis and congratulations appeared in the text chain after a successful mission
He also expressed concern that the messages featured information that could easily have been weaponised by enemies of the US to harm their personnel and assets.
Goldberg wrote in The Atlantic: ‘The information contained in them, if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East, Central Command’s area of responsibility.
‘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 US would be deploying, and attack sequencing.’
A White House spokesperson characterised the chat as a ‘demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials’.
And for now at least, the White House appears to be standing by Waltz.
Goldberg was privy to conversations between Waltz, Vice President JD Vance and other top administration officials, about military strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen
‘As President Trump said, the attacks on the Houthis have been highly successful and effective. President Trump continues to have the utmost confidence in his national security team, including national security advisor Mike Waltz,’ press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement earlier Monday.
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Asked by about the leaked messages, the US President on Monday told reporters at the White House that he hadn’t seen The Atlantic story revealing the details of the group chat.
Looking puzzled, Trump said: ‘I don’t know anything about it. I’m not a big fan of The Atlantic. It’s to me, it’s a magazine that’s going out of business.’
Politically, Trump may have the most cover if he axes Waltz over someone like Hegseth, who the White House fought tooth and nail to get through Senate confirmation.
There is some skepticism of Waltz among MAGA Republicans due to him previously working for Vice President Dick Cheney, whose ‘neocon’ views differ from Trump’s ‘America First.’
However a handful of Congressional Democrats have pointed to Hegseth’s alleged sharing of classified information over the text chain as a more fireable offense.
Goldberg said he would not share some of the messages verbatim due to fears it could put US military personnel in danger.
The group chat was accidentally shared with Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine
‘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 US would be deploying, and attack sequencing,’ the journalist instead wrote.
Two of Politico’s sources said that Trump could instead of Waltz blame Hegseth or Vance for the embarrassing episode.
The text chain showcased daylight between Trump and Vance on foreign policy issues.
‘I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with this message on Europe right now,’ Vance wrote, according to The Atlantic’s report. ‘There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices. I am willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself. But there is a strong argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is, etc.’
Trump has pushed the U.S.’s European NATO allies to pony up more cash – especially to go toward the Ukraine war – and Vance said he viewed an attack on the Houthis as the U.S. ‘bailing Europe out again.’