WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump expressed support for his national security adviser, Mike Waltz, following an incident where The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief was unintentionally included in a private, high-level discussion on the Signal messaging app regarding military strategies.
“Michael Waltz has learned a valuable lesson, and he’s a good man,” Trump stated during a phone interview with NBC News on Tuesday.
These remarks marked Trump’s first significant comments since The Atlantic published the article, which outlined how journalist Jeffrey Goldberg was accidentally added to a group chat discussing military operations in Yemen.
Trump remarked that Goldberg’s addition to the chat had “no impact at all” on the military mission.
When asked about how Goldberg ended up in the Signal chat, Trump responded, “It was one of Michael’s people on the phone. A staff member mistakenly had his number included.”
The president conveyed confidence in his administration, indicating he was not annoyed by the circumstances surrounding The Atlantic’s report. He described the situation as “the only glitch in two months, and it turned out not to be a serious one.”
The Atlantic’s article caused a stir throughout Washington on Monday. Democratic leaders demanded clarification from the White House through various letters, with a collective letter from Senate Democrats characterizing the incident as “an astonishingly cavalier approach to national security.”
Prominent Democrats from the House Armed Services, Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, and Oversight committees issued a separate letter seeking information on other occasions when senior officials may have addressed national security matters “using the Signal messaging service or any other messaging app not authorized for transmitting classified information.”
White House officials defended the chat. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth remarked on Monday that “nobody was texting war plans.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt reiterated on Tuesday that war plans were not part of the discussion and “no classified information was transmitted in the thread.”
“As the National Security Council stated, the White House is examining how Goldberg’s number was accidentally included in the thread,” she added.
In a statement regarding the incident, the National Security Council mentioned that the thread “demonstrates the extensive and thoughtful policy coordination among senior officials. The ongoing success of the Houthi operation indicates that there were no threats to our service members or our national security.”
Sources familiar with the situation indicated that Trump and Waltz discussed The Atlantic’s report on Monday. Waltz has yet to publicly respond to the issue.
The news about the group chat error comes exactly ten years after it was disclosed that Hillary Clinton had utilized a private email server during her time as secretary of state under the Obama administration. This revelation drew fierce criticism from Republicans, several of whom reportedly participated in the Signal chat, according to The Atlantic.
Goldberg noted that he was initially doubtful regarding the authenticity of the Signal chat. However, when bombings commenced in Yemen shortly after the group chat discussions, Goldberg concluded that the chat was “almost certainly real” and exited shortly thereafter.
Trump briefly addressed a question about The Atlantic’s article on Monday, stating, “I don’t know anything about it,” and mentioned that the reporter who questioned him was “informing me about it for the first time.”
