After news broke in March that National Security Advisor Michael Waltz accidentally invited a journalist to a Signal chat where he and other cabinet officials discussed secret military strike plans, even some of Donald Trump’s biggest boosters called for heads to roll.
Now, it looks like Waltz may be the first to the guillotine.
According to reports by Politico and CBS News, Waltz and his deputy Alex Wong are leaving the White House as early as this week. (White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Politico, “We are not going to respond to reporting from anonymous sources.”)
The question of whether Waltz should resign was reportedly a live issue inside the Trump administration after Signalgate broke. But publicly, the president defended Waltz, who claimed that Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg’s phone number simply got “sucked in” to his phone when he was creating the unauthorized group chat.
“Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man,” Trump told NBC News at the time. But Trump may have just been biding his time until the Signalgate scandal died down.
While less is known about Wong’s reported ouster, he has been the subject of targeted attacks by far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer. Loomer has sought to smear Wong as an agent of the Chinese government and has taken aim at his wife, former U.S. attorney Candice Chiu Wong, for being among the prosecutors of the January 6th rioters.
Loomer took credit for another slew of sudden firings last month, after she met with Trump in the Oval Office. And as the news of Wong’s potential departure broke Thursday, she took another victory lap. “SCALP,” she posted on X.
The mystery in all of this is why Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth seems to be getting off scot-free. While Waltz may have created the ignominious chat, it was Hegseth who shared the details about the military strike in Yemen with the group. And, as it turns out, he did it not once, but twice, creating a separate Signal chat in which to fill in other unauthorized individuals, including his wife.
At the same time, “chaos” has apparently been consuming the Pentagon. In a little over a month since Signalgate broke, Hegseth has been purging staff for alleged leaks and reportedly threatening top officials with polygraphs in expletive-laden outbursts. Yet, so far, the toughest thing Trump has said about the situation is that he and Hegseth “had a talk” and that “he’s gonna get it together.”
One possible (though admittedly absurd) explanation for why Hegseth is safe—for now—is there is simply too much bad news swirling around him. According to one source who spoke with CBS, the president waited to show Waltz the door in part because he wanted to cast the ouster as part of a broader reorganization, rather than signal he was bowing to public criticism. Because as we now know well, whether it comes to national security failures, tariff catastrophes, or accidental deportations, the one thing this administration will absolutely not do is admit to its mistakes.
More Great Stories From Vanity Fair
-
How Miriam Adelson Went From Big MAGA Winner to Casino Loser in Trump’s First 100 Days
-
The Truth Underlying Pete Hegseth’s Job Security
-
“It’s About Him”: How Trump Is Perverting the Presidential Photo Stream
-
Inside the Case of Kim Kardashian’s Paris Robbery
-
How Sebastian Stan Became Hollywood’s Most Daring Shape-Shifter
-
The Ballad of Bill Belichick and Jordon Hudson
-
Juilliard Is Going Tuition-Free
-
Elon Musk’s Breeding Spree Is So Much Wilder Than You Thought
-
Every Quentin Tarantino Movie, Ranked
-
Meet Elon Musk’s 14 Children and Their Mothers (Whom We Know of)
-
From the Archive: Sinatra and the Mob
The post Michael Waltz Is Out. It’s Hard to Believe Signalgate Had Nothing to Do With It appeared first on Vanity Fair.
