Trump defends national security chief Waltz after Signal texts about Houthi strike sent to reporter

President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he was not upset with national security advisor Michael Waltz after he reportedly added a journalist to a text thread in which top officials discussed pending military strikes.

“Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man,” Trump told NBC News in a phone call when asked about the bombshell revelation published in The Atlantic a day earlier.

A senior administration official told POLITICO on Monday afternoon that they are involved in multiple text threads with other administration staffers on what to do with Waltz, following the bombshell report that the top aide inadvertently included Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg in a private chat discussing a military strike on Houthis.

“Half of them saying he’s never going to survive or shouldn’t survive,” said the official, who like others was granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberation. And two high-level White House aides have floated the idea that Waltz should resign in order to prevent the president from being put in a “bad position.”

“It was reckless not to check who was on the thread. It was reckless to be having that conversation on Signal. You can’t have recklessness as the national security adviser,” the official said.

A person close to the White House was even more blunt: “Everyone in the White House can agree on one thing: Mike Waltz is a fucking idiot.”