Trump expresses confidence in Waltz amid war plans chat fallout

 

Trump expresses confidence in Waltz amid war plans chat fallout

 

“Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man,” Trump said.

 

By Ben Johansen and Amanda Friedman

03/25/2025 09:19 AM EDT

Updated: 03/25/2025 11:00 AM EDT

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/25/trump-michael-waltz-signal-chat-00246911

 

President Donald Trump expressed confidence in his national security adviser, Michael Waltz, in an interview with NBC News on Tuesday amid the fallout from senior officials inadvertently including a journalist on a private message chain discussing airstrikes in Yemen.

 

The Atlantic reported Monday that its editor was mistakenly included in a Signal group chat discussing sensitive war plans, shocking national security officials and members of Congress. POLITICO reported Monday that Waltz may be the fall guy within the White House.

 

“Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man,” Trump said in the NBC News interview.

 

The president continued, saying that the journalist’s presence in the group chat had “no impact at all” and that the Houthi attacks were “perfectly successful.”

 

There are conversations happening between senior administration officials on what to do with Waltz, POLITICO previously reported, including forcing his resignation. “You can’t have recklessness as the national security adviser,” one senior official who was granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations said on Monday.

 

In response to reporting that Waltz is possibly on the chopping block, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday morning that Trump “continues to have confidence in his national security team, including Mike Waltz.”

 

“Stories claiming otherwise are driven by anonymous sources who clearly do not speak to the President,” she said.

 

Earlier this month, The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, received a notification that he had been added to a group chat by Waltz titled, “Houthi PC small group” which appeared to include over a dozen other senior officials, including Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.

 

The National Security Council confirmed that the text chain “appears to be authentic” to POLITICO, The Atlantic, and other media outlets, as did House Speaker Mike Johnson.

 

But the White House and other allies have downplayed the breach. Hegseth said in Hawaii on Monday that “nobody was texting war plans,” which Leavitt echoed Tuesday morning. “Jeffrey Goldberg is well-known for his sensationalist spin,” Leavitt said on X, asserting that “no ‘war plans’ were discussed.”

 

The Atlantic has released several messages from the chain — including pre-planning and reactions to U.S. plans on striking Houthi forces in Yemen — but Goldberg withheld other messages, citing national security considerations.

 

In a Tuesday morning appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Goldberg said that he received a text in the chain from Hegseth, detailing “the war sequencing, the attack sequence, weapons packages, targets.”

 

“I don’t want to go into details, because I don’t think it’s responsible to put out operational issues, and I don’t understand all the sources and methods issues that are raised by this from an intelligence perspective,” Goldberg said. “I saw Hegseth’s response yesterday. It was just unserious.”

 

Democrats and some Republicans on the Hill expressed anger and concern, both over what they said was the officials’ recklessness in not only adding a private citizen to sensitive discussions, but communicating through an unsecured channel. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) called it “an extremely troubling and serious matter.”

 

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) said that safeguards should be put in place to “ensure this never happens again.”

 

Democrats were more critical. “Only one word for this: FUBAR,” Rep. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.), an Army veteran who sits on the Armed Services Committee, wrote on X, using an acronym that describes when something is completely messed up.

 

“If House Republicans won’t hold a hearing on how this happened IMMEDIATELY, I’ll do it my damn self,” Ryan added.

 

Still, many staunch MAGA allies are downplaying the leak. “We don’t know how much of this is accurate or not,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on Fox News. “We’re griping about who is on a text message and who is not. I mean, come on.”