National security adviser Mike Waltz accepted “full responsibility” Tuesday for accidentally including Atlantic magazine’s editor-in-chief in a Signal chat group where discussions about military strikes against the Houthis in Yemen took place.
“Well, look, a staffer wasn’t responsible,” Waltz told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham in his first media interview since the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg revealed that he was privy to the Trump administration’s internal deliberations and planning of March 15 airstrikes after being added to text chain on the encrypted Signal app by the national security adviser.
“Look, I take full responsibility,” Waltz added. “I built the group. My job is to make sure everything’s coordinated.”
When pressed by “The Ingraham Angle” host on why Goldberg’s number was on his phone to begin with, the White House official claimed he didn’t know.
“Have you ever had somebody’s contact that shows their name and then you have somebody else’s number there?” Waltz began.
“So, of course I didn’t see this loser in the group,” he continued, referring to Goldberg, who is viewed by many as an antagonist of Trump. “It looked like someone else.
“Now, whether he did it deliberately or it happened by some other technical means is something we’re trying to figure out.”
Waltz described the incident as “embarrassing” — but vowed that the White House would “get to the bottom of it.”
“I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but of all the people out there, somehow this guy who has lied about the president, who has lied to Gold Star families, lied to their attorneys, and gone to Russia hoax, gone to just all kinds of lengths to lie and smear the president of the United States, and he’s the one that somehow gets on somebody’s contact and then gets sucked into this group,” Waltz bemoaned.
The national security adviser said that he doesn’t believe Goldberg, whom he described as “vile,” was intentionally added to the group by a rogue White House staffer.
Waltz suggested that tech tycoon and Department of Government Efficiency chief Elon Musk might be able to help the White House figure out what happened.
“I just talked to Elon on the way here,” Waltz said. “We’ve got the best technical minds looking at how this happened.”
“But I can tell you for 100% — I don’t know this guy. I know him by his horrible reputation. And he really is the bottom scum of journalists,” he vehemently said of Goldberg.
Goldberg’s bombshell story revealed that he had connected with Waltz on Signal on March 11 and was added to a chat called “Houthi PC small group,” filled with top administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, two days later.
The journalist shared screenshots of the group’s deliberation ahead of the successful military operation, showing that Vance initially opposed the strikes over concerns that oil prices could spike and that the attacks would primarily benefit Europe.
Goldberg told CNN Monday that “war plans” and “attack plans” were also discussed, which he did not include grabs of due to national security concerns, including, “When targets were going to be targeted; how they were going to be targeted; who was at the targets; when the next sequence of attacks was happening.”
Waltz insisted that “no classified information” was discussed in the text chain.
However, the Trump administration official said he doesn’t want the entire chain to be released by Goldberg.
“I certainly want our deliberations to stay confidential,” Waltz told Ingraham.
“I don’t want it all out there,” he added, describing the Signal conversation as a “healthy policy debate.”
Trump on Tuesday described the Signal snafu as the “only glitch” his administration has had since he took office.
“And it turned out not to be a serious one,” the commander in chief said at the White House, indicating that he is standing behind Waltz and his team.
“Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man,” the president told NBC News in a brief interview, claiming that “It was one of Michael’s people on the phone” that included Goldberg on the chain.
