President Donald Trump will fire Michael Waltz as his national security adviser in the first ousting of a cabinet secretary in this administration, the Daily Mail confirmed.
It comes weeks after Waltz unwittingly added a journalist to a highly sensitive group chat on the Signal app detailing bomb strike plans against Houthis in Yemen.
The mistake quickly devolved into the biggest scandal of Trump’s second term so far and left the president grappling with negative press fallout.
A source told the Daily Mail that Waltz’s departure is expected and Trump will likely announce it very soon.
Speculation mounted that he could be replaced by Trump’s current special envoy Steve Witkoff, who has held several meetings with Vladimir Putin.
Journalist Mark Halperin first reported on his 2Way YouTube show that there was ‘unhappiness throughout the national security establishment’ with Waltz and his deputy national security adviser Alex Wong due to the Signal breach of security.
‘This has to do about competence, not ideology,’ he said.
Halperin specified that the timing was uncertain, noting that the president had not settled on a replacement.
‘I do believe he has made up his mind, but he could change his mind,’ he said.
National Security Adviser Michael Waltz looks at his phone as he prepares for a TV interview at the White House on Thursday immediately before his firing
US National Security Adviser Michael Waltz at the White House
Waltz participated in a Cabinet meeting hosted by Trump on Wednesday, one day before his ouster
A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council did not respond to a Daily Mail request for comment.
Waltz appeared in an interview on Fox and Friends Thursday morning, giving no indication that he was about to lose his job.
He trumpeted the completion of a rare minerals deal with Ukraine as ‘good for the American taxpayer’ and ‘good for Ukraine’ to help it grow their economic development and security.
Waltz also participated in a Cabinet meeting hosted by Trump on Wednesday.
He had kept his job despite the ‘Signalgate’ scandal in March.
Waltz was responsible for mistakenly adding Atlantic editor Jeffery Goldberg to a Signal chat with 17 high-ranking officials about military strikes in Yemen.
Goldberg published the digital messages in full at The Atlantic, leading to weeks of negative news coverage of the administration and calling into question Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s leadership.
U.S. National Security Adviser Michael Waltz (L) listens during a Cabinet meeting at the White House
National Security Adviser Mike Waltz speaks during a television interview at the White House,
Trump did not fire Waltz at the time, partially because he did not want to give Goldberg the satisfaction.
But Waltz suffered public humiliation from the scandal especially after his embarrassing Fox News interview in which he tried to to explain the mistake.
It also damaged his reputation in the West Wing.
Waltz took responsibility for the mistake, but struggled to explain how Goldberg’s number was in his phone to begin with, even as he stressed that he had never spoken to him before.
‘Well, if you have somebody else’s contact and then it, and then somehow it gets sucked in,’ he said to Fox News host Laura Ingraham.
Trump gave Waltz a less than enthusiastic endorsement in an interview with The Atlantic last week.
‘Waltz is fine. I mean, he’s here. He just left this office,’ Trump said. ‘He’s fine. He was beat up also.’
