National Security Advisor Michael Waltz assumed “full responsibility” for a leaked Signal group chat of senior Trump officials that discussed plans for a forthcoming strike on the Houthis in Yemen.
“I take full responsibility. I built the group,” Waltz said on “The Ingraham Angle” Tuesday. “It’s embarrassing. We’re going to get to the bottom of it.”
TRUMP REVEALS WHO WAS BEHIND SIGNAL TEXT CHAIN LEAK
Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, penned a first-person account of getting a connection request from what appeared to be Trump’s National Security Advisor Michael Waltz on March 11 on Signal, a popular encrypted messaging service used by journalists and government officials. He accepted and was then added to a chat group called “Houthi PC Small Group,” where he proceeded to see a series of top Trump officials discuss what turned out to be an upcoming attack on the Houthis, in what critics are calling a massive breach of national security.
Several Trump officials were reportedly in the chat, including Waltz, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.
President Donald Trump was asked about the story at the White House on Monday but appeared unbothered, and took a shot at The Atlantic when asked about its involvement.
“I don’t know anything about it. I’m not a big fan of the Atlantic,” he told a reporter. “To me, it’s a magazine that’s going out of business. I think it’s not much of a magazine, but I know nothing about it.”
TRUMP SAYS WALTZ DOESN’T NEED TO APOLOGIZE OVER SIGNAL TEXT CHAIN LEAK: ‘DOING HIS BEST’
Waltz also aimed some criticism at The Atlantic, declaring he did not know Goldberg outside of what the NSA dubbed his “horrible reputation.”
“I can tell you for 100% I don’t know this guy. I know him by his horrible reputation, and he really is the bottom scum of journalists. And I know him in the sense that he hates the president, but I don’t text him. He wasn’t on my phone. And we’re going to figure out how this happened,” Waltz said, after making similar comments about Goldberg earlier Tuesday.
“I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but of all the people out there. Somehow this guy – who has lied about the president, who has lied to Gold Star families, lied to their attorneys and gone to Russia hoax, gone to just all kinds of lengths to lie and smear the president of the United States – and he’s the one that somehow gets on somebody’s contact and then gets sucked into this group.”
The Atlantic responded to “The Ingraham Angle” in part saying, “attempts to disparage and discredit The Atlantic, our editor, and our reporting follow an obvious playbook by elected officials and others in power who are hostile to journalists and the First Amendment rights of all Americans…”
Trump defended Waltz in comment to Fox News on Tuesday, saying the national security advisor will not be fired over the incident despite some Democrats calling for Waltz and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to resign following the apparent national security breach.
“He’s not getting fired,” Trump told Fox News. The president said the incident was a “mistake,” though there was “nothing important” in the Signal text thread.
TOP DEM USED SAME APP USED IN ATLANTIC SCANDAL TO SET UP CONTACT WITH STEELE DOSSIER AUTHOR
Waltz also addressed the president’s comments to NBC Tuesday that a staffer from Waltz’s office was behind the addition of the journalist to the group chat.
“A staffer wasn’t responsible,” he said, revealing there was a different contact meant to be added to the group. “You got somebody else’s number on someone else’s contact. So, of course, I didn’t see this loser in the group. It looked like someone else. Now, whether he did it deliberately or it happened in some other technical mean is something we’re trying to figure out.”
Waltz did not disclose who was intended to be added to the Signal chat.
During the same interview with NBC on Tuesday, Trump noted that Goldberg’s inclusion in the group chat had “no impact at all” on the strike in Yemen.
“Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man,” Trump told NBC in the phone interview Tuesday.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt added in a social media post on Tuesday that “No ‘war plans’ were discussed” in the group chat, and that “no classified material was sent to the thread.”
“As the National Security Council stated, the White House is looking into how Goldberg’s number was inadvertently added to the thread. Thanks to the strong and decisive leadership of President Trump, and everyone in the group, the Houthi strikes were successful and effective. Terrorists were killed and that’s what matters most to President Trump,” she added.
Waltz told “The Ingraham Angle” he took valuable lessons from the Signal chat leak episode.
“Lesson learned number one is you’ve got journalists out there who have made fame and fortune trying to trash this president,” Waltz told Fox News host Laura Ingraham. “And so, we’ve got to tighten up. We are tightening up, and we have some of the best technology minds looking at how this happened.”
“We made a mistake. We’re moving forward, and we’re going to continue to knock it out of the park for this president.”
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Fox News Digital’s Greg Norman, Emma Colton and David Rutz contributed to this report.
