Fired National Security Adviser Mike Waltz can‘t help but leak his Signal chats.
Waltz, whose downfall was precipitated by Signalgate in March, was photographed on the messaging application again on Wednesday during his final meeting as a member of President Donald Trump’s cabinet.
Waltz, 51, did not bother to keep his screen hidden.
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A zoomed-in look at Waltz’s phone shows he was texting Vice President JD Vance and had a voice call with Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. In other Signal chats, the last names of Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff can be seen.
“I have confirmation from my counterpart it’s turned off,” the message with Vance reads. “He is going to be here in...”
It is unclear whether Waltz or Vance sent the message. The Rubio and Witkoff text chains cannot be read at all.
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung defended Waltz’s continued use of Signal in an X post Thursday, writing in response to a photo of the former security adviser using the app: “Signal is an approved app that is loaded onto our government phones. Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
The exposed phone screen epitomizes Waltz’s 101-day stint leading the National Security Council—the second-shortest in White House history, trailing only Trump’s first National Security Secretary, Michael Flynn, who lasted just three weeks.
It was all downhill for Waltz after he mistakenly added The Atlantic‘s Jeffrey Goldberg to a Signal group chat in March that discussed a U.S. military strike in Yemen.
The gaffe was hugely embarrassing for the Trump administration. Not only did it reveal that top officials were using a commercial application known to be susceptible to hacking to discuss an attack plan, but it also revealed that Vance, a loyal MAGA soldier publicly, was questioning the decision-making of Trump behind closed doors.
Trump stood behind Waltz in the aftermath of Signalgate, perhaps hesitant to see his administration suffer from the same sort of intense turnover that plagued his first.
Politico reported Thursday that Trump began searching for a Waltz replacement weeks ago, however, in the immediate aftermath of the Signal fiasco. Rubio has been named his temporary replacement, but a long-term National Security Adviser is yet to be announced by the White House. Witkoff has been named as the likely favorite in reports.
Waltz, who left his job as a Republican congressman from a deep-red district in Florida to join the Trump administration, was announced Thursday as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations.
