WASHINGTON − Mike Waltz, President Donald Trump’s national security advisor, is set to leave his White House post amid continued fallout weeks after he accidentally invited a journalist into a chat between top national security officials discussing plans for Yemen airstrikes.
A source familiar with the situation on May 1 confirmed Waltz’ exit, as well as deputy national security advisor Alex Wong.
Trump had publicly stood by Waltz after his national security adviser and other members of the chat vigorously denied sharing any classified war plans on the publicly available app Signal. The chat was revealed when Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, published a March 24 story detailing how Waltz accidentally invited him into the communications.
Yet behind-the scenes, the embarrassing mishap ‒ which even Trump started referring to as “Signalgate” ‒ took a toll on the relationship between Trump and Waltz, a former Republican congressman from Florida.
On the day of the initial Atlantic report, Waltz said he took “full responsibility” for the “embarrassing” blunder. “We’re going to get to the bottom of it,” he told Laura Ingraham on Fox News.
Waltz mistakenly added Goldberg, a longtime national security journalist, to a chat on the encrypted messaging app Signal in mid-March that also included Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Vice President JD Vance, among other members of the Trump administration’s top echelon.
Officials in the group discussed military plans to strike the Houthi militant movement in Yemen, and Hegseth sent a message detailing strike times by U.S. warplanes and drones – as Goldberg reported in the bombshell article.
Trump defended Waltz at the start of the controversy, saying it was a “mistake” and that “he’s not getting fired.” But fallout from the incident grew as Trump’s intelligence officials were grilled by lawmakers on the House and Senate intelligence committees and following reports of an additional Signal chat created by Hegseth in which the defense secretary shared sensitive military information with his wife and brother.
As Hegseth repeatedly denied accusations that he had shared any classified war plans, The Atlantic published screenshots on Wednesday morning of messages Hegseth sent in the chat that detailed the exact times of planned strikes and how they would be delivered.
Waltz was also defiant for weeks before news of his departure. “No locations. No sources & methods. NO WAR PLANS,” he posted on X on Wednesday.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mike Waltz to exit White House amid furor over Trump Signal chat
The post Mike Waltz to exit Trump administration weeks after Signal chat fiasco appeared first on USA TODAY.
