President Donald Trump stood by Mike Waltz Tuesday after it was reported that the national security advisor inadvertently added a journalist to a group chat discussing war plans.
Trump told NBC News in a phone interview that Waltz had “learned his lesson” from the incident and that he was a “good man.” Waltz appeared to have added The Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffery Goldberg to a Signal group chat dedicated to discussing pending strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Brian Hughes, the spokesman for the National Security Council, confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation that the group chat was genuine. The White House is currently investigating how Goldberg’s number was added to the group.
Goldberg reported in The Atlantic that he was invited to the group chat before the planned attacks on the Houthi rebels took place, with the plans described in the chat allegedly corresponding with the administration’s subsequent actions in Yemen. After the attacks, Goldberg left the chat, which would notify Waltz that he had seen the messages through the app.
Trump also added that Goldberg’s presence had “no impact at all” on the operations, according to NBC News.
In addition to Waltz, the group chat included Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, State Secretary Marco Rubio, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard and Vice President J.D. Vance, Goldberg reported in The Atlantic.
Hegseth defended the chat Monday, saying that “no one was discussing war plans.” Goldberg claims the opposite, but did not publish many specifics in his article. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also claimed Monday that the chat did not discuss war plans, and that “no classified material was sent to the thread.”
However, Goldberg claimed in his piece that Hegseth sent messages that “contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.”
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