“Should I fire him?” In Trump’s consultations about the fate of Michael Waltz

For a large part of this week, President Trump was consumed by a single question. What should he do about his national security advisor Michael Waltz?

“Should I fire him?” He asked the Aides and allies when the Fallout went over the breathtaking leak of a signal group chat that was set up by Mr. Waltz, who accidentally added a journalist to a journalist about an upcoming military strike in Yemen.

In public, Mr. Trump’s failure position was to defend Mr. Waltz and attack the media. On Tuesday, one day after Jeffrey Goldberg from the Atlantic had left the story about admission to the chat, the president said Mr. Waltz was a “good man” who had nothing to excuse.

But behind the scenes, Mr. Trump asked people inside and outside the administration what they thought that he should do it.

He told the allies that he was dissatisfied with the press coverage, but, according to several people who were informed about his comments, did not want to be seen as a restriction of a crush of media. And he said he hesitated to relieve people in the seniors so early in his second term.

For Mr. Trump, however, the real problem did not seem to be the negligence of his national security advisor about the discussion of military plans of a commercial app, people said. It was the case that Mr. Waltz had a kind of connection to Mr. Goldberg, a journalist in Washington that Mr. Trump loathes. The president expressed displeasure about how Mr. Waltz had the number of Mr. Goldberg on his phone.

On Wednesday evening, Mr. Trump met Vice President JD Vance. The chief of staff of the White House, Susie Wiles; The HR head of the White House, Sergio Gor; His envoy of Middle East, Steve Witkoff and others about whether he holds on Mr. Waltz.

In the late Thursday, when the controversy swirl, Mr. Trump called Mr. Waltz to the Oval Office. The next morning, the President signaled the people around him that he was ready to stay with Mr. Waltz, three people who came about the president’s thinking.

In an interview on Saturday with NBC News, Mr. Trump continued the episode and called questions about the officials who affected a witch hunt.

People near Mr. Trump say that Mr. Waltz had partly captured because some still support him in the administration, and because Mr. Trump wanted to avoid comparisons with the chaotic deputy of his first term who had the highest sales of top helpers from every presidential administration in modern history.

And while Mr. Trump can always change his opinion, the episode of Trump’s willingness to disregard the external pressure in his second term and at the same time step with the limits of the loyalty tests that he imposed on the administration employees.

Before the signal truck, Mr. Waltz was on a shaky basis, which some advisors of the president considered too Hawkish and was too eager to stand up for military measures against Iran when the president himself made it clear that he preferred to complete a deal.

A connection with Mr. Goldberg, as always, gave Mr. Waltz’s opponents more fuel to feed the skepticism.

Some of Mr. Trump’s closest allies asked whether Mr. Waltz, a former government of the government of George W. Bush, was compatible with the President’s foreign policy. Mr. Waltz had crossed with Mr. Vance and Ms. Wiles in political discussions, especially with regard to Iran and her desire to raise Mr. Trump’s preference how several people were reported on this matter.

In an explanation, the press spokesman for the White House, Karoline Leavitt, said a team whose members are discussing, but he knew that he is the “ultimate decision -maker”. “When he makes a decision, everyone counts in the same direction to carry out,” she added.

Weeks ago a discussion arose in some areas whether Mr. Waltz agreed with the president ideologically. Mr. Trump, who was temporarily privately about Mr. Waltz, made it clear that he did not want to start the cycle of the layoffs so early in his second administration, two people who were informed about the conversation. Mr. Trump, who regretted it to bring out his first national security advisor, Michael T. Flynn, after less than a month in 2017, believed that it would feed a story that he was causing chaos.

After the signal thread was leaked, someone divided a section of a snippet of a 2016 video by Mr. Waltz, which was produced by a group that was mainly financed by the billionaires Koch Brothers. As a military veteran, Mr. Waltz looked directly into the camera when he condemned Mr. Trump as a draft dodger and said: “Stop Trump now.” This excerpt drawn attention to Mr. Waltz’s critics.

In contrast, Defense Minister Pete Hegseth’s mandate seems to be safe, although he shared detailed information about the strike times for the attack on the militants of Houthi in Yemen in the Signal Thread. Maga Stalwarts like Charlie Kirk defended him online.

Mr. Hegseth “had nothing to do with it,” said the president on Wednesday.

Mr. Hegseth survived a bruise confirmation process in the Senate after he was enforced with the help of Mr. Vance, and he has a solid relationship with Mr. Trump.

While Mr. Waltz may keep his work, the controversy reminded the helpers of Mr. Trump that the strategy of the president’s crisis management – doubles and denies, regardless of how problematic the facts are – does not seem to work as well for them as it has been for Mr. Trump over the years.

When the Atlantic history broke, Mr. Waltz competed, knowledge or communicated Mr. Goldberg. However, this claim was quickly questioned by photos that appeared from a 2021 Event in the French embassy in Washington, where Mr. Goldberg and Mr. Waltz stood side by side. Mr. Waltz’s allies dismissed the idea that the photo suggested that the two men know each other.

Mr. Goldberg said in his first story about the signal chain that he had met Mr. Waltz in the past. On Saturday he asked for a relationship with Mr. Waltz and the question of whether he had Mr. Waltz ‘number, only: “I will not comment on my relationship with public personalities or sources in one way or another.”

While Mr. Trump has asked for loyalty from his employees, the reality is that some top officials are Washington hands who have relationships, past experiences and contacts with people who despise Mr. Trump.

“I would say that the principle of getting a few yes men and yes women around them is the guiding principle, the basis of which has no past or has not had a past who may have proof of the opposite,” said John R. Bolton, who worked as Mr. Trump’s third of four national security advisors and then wrote an revealing book about his time in the White House.

“Anyone who has been in Washington for 10 years and for 15 years has all kinds of backgrounds,” said Bolton.

In Greenland on Friday, Mr. Vance, who was traveling with Mr. Waltz to turn pressure on the United States to take over the territory, made it clear that Mr. Waltz was to blame to add Mr. Goldberg to the signal -Thread.

But Mr. Vance, who was also in the group chat and defended Mr. Waltz internally in the past, did this again. It was a sign that Mr. Trump was ready to continue.

“If you believe that you force the President of the United States to dismiss someone, you have a different thing,” he said. “President Trump said it on Monday, on Tuesday, on Wednesday, on Thursday, and I am the Vice President, who is here on Friday, we are behind our entire national security team.”