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Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, and his deputy, Alex Wong, will be leaving their posts after they lost the confidence of other administration officials and found themselves without allies at the White House, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The exit of Waltz and Wong marked the conclusion of a fraught tenure. In March, Waltz inadvertently added Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, to a Signal group chat that shared sensitive information about US missile strikes in Yemen before they took place.
It was not immediately clear who Trump would name as his next national security adviser. A leading candidate has been Steve Witkoff, Trump’s envoy to negotiate a Russia-Ukraine peace deal and a new nuclear deal with Iran, although Witkoff has privately expressed no interest in the job.
The president briefly considered firing Waltz over the Signal episode, but decided he was unwilling to give the news media the satisfaction of forcing the ouster of a top cabinet official weeks into his second term. Trump was also mollified by an internal review that found Waltz’s error was a mistake.
The furore over the Signal group chat, if anything, was widely seen to have bought Waltz and Wong additional time after they had both been on shaky ground for weeks. That was in large part because of a strained working relationship with Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and other senior officials.
The interpersonal difficulties extended to Wong, according to a person directly familiar with the ousters. Wong frustrated some officials at other agencies who were involved in national security matters and complained to people in the West Wing that Waltz refused to rein him in, the person said.
In the days after the Signal group chat episode, Waltz sought advice from JD Vance and others in the vice-president’s circle about how to reset relations. Vance counseled Waltz to be more deferential to Wiles, who had pushed for him to get the job, and throw around his weight less.
But Waltz also came under fire from other corners. Even though he was cleared in the internal review into Signalgate, as it came to be known, Waltz faced pressure for being seen as a war hawk and at odds with Trump’s “America first” agenda.
That included scrutiny at a dinner that Waltz attended with Trump and some of Trump’s allies including Tucker Carlson, who has been skeptical of the adviser. The outside pressure campaign to remove Waltz additionally included an effort led by Steve Bannon, the people said.
And the far-right activist Laura Loomer, who pushed a conspiracy theory that Wong had loyalties to China, weakened Waltz’s power after she went to the White House last month at Trump’s invitation and successfully pushed for Trump to fire a number of Waltz’s staffers.
The gutting of Waltz’s staff was widely seen to have weakened his position inside Trump’s orbit. As Carlson, Bannon and Loomer separately pushed a whisper campaign that Waltz would be out before June, officials in the White House concurred that Waltz’s influence was waning.
This week, it was quietly made clear to Waltz and Wong that their time at the national security council would be coming to an end. Waltz tried to extend his tenure by attending a cabinet meeting on Wednesday but was informed of his removal on Thursday, one of the people said.
The top Senate Democrat, Chuck Schumer, welcomed the firing of Waltz but said that the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, was most deserving of losing his job.
“They should fire him, but they’re firing the wrong guy. They should be firing Hegseth,” the minority leader told reporters at the Capitol.
He accused Republicans of confirming a defense secretary who was unfit for the job, and predicted scandals similar to Signalgate – where Hegseth, Waltz and other national security officials shared details of airstrikes in Yemen in a group chat – would happen in the future.
“They fired the [national security council] guy, but there are going to be many more problems, just like Signalgate that come out of the defense department, as long as Hegseth is in charge. This is not a one-off. This is going to happen over and over and over again.”
Chris Stein contributed reporting
