Trump’s inner circle is not happy with how he’s handling ‘Signalgate’

More and more of president Donald Trump’s closest political allies are urging him to fire national security adviser Mike Waltz, after a classified-adjacent military group chat on the Signal app got exposed for accidentally including a reporter.

The pressure inside the White House is building fast, and the people who’ve stood by Trump for years are now demanding that someone get removed from office—fast.

The blowup started after The Atlantic published screenshots showing that Michael Waltz invited Jeffrey Goldberg, the magazine’s editor-in-chief, into a high-level encrypted Signal thread that involved some of the most powerful people in Trump’s administration.

The Atlantic reported that the Signal group included Vice President JD Vance, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, and other national security officials. Some members were only listed by their initials, making it hard to verify who all was in there. But the messages? They were dead clear.

Top officials dropped military details in Signal group chat

The Atlantic said that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sent messages into the group that mentioned types of U.S. aircraft and timing of military airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen, which is home to a group the U.S. still classifies as a foreign terrorist organization. There were no names of targets, but the posts still raised flags because they included operational timing.

At first, Trump and his staff said nothing classified was discussed. That changed when reporters pressed him directly on Wednesday at the White House.

“That’s what I’ve heard. I don’t know. I’m not sure. You have to ask the various people involved. I really don’t know,” Trump said, backing away from the earlier blanket denial. That silence created more questions than answers, especially from people who have always defended him.

One former senior adviser, speaking on background to avoid falling out of Trump’s good graces, said the White House wasn’t grasping the size of the political mess it had on its hands. “That is a legal question,” the adviser said. “We are talking about a political problem right now.”

That adviser also allegedly told NBC that someone needed to be blamed—publicly. “They need to put this on someone and clean it up that way,” he said. “The most obvious person to do that with is Waltz.”

Trump allies lose patience and demand a fall guy

While the White House has mostly blamed Jeffrey Goldberg for reporting on the messages, many Republicans are done with that line and want real accountability. That includes some of Trump’s most visible supporters, like Dave Portnoy, the founder of Barstool Sports, who posted a full rant on X calling the episode “a fuck-up of epic proportions.”

“Trump, you may love Michael Waltz. You love Pete Hegseth. You may love these guys. Somebody has to go down,” Dave said. “I understand the president is trying to be loyal to his people. But that was a fuck-up of epic proportions.”

A longtime Republican strategist and military veteran echoed the frustration, saying:

“This was a huge fuck-up. It’s unbelievable to me that there is the use of these kinds of devices used for something like this. Just an inexcusable mess all around.”

Conservative commentator Tomi Lahren also chimed in on X, writing, “It was an F up. The first and most simple way to address it is just to acknowledge it was an F up. That’s it.” She said she didn’t want anyone fired, but she didn’t deny the seriousness of the situation either.

Michael Waltz took full responsibility in a Fox News interview on Tuesday night. “I built the group,” Waltz said. “My job is to make sure everything’s coordinated.”

But some officials believe that owning up isn’t enough. One official close to the White House told The Atlantic that if anybody needs to be pushed out, it’s Waltz. The argument is that with the media fixated on Signal, the White House could push forward controversial policy moves while the public’s attention stays distracted. That only works if someone takes the heat.

So far, Trump doesn’t look ready to give up on Waltz. “Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man,” Trump said Tuesday in a phone interview with NBC News. That defense hasn’t eased the tension among his base or his aides.

Congress and the press pile on the White House over data security

During a Wednesday briefing, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, repeated Trump’s support and said the president “continues to have confidence in his national security team.” She confirmed Waltz had taken responsibility and said both the National Security Council and White House counsel’s office were “looking into how a reporter’s number was inadvertently added.”

But Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee weren’t buying the defense. They pressed CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on whether anything discussed in the Signal thread should have been classified. Both Ratcliffe and Gabbard said none of the shared info was classified, even though it included strike timing and military hardware.

That explanation didn’t land with Rep. Joaquin Castro, a Democrat from Texas. “The idea that this information, if it was presented to our committee, would not be classified,” Castro said, “y’all know is a lie.”

Even with his TV catchphrase “You’re fired” still hanging over his legacy, Trump doesn’t like cutting off loyalists. Several officials around him said it’s highly unlikely that either Waltz or Hegseth will get fired, at least not directly.

But another former senior Trump official who worked on foreign policy told NBC that a resignation was the only logical step. “This is serious, and it can’t just be sloughed off,” they said. “Any honorable public servant would see that and recognize that they’ve made a mistake of serious proportions, and a lesson needs to be learned from it.”

That same person said Trump deserved credit for standing by his team, but added, “I can assure you, if that were me, I would have resigned.”

Rep. Don Bacon, a Republican from Nebraska and former Air Force officer, also criticized how the White House handled the issue. “The White House is in denial that this was not classified or sensitive data,” Bacon said. “They should just own up to it and preserve credibility.”

Some Trump allies say firing someone would look like a loss. But others think doing nothing looks worse. Right now, Trump’s top advisers are stuck giving clumsy, sometimes contradictory statements just to keep things from blowing up even more.

At one briefing, Karoline Leavitt asked reporters, “Do you trust the secretary of Defense, who was nominated for this role, voted by the United States Senate into this role, who has served in combat, honorably served our nation in uniform? Or do you trust Jeffrey Goldberg, who is a registered Democrat and an anti-Trump sensationalist reporter?”

Trump tried to separate Pete Hegseth from the mess, saying, “It had nothing to do with anyone else. It was Mike, I guess. I don’t know. I always thought it was Mike. Hegseth is doing a great job. He had nothing to do with this.”

Tomi Lahren also went after the idea that Goldberg got in the chat by mistake. “A lot of people’s BS meters are going to go off, and rightfully so when you tell them that Casper the friendly ghost added [Goldberg],” she said during an appearance on OutKick. “Like, come on, don’t insult our intelligence. Tell us it was a big mess up. Tell us you take full responsibility and accountability.”

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