In a dramatic turn that could only unfold in the Trump-era political theater, President Donald Trump appeared to pin the blame for the explosive Signal chat scandal squarely on the shoulders of his national security advisor, Mike Waltz. The moment came as the president signed an executive order Wednesday evening, but reporters were far more interested in the ongoing fallout from the security breach that’s shaken Washington to its core.
“It was Mike, I guess. I don’t know, I always thought it was Mike,” Trump said, in a curiously offhand remark that immediately raised eyebrows. The president then pivoted, almost reflexively, to a more familiar refrain—calling the scandal a “witch hunt,” suggesting once again that the real problem isn’t national security lapses but the media itself.
This wasn’t the tune he was singing just 24 hours earlier. In a Tuesday phone interview with NBC, Trump had floated a different theory entirely, suggesting that the leak may have stemmed from “one of Michael’s people”—an unnamed staffer whose number appeared in the chat. What’s striking here isn’t just the shifting blame, but the administration’s increasingly frantic attempts to contain the narrative.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “[The Atlantic] is just a failing magazine. The public understands that. [Mike Waltz] is a very good man. That man is a very good man right there that you criticized so strongly… and he will continue to do a good job.” pic.twitter.com/Dmx734pOLU
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) March 25, 2025
When a reporter tried to bring Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth into the fold, Trump sprang to his defense, insisting, “He had nothing to do with this.” The president even floated the idea that Signal, the encrypted app favored by government insiders and privacy hawks alike, might be to blame. “It could be defective,” he mused—a claim that, while unsubstantiated, cleverly reframes the conversation around technology rather than accountability.
The scandal erupted when Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg revealed he had been inadvertently added to a Signal chat where senior Trump officials were discussing a planned attack on Houthi targets in Yemen. At first, Goldberg said he doubted what he was seeing. But once events on the ground began aligning with the discussions in the chat, there was no denying it—he had stumbled into a digital war room.
What followed was predictable: a media firestorm, White House denials, and, of course, strategic rebranding. The administration quickly latched onto the semantics, insisting that what had been discussed were “attack plans,” not “war plans,” and declared the story just another “hoax” from a known Trump critic.
In a twist that sounds like something out of a techno-thriller, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that Elon Musk himself was helping to lead the investigation into the leak. What his role entails remains murky, but his involvement adds yet another layer of intrigue to an already bewildering story.
We need a clear answer how the sinister anti-Trump Jeffrey Goldberg got into internal comms of the White House.
Mike Waltz was the admin of the chat. No one else could have invited Goldberg in. Not SecDef, not VP, not DNI.
Something needs to be done about this https://t.co/8yG5mjY0Fh
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) March 26, 2025
Despite the finger-pointing, Trump made clear that Mike Waltz isn’t going anywhere, at least for now. The message from the top is unmistakable: the scandal is overblown, the real enemy is the press, and loyalty still trumps liability. Whether that message sticks remains to be seen.
