WASHINGTON – White House national security adviser Mike Waltz shows the first major staff shake up of President Donald Trump’s second term, according to two people familiar with the issue Thursday.
Waltz was burnt scrutiny in March after revelation that he added journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to a private text chain of encrypted messaging app signals. Laura Rumer, the president’s far-right ally, also targeted the waltz and told Trump in a recent conversation in an oval office that she needed to wipe out aides who she believes are insufficiently loyal to the agenda that “makes America great again” agenda.
Waltz aide Alex Wong is also expected to leave, according to people who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the movement of personnel that has not yet been made public. The National Security Council did not request comment.
Waltz, who worked in a Florida-representative home before his promotion to the White House, is the most prominent senior administration official since Trump returned to the White House. The Republican president was trying to avoid the uproar of his first four years of inauguration in his second term. Meanwhile, he cycled through four national security advisers, four White House chiefs and two state secretaries.
The signal chain also showed that Defense Secretary Pete Hegses provided the exact timing for launching the bomb, indicating when the bomb would fall. Waltz previously took “all responsibility” to build a message chain, so administrative authorities described the episode as “a mistake,” but did not harm Americans. Waltz claimed he didn’t know how Goldberg reached the messaging chain, and he claimed he didn’t know the journalists.
Trump and the White House claimed that no information classified as a text chain was shared, but they stood by the waltz throughout the episode. However, the national security advisers who fought were also surrounded by the nature of Rumer and others who had complained to the administrative authorities that they had been excluded from the National Security Council aide review process. In her view, Waltz not only relied too much on “neocons” by referring to Hawkish’s neoconservatives within the Republican Party, but others who claimed that he was the “non-magic” type.
The Waltz appeared on television on Thursday morning, promoting a regime agreement with Kiev that would allow the United States to access important minerals and other natural resources in Ukraine. As reports spread that Waltz could leave the administration, Rumer appeared to write “Scalp” in a post on social media site X.
Zeke Miller, Aamer Madhani, Seung Min Kim, Associated Press
