Mike Waltz, former Florida rep, to exit Trump White House. What we know
A source familiar with the situation on May 1 confirmed Waltz's exit, as well as deputy national security advisor Alex Wong, USA TODAY reported Thursday.
Trump had publicly backed Waltz and other members of the chat, including embattled Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, after they vigorously denied sharing any classified war plans on the publicly available app Signal. The Atlantic editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, published a March 24 story revealing the lapse and followed up with another showing screenshots of the discussion.
But the embarrassing revelation, which became known as "Signalgate," strained an administration that is already seeing a drop in polls.
No official announcement has yet been made.
Waltz's departure comes 102 days into Trump's second term, making him the first high-ranking administration official to leave since the president's inauguration.
However, he beat Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who Trump fired 24 days into the job during his first term in February 2017.
Anthony Scaramucci, one of Trump's White House communications directors during his first term who famously lasted 11 days before Trump fired him, posted on X that Waltz "lasted 9.2 Scaramuccis."
On Wednesday, Hegseth's chief of staff, Joe Kasper, was reassigned to work on special projects at the Pentagon, according to a Defense official who was not authorized to speak publicly. In late March, he vowed to crack down on leaks.
Two aides to Hegseth, Dan Caldwell and Darin Selnick were placed on administrative leave last week as part of an investigation into unauthorized leaks.
"Hopefully, the rest of the people who were set to be fired but were given promotions at the NSC under Waltz also depart," far-right activist Laura Loomer said in a post on X shortly after news broke about Waltz's exit.
It is not yet known if Loomer, who has been advising Trump and recently encouraged him to fire two senior officials on the National Security Council, had any involvement in Waltz's departure.
There has been no word on whether former Fox host and current Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth will be affected by Signalgate. Hegseth is the focus of a Pentagon Inspector General's review of his handling of sensitive military information.
Hegseth has strongly denied that any classified information was shared in the Signal chat. The defense secretary faces increased scrutiny over communications after a new report last week that he shared the timing of U.S. air strikes on Houthi rebels with his wife and brother on the same encrypted commercial messaging app.
In April, Hegseth fired several top aides for allegedly disclosing sensitive information. Pentagon press secretary Sean Parnell blamed them and the 'Trump-hating media' for reporting on the chats.
'U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen,' Goldberg, wrote in an article on March 24. 'I didn't think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling.'
The Associated Press reported that the National Security Council said the messages appeared 'to be authentic.' Goldberg said he received the Signal invitation from Waltz
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was in the text chain, told reporters that 'Nobody was texting war plans and that's all I have to say about that.' Waltz said he'd never met Goldberg and was investigating to see how the mixup happened.
By the next night, as the story raged across the news and social media, Waltz backtracked on his claim that he wasn't to blame for the group chat mistake, telling FOX News that he took "full responsibility" for the chat that included The Atlantic editor, who he still said he didn't know outside of his "horrible reputation."
"I take full responsibility. I built the group," Waltz said on FOX's "The Ingraham Angle." "It's embarrassing. We're going to get to the bottom of it."
Signal is an encrypted messaging app available to anyone for free in Apple and Google app stores.
Since launching in 2014, the app has garnered a reputation as one of the most secure messaging platforms in the world. That's because it has no ads, does not track users' data and does not store any metadata such as timestamps, internet addresses or group names.
Signal has become popular among activists, revolutionaries, politicians, journalists and even criminals who may have an interest in keeping government agencies from intercepting or subpoenaing their messages.
However, Signal is not officially approved for use by elected and appointed public officials in the United States doing government business, experts said. Democratic lawmakers and some security experts have raised the alarm that national security information, under U.S. law, should only be shared through the government's own approved secure platforms.
Since Signal deletes messages by default, there are also questions about the use of it to avoid permanent copies of governmental actions, which are also required by law.
Mike Waltz is a decorated Green Beret combat veteran who served three terms as a Florida congressman from Florida's 6th District and won a fourth in November before stepping down to join the Trump administration.
Waltz has held civilian positions at the Pentagon, served as chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness in addition to the House Intelligence Committee and House Oversight and Accountability Committee, and has supported Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' war on "wokeness" and Trump's "America First" view of foreign relations.
(This story was updated to add new information.)
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Mike Waltz a Signalgate casualty, leaving Trump administration
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