For most of this week, President Trump was consumed by a single question. What should he do about his national security adviser, Michael Waltz?
“Should I fire him?” he asked his aides and allies as he unleashed a spectacular leak of a signalling group chat set up by Mr Waltz, who accidentally added a journalist to the thread about his upcoming military strike in Yemen.
In public, Trump’s default position was to protect Waltz and attack the media. The day after Atlantic Jeffrey Goldberg broke the story of the chat, the president said Waltz was a “good man” with nothing to apologise.
But behind the scenes, Trump has asked people both inside and outside the administration what he thought he should.
He told allies that he was unhappy with the reporting, but did not want the media to see him as cave-like, according to several people who have been described for his comments. And he said he was reluctant to fire people in the upper class early in his second term.
But for Trump, the real problem seemed not to be the carelessness of his national security advisers about discussing military plans on commercial apps, people said. Waltz may have had some connection to Goldberg, a Washington journalist Trump hates. The president expressed his dissatisfaction with how Waltz had Goldberg’s phone number.
On Wednesday evening, Trump met with Vice President J.D. Vance. White House Chief of Staff Susie Wills; White House staff chief Sergio Go. On whether or not he will stick to Mr. Waltz, including his Middle Eastern envoy, Steve Witkoff.
Late Thursday, when controversy swirled, Trump summoned Waltz to an oval office. By the next morning, the president signaled those around him that he was willing to stick to Mr. Waltz, three people who know the president’s thinking said.
People close to Trump say some were able to stick because Waltz wanted to avoid comparing it to the chaotic staffing of Trump’s first term, as some of his administration still support him, and because he wanted to avoid a comparison. Top Assistant’s Best Sales The presidential administration in modern history.
And while Trump can always change his mind, this episode shows Trump’s willingness to ignore external pressure in his second term, he also tackles the limits of the loyalty test he has placed on staff across the administration.
Even before the signal leaked, Waltz was seen as too Takish by some of the president’s advisers, and was seen as eager to defend military action against Iran when the president himself revealed he wanted him to make a deal.
The association with Goldberg, however vague, provided more fuel to cultivate skepticism towards Mr. Waltz’s enemies.
Some of Trump’s closest allies have questioned whether Waltz, a former George W. Bush administration official, is compatible with the president’s foreign policy. According to several people who have been described on the issue, Waltz intersected with Vance and Wills, particularly in policy debates on Iran.
In a statement, White House spokesman Karoline Leavitt said Trump has a team that knows that he is the “ultimate decision maker” despite members discussing each other. “When he makes a decision, everyone will do it in the same direction,” she added.
A few weeks ago, there was a debate among some aides about whether Waltz was an ideological alliance with the president. Trump, who had been endured privately about Waltz, revealed that he didn’t want to start a cycle of fire early in his second administration, according to two people who described the conversation. Less than a month in 2017, Trump, who regretted pushing out his first national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, believed he would feed the story of confusion.
After the signal thread leaked, someone shared a snippet of a 2016 Waltz video on X, produced by a group funded primarily by the billionaire Koch brothers. Speaking as a military veteran, Waltz denounced Trump as a draft dogger and looked directly at the camera when he said, “Stop Trump now.” The snippet attracted attention from Waltz’s critics.
In contrast, Defense Secretary Pete Hegses’ work appears safe despite sharing detailed information on strike times for attacks on Yemen’s Hooty militants in the signal thread. Magazine Star Warts like Charlie Kirk have defended him online.
“It had nothing to do with this,” the president said Wednesday.
Hegseth survived the bruise verification process in the Senate after being pushed through with the help of Vance, and he has a solid relationship with Trump.
While Waltz may continue his work, the controversy reminded Trump’s aides that, no matter how problematic the facts are, the president’s strategy of crisis management has doubled and denial.
When the Atlantic story broke, Waltz denied the meeting and refused to communicate with Goldberg. However, the claims were quickly raised in doubt by photographs that have emerged since 2021. At an event at the French Embassy in Washington, there was a photo of Mr. Goldberg and Mr. Waltz standing side by side. Waltz’s allies dismissed the idea that the photos suggest that the two men know each other.
But the reality is that while Trump demands loyalty from his staff, some senior officials are in the hands of many Washington who have relationships, past experiences and contacts with Trump people.
“The principle of getting a bunch of yes men and women around him is a guide’s principle, which is the foundation that has or is not responsible for the opposite evidence.”
“Everyone around Washington’s 10, 15 years has all sorts of backgrounds,” Bolton said.
In Greenland on Friday, Vance, who was traveling with Waltz to put pressure on the US to take over the territory, revealed that Waltz was at fault to add Goldberg to the signal thread.
But Vance, who has also appeared in group chats and has defended Mr Waltz internally in the past, emphasized that he would do so again. For now, it was a sign that Trump was ready to move on.
“If you think you’re going to force the US president to fire someone, you have a different idea,” he said. “President Trump said that on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. He says I’m Vice President.
