Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free
Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world
Donald Trump has defended Mike Waltz, his national security adviser, as the White House sought to stem a growing scandal over revelations that top officials had discussed sensitive US military operations in Yemen on a Signal group chat.
Speaking to NBC News on Tuesday, the US president said “Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man”.
Trump added that the Signal chat about this month’s air strikes on the Houthis, which Waltz accidentally shared with a journalist, were the “only glitch in two months, and it turned out not to be a serious one”.
Waltz is facing growing pressure to step down as a result of the Signal group chat scandal, though Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, has also come under fire for sharing detailed plans about the operation against the Houthis on the chat.
JD Vance, the US vice-president, was another participant in the Signal chat, and argued that the military strikes were a “mistake” because they amounted to a bailout of Europe.
The furore over the exchange has shocked Washington and embarrassed the Trump administration because it shed light on the sloppiness with which top officials were discussing highly sensitive information about US national security on an unofficial messaging platform.
But it is unclear whether the US law enforcement agencies will investigate the breach, or if anyone within the administration will be held accountable.
On Tuesday morning, senior US intelligence officials, including director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA director John Ratcliffe and FBI head Kash Patel, were testifying in front of the Senate intelligence committee and were expected to be grilled by Democrats about the incident.
Democrat Mark Warner, vice-chair of the committee, said the Signal incident was “one more example of . . . sloppy, careless, incompetent behaviour, particularly towards classified information”. “This is not a one-off, or a first-time error,” he added.
“It’s also just mind-boggling to me that all of these senior folks were on this line and nobody bothered to even check [who else was on the line],” he said. “Security hygiene 1.0.1. Who are all the names? Who are they?”
He added: “If this was the case of a military officer or an intelligence officer and they had this kind of behaviour they would be fired.”
The White House has sought to dismiss the brewing scandal. In a post on X, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said “No ‘war plans’ were discussed” and “No classified material was sent to the thread”.
She added that the White House Counsel’s Office had “provided guidance on a number of different platforms for President Trump’s top officials to communicate as safely and efficiently as possible”.
