President Donald Trump appeared to pin responsibility for the growing Signal chat scandal on National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, marking a shift in his response to the controversy that has rattled his administration. When asked who was to blame while signing an executive order on Wednesday evening, Trump responded bluntly: “It was Mike, I guess. I don’t know, I always thought it was Mike,” he told reporters, before downplaying the entire affair as a media-driven “witch hunt.”
The president’s latest remarks stand in contrast to his previous explanation. Just a day earlier, in a phone interview with NBC, Trump suggested that an unidentified staffer—not Waltz—was at fault, saying, “It was one of Michael’s people on the phone. A staffer had his number in there.”
When pressed on whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth should be concerned about his role in the scandal, Trump swiftly came to his defense. “Hegseth, he was doing a great job… How do you bring Hegseth into it? He had nothing to do with this,” he insisted. Trump also floated a new theory, suggesting that the encrypted messaging app Signal “could be defective” in light of the controversy.
The White House has been scrambling to contain the fallout since The Atlantic’s Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg broke the story on Monday. Goldberg revealed that he had been mistakenly added to a Signal chat where senior Trump administration officials were discussing a planned strike on Houthi rebels in Yemen. Initially skeptical of the chat’s authenticity, Goldberg said he verified the messages after the military actions discussed in the group began unfolding in real time.
“I had very strong doubts,” Goldberg said, adding that while U.S. officials commonly use Signal for logistical coordination, he had “never seen a breach quite like this” where an encrypted chat was used to discuss “imminent war plans.”
The Trump administration has spent days trying to downplay the significance of the report, even declaring a public relations victory when The Atlantic published a follow-up, describing the leaked discussions as “attack plans” rather than “war plans.” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the controversy entirely, calling it “another hoax written by a Trump-hater who is well-known for his sensationalist spin.”
Leavitt also confirmed to reporters that billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk is now involved in leading an investigation into the Signal chat leak. However, questions remain about what consequences—if any—those responsible will face. Trump has already indicated that Waltz, despite being singled out, will not be fired over the incident.
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One Response
Who wrote this article, the DNC? If a staffer of Waltz was responsible for adding a journalist to a classified discussion, that means ultimately Waltz is responsible. How exactly is that “shifting blame”?