Two Top Officials Ousted from White House
National security advisor Mike Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong, have been let go by the Trump administration.
The two were both implicated in the March Signalgate incident in which a reporter was inadvertently added to a messaging app conversation about an attack on the Houthi rebels.
Waltz and Wong were released on Thursday, according to Fox News.
BREAKING: National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Deputy NSC advisor Alex Wong are leaving their positions at the Trump administration, according to Fox News.
Walz came under scrutiny in March after he mistakenly added The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg to a Signal chat where top… pic.twitter.com/azNXwE7Qjh
— RedWave Press (@RedWave_Press) May 1, 2025
In a post on X, journalist Mark Halperin said the Signal incident was not the entire reason for the changes being made.
He noted, there was “unhappiness throughout the national security establishment of how they’re doing. The West Wing’s unhappy, the State Department, Treasury — unhappiness.”
National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong, are being replaced, reports @MarkHalperin, citing three good sources. Nothing is final in Trump world until it’s formally announced, says Mark. But the decision has been made. pic.twitter.com/65wjIlh1IJ
— 2WAY (@2waytvapp) May 1, 2025
“There’s lots of levels of unhappiness. It’s less about Signalgate than … about a general belief that it’s not being run efficiently,” he said.
Halperin said Steve Witkoff, who has been Trump’s envoy to Russia in his effort to end the war in Ukraine, is a name being discussed as a possible successor to Waltz.
As part of the changes, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles had conversations with National Security Council staff on Thursday, sources said, according to CBS.
CBS noted that after the Signal incident, there was talk of having Waltz resign, but Trump publicly defend Waltz as “a good man” who “learned a lesson.”
ABC reported that Trump had been “increasingly frustrated by Waltz.”
A report in The New York Times said there were underlying issues as well, describing Waltz as “too hawkish to work for a president who campaigned as a skeptic of American intervention.”
Unlike Joe Biden, President Trump actually fires people who don’t get the job done.
Mike Waltz is the first notable firing of the Trump administration. He certainly won’t be the last.
Trump is ruthless in that regard.
That’s good. pic.twitter.com/QAFQ1dOzN8
— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) May 1, 2025
A report on CNN said Wiles was among Waltz’s critics even before the Signal incident.
CNN’s report said, “Multiple people familiar with the matter have increasingly described Waltz’s potential ouster as a matter of ‘when, not if.'”
CNN said Waltz’s “influence internally had been waning for weeks, illustrated best by Trump’s decision to dismiss several staffers from the National Security Council at the urging of … Laura Loomer, who told him they were disloyal.”
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