President Donald Trump appeared to place the blame for the Signal chat scandal on national security adviser Mike Waltz. The president was asked who was responsible for the scandal while signing an executive order on Wednesday evening.
“It was Mike, I guess. I don’t know, I always thought it was Mike,” Trump told reporters before calling the media’s reaction to the scandal a “witch hunt.”
This marks a significant change of tune for the president, who blamed someone else for the scandal when speaking to NBC. During the Tuesday phone interview, Trump told NBC that he believed that “it was one of Michael’s people on the phone. A staffer had his number in there.”
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A reporter then asked if Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth should be worried about his position amid the scandal, and Trump rushed to his Cabinet member’s defense.
“Hegseth, he was doing a great job… How do you bring Hegseth into it? He had nothing to do with this,” Trump said in response. He also told reporters that he believes Signal, an encrypted messaging app, “could be defective” in light of the scandal.
While speaking to reporters, Trump dismissed the significance of the scandal and instead touted the “unbelievably successful” attack, saying that the media should be focusing on the outcome rather than the chat group.
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The Atlantic’s Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg sent the Trump White House reeling after he broke the bombshell story on Monday. Goldberg was inadvertently included in a Signal chat group with senior Trump administration officials who were discussing a planned attack on the Houthis in Yemen.
Goldberg said he “had very strong doubts” about the chat’s authenticity. However, once he verified that the actions discussed in the group were occurring, he knew it was real.
The Atlantic editor-in-chief said he had “never seen a breach quite like this.” While Goldberg acknowledged that it’s not uncommon for U.S. officials to use Signal, he said it was primarily used as a logistics tool and not a place to discuss “imminent war plans.”
The Trump administration has worked to downplay the report for days, and even claimed victory when The Atlantic published a follow-up describing what was discussed as “attack plans,” rather than “war plans.”
“This entire story was another hoax written by a Trump-hater who is well-known for his sensationalist spin,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote in a post on X.
Leavitt confirmed to reporters on Wednesday that Elon Musk was helping lead an investigation of the Signal chat leak. However, it is unclear what will happen to those found responsible, as Trump has already said that he would not fire Waltz over the scandal.
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