Waltz questions how the Atlantic editor 'somehow' got 'sucked into' the Signal chat
National security adviser Mike Waltz questioned how The Atlantic's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was added to a Signal group chat with national security officials who were communicating about a U.S. airstrike in Yemen targeting Houthi rebels.
"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 links to lie and smear the president United States, and he's the one that somehow gets on somebody's contact and then get sucked into this group,” Waltz said during a Tuesday evening appearance on the Fox News’s “The Ingraham Angle.”
Throughout the interview, the national security adviser suggested Goldberg's number was labeled under a different name in his contact list, which resulted in the journalist being added to the message chain.
“I didn't see this loser in the group. It looked like someone else,” Waltz told host Laura Ingraham.
“Now, whether he did it deliberately or it happened in some other technical mean, is something we're trying to figure out,” he added.
The senior-level Trump cabinet member said he took "full responsibility" for the mistake and said Goldberg's addition was not the fault of a staffer while recognizing that the person he intended to add never joined the chat. Waltz declined to name the individual in question.
Both Waltz and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth allege that no “classified information” or “war plans” were shared in the chat which reports from The Atlantic contest.
“That’s a lie. He was texting war plans,” Goldberg said during a Monday appearance on CNN. “He was texting attack plans. 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.”
Even without direct knowledge of specific war strategy, Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) mentioned that foreign adversaries Russia and China likely saw the contents of the chat due to Waltz’s trip abroad during communications.
Despite criticism from lawmakers, the Trump administration has touted the strike's success in Yemen and said it has full confidence in Waltz's ability to lead national security efforts.
“Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man,” Trump told NBC’s Garrett Haake later adding it was “the only glitch in two months, and it turned out not to be a serious one.”
Waltz said he would work to make sure future mistakes in regard to national security communication do not happen again.
“It's embarrassing. Yes, we're going to get to the bottom of it. I just talked to Elon on the way here. We've got the best technical minds looking at how this happened. But I can tell you, I can tell you, for 100 percent I don't know this guy,” Waltz told Fox News.
“I know him by his horrible reputation, and he really is the bottom scum of journalists. And I know him in the sense that he hates the president, but I don't text him. He wasn't on my phone. And we're going to figure out how this happened,” he added.
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Mike Waltz claims ‘full responsibility’ for Signal chat group leaked to journalist
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Waltz attacks Atlantic journalist over war plan chat, says they 'never met'
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Trump adviser Waltz claims ‘full responsibility’ for adding journalist to Signal group but can’t explain how it happened – live
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Who Is Jeffrey Goldberg, the Editor Mistakenly Added to the Signal Chat?
Mr. Goldberg, who was included on a private text thread discussing war plans, was a longtime national security reporter who became editor of The Atlantic in 2016.The New York Times - 17h -
Atlantic editor-in-chief mistakenly placed on Trump officials’ war plans group chat
The editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine, Jeffrey Goldberg, says he was mistakenly added to a group chat with Trump administration officials on the commercial encrypted messaging app Signal. ...NBC News - 1d -
Trump adviser Mike Waltz takes 'full responsibility' for Signal group chat leak
But the US national security adviser said he could not explain how a journalist was added to a chat discussing air strikes in Yemen.BBC News - 1h -
The Atlantic's editor says officials got 'lucky’ it was him they included
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