Donald Trump has insisted he's standing behind his team in the wake of the Signal attack plans scandal, but a new report suggests there's been much more turmoil about it.
U.S. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz was put in the hot seat after he added a reporter from The Atlantic to a Signal group chat in which sensitive attack plans were shared. While Trump has blamed the media in public, in private he his asking aides, "Should I fire him?"
That's according to a report from Maggie Haberman and Tyler Pager of the New York Times on Saturday.
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"For much of this week, President Trump was consumed by a single question. What should he do about his national security adviser, Michael Waltz?" the Times reports. “'Should I fire him?' he asked aides and allies as the fallout continued over the stunning leak of a Signal group chat set up by Mr. Waltz, who had inadvertently added a journalist to the thread about an upcoming military strike in Yemen."
It continues:
"But behind the scenes, Mr. Trump has been asking people inside and outside the administration what they thought he should do... He told allies that he was unhappy with the press coverage but that he did not want to be seen as caving to a media swarm, according to several people briefed on his comments. And he said he was reluctant to fire people in the senior ranks so early in his second term."
Interestingly, Trump reportedly isn't as concerned with the sensitive data that was shared, but instead with the fact that Waltz purportedly knew the reporter who was added to the secret chat.
"But for Mr. Trump, the real problem did not appear to be his national security adviser’s carelessness about discussing military plans on a commercial app, the people said. It was that Mr. Waltz may have had some kind of connection to Mr. Goldberg, a Washington journalist whom Mr. Trump loathes. The president expressed displeasure about how Mr. Waltz had Mr. Goldberg’s number in his phone," the report states.
The report noted that Waltz has already been on "shaky footing," and has had negative interactions with J.D. Vance in connection with his military views.
Yet Trump ultimately decided to keep Waltz, the report suggests.
"Late Thursday, as the controversy swirled, Mr. Trump summoned Mr. Waltz to the Oval Office. By the next morning, the president signaled to people around him that he was willing to stick with Mr. Waltz, three people with knowledge of the president’s thinking said," according to the article.