By Alexander Ward, Josh Dawsey and Meridith McGraw
WASHINGTON—President Trump has decided for now not to fire his national security adviser over the revelation that he included a journalist on a group text chat to discuss and execute a military strike, but the damage to Mike Waltz’s reputation has put him on shaky ground in the White House, senior U.S. officials said.
Despite repeated messages of support by Trump, Waltz has lost sway with the president and the backing of senior aides within the White House, officials said, just as the administration struggles to broker peace deals and faces the threat of further war in the Middle East.
For Trump, the officials said, Waltz’s biggest sin wasn’t starting a Signal chat to coordinate strikes on the Houthis in Yemen, or even posting Israel-provided intelligence onto an unclassified network, it was having the Atlantic magazine’s editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg’s number in his phone and inadvertently adding him to the conversation.
Trump’s anger spilled over into many private discussions last week, including multiple calls with allies in which he unloaded expletives and blamed Waltz for the administration’s first big national-security crisis. On Wednesday, Trump spoke to Vice President JD Vance, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and personnel chief Sergio Gor about whether Waltz should be dismissed.
But on Thursday, Trump let Waltz know in a one-on-one meeting that the national security adviser would keep his job. Trump decided to give Waltz a reprieve during that discussion, two administration officials said. He didn’t want the media and Democrats to claim a scalp so early in his second administration, according to people close to Trump, as that would admit wrongdoing. One person said that if news of the Signal chat had first appeared in a conservative media outlet such as Breitbart, Waltz would be gone.
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