Despite Donald Trump and the White House playing down the controversy over the Yemen war plan leak on a Signal group chat, the search to find a scapegoat is on and Vice President JD Vance wanted NSA Mike Waltz to be fired. Politico reported that there was a private meeting attended by Trump, the vice president, chief of staff Susie Wile and top personnel official Sergio Gorand all of them suggested that Mike Waltz should bear the brunt as he added Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg.
According to insiders, Trump too agreed that it was Waltz who made a mess but he decided not to fire him for this reason. “They don’t want to give the press a scalp,” one insider told Politico. Trump said Waltz learned his lesson and the issue has been swept under the carpet.
The Atlantic published a bombshell report by editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg claiming that Goldberg had been inadvertently added to a Signal group chat named “Houthi PC Small Group” by National Security Adviser Michael Waltz. The chat included high-ranking Trump administration officials, such as Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and others, totaling nearly 20 participants. The group was actively discussing plans for US airstrikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen, executed over the weekend of March 15-16.
The White House and Pete Hegseth reiterated that no war plan was discussed in the group. Following this, the Atlantic released the full transcript of the Signal chat.
A spokesman for Waltz, Brian Hughes, pushed back on suggestions that Waltz’s future remains in doubt, arguing that “the chattering of unnamed sources should be treated with the skepticism of gossip from people lacking the integrity to attach their names.” “Mike Waltz serves at the pleasure of President Trump and the president has voiced his support for Mike,” Hughes said to Politico. “The entire National Security leadership team has led a successful and effective counter terrorism mission and that is what media and Democrats are trying to obscure.”