Donald Trump has been contemplating resurrecting his most famous catchphrase: “You’re fired.”
The president has reportedly been privately considering booting national security adviser Mike Waltz over the Signal leak scandal, despite publicly standing by him, according to The New York Times.
Amid the fallout from the Signal text chain fiasco, in which Waltz accidentally added The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to a group chat where top Trump aides were discussing a strike on terrorists in Yemen, the president has allegedly posed a question to his most trusted advisers: “Should I fire him?”
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This discussion continued to play out even after Trump said on Tuesday, one day after the story broke, that Waltz was a “good man” who had “learned a lesson,” the Times reported based on inside sources.
Trump’s main point of contention was not that Waltz had carelessly discussed sensitive military information. Rather, it was the fact that Waltz had Goldberg’s number in his phone at all, which would seem to imply a connection between the two.
Trump despises Goldberg, who has broken embarrassing stories about the president, including that he once praised “Hitler’s generals” (a claim Trump denies).
The White House did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment on the Times’ report.
Soon after the Signal scandal broke, Waltz denied even knowing Goldberg—although this claim was called into question after a resurfaced photo showed the two posing side-by-side at an event in 2021.
Waltz did, however, hold himself fully accountable for the incident.
“A staffer wasn’t responsible, and I take full responsibility,” he told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham on Tuesday. “I built the group. My job is to make sure everything is coordinated.”
Nevertheless, Trump did not want to cave to the critical media coverage of the debacle several people familiar with Trump’s thinking told the Times. They also said he did not like the appearance of firing a senior official so early into his term.
On Wednesday evening, Trump is said to have met with Vice President J.D. Vance, chief of staff Susie Wiles, White House personnel chief Sergio Gor, and others to deliberate Waltz’s future, the Times reported.
The following day, Trump met with Waltz in the Oval Office. By the next morning, the national security adviser was in the clear: the president had indicated to those close to him that he planned to stick by Waltz.
The insiders said that Waltz was able to hang around because of persisting support from people within the administration and because Trump wants to avoid the high administration turnover rate of his first term.
The Times reported that Waltz had already been on shaky footing within the administration. Some view him as too hawkish and quick to advocate for military action in Iran—a stance that contrasts Wiles and Vance’s opinions.
However, when Waltz joined Vance on a trip to Greenland on Friday, the vice president became indignant as he fired back at the press over calls for Waltz to be removed from his office.
“That is not honest behavior from the American media,” he told reporters. “And if you think you’re going to force the president of the United States to fire anybody, you’ve got another thing coming.”
