President Donald Trump will replace Michael Waltz as his national security adviser the Daily Mail confirmed.
His ouster comes weeks after he unknowingly added a journalist into a highly sensitive Signal group chat detailing bomb strike plans on Houthis in Yemen.
The mistake quickly devolved into the administration’s greatest scandal to-date as Trump grappled with negative press fallout.
A source told the Daily Mail that Waltz’s departure is expected and Trump will likely announce it very soon.
Journalist Mark Halperin first reported on his 2Way YouTube show that there was ‘unhappiness throughout the national security establishment’ with Waltz and his deputy national security adviser Alex Wong due to the breach of security.
‘This has to do about competence, not ideology,’ he said.
Halperin specified that the timing was uncertain, noting that the president had not settled on a replacement.
‘I do believe he has made up his mind, but he could change his mind,’ he said.
US National Security Adviser Michael Waltz at the White House
National Security Adviser Michael Waltz looks at his phone as he prepares for a TV interview at the White House
Waltz participated in a Cabinet meeting hosted by Trump on Wednesday, one day before his ouster
A spokesperson for the White House National Security council did not respond to a Daily Mail request for comment.
Waltz appeared in an interview on Fox and Friends Thursday morning, giving no indication that he was about to lose his job.
Waltz trumpeted the completion of the rare minerals deal with Ukraine as ‘good for the American taxpayer’ and ‘good for Ukraine’ to help it grow their economic development and security.
Waltz also participated in a Cabinet meeting hosted by Trump on Wednesday, one day before his ouster.
There are reports that Trump’s trusted envoy and friend Steve Witkoff could be next in line to replace Waltz in the top Cabinet role.
The center of ‘Signalgate,’ Waltz struggled mightily to keep his job despite being responsible for mistakenly adding Atlantic editor Jeffery Goldberg to a Signal chat with with 17 high raking officials about military strikes in Yemen.
Goldberg published the digital messages in full at The Atlantic, ginning up weeks of negative news coverage of the administration and calling into question Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth‘s leadership.
U.S. National Security Adviser Michael Waltz (L) listens during a Cabinet meeting at the White House
National Security Adviser Mike Waltz speaks during a television interview at the White House,
Trump did not fire Waltz at the time, partially because he did not want to give Goldberg the satisfaction.
But Waltz’s public humiliation from the scandal especially after his embarrassing Fox News interview where he tried to to explain the mistake damaged his reputation in the West Wing.
Waltz took responsibility for the mistake, but struggled to explain how Goldberg’s number was in his phone to begin with, even as he stressed that he had never spoken to him before.
‘Well, if you have somebody else’s contact and then it, and then somehow it gets sucked in,’ he said to Fox News host Laura Ingraham.
Trump gave Waltz as less than enthusiastic endorsement in an interview with The Atlantic last week.
‘Waltz is fine. I mean, he’s here. He just left this office,’ Trump said. ‘He’s fine. He was beat up also.’
