Two Senior Officials Removed from White House Posts

Mike Waltz, the national security advisor, along with his deputy Alex Wong, have been dismissed by the Trump administration.

The departures come after both were linked to the "Signalgate" incident in March, where a reporter was mistakenly added to a Signal group chat discussing plans for a strike on Houthi rebels.

Fox News reported on Thursday that the two officials had been let go.

Journalist Mark Halperin commented on X (formerly Twitter) that the Signal mishap was not the sole reason behind the decision to replace them.

He explained that there was widespread discontent: “unhappiness throughout the national security establishment of how they’re doing. The West Wing’s unhappy, the State Department, Treasury — unhappiness.”

“There’s lots of levels of unhappiness. It’s less about Signalgate than … about a general belief that it’s not being run efficiently,” Halperin added.

One potential replacement for Waltz, according to Halperin, is Steve Witkoff, who has been acting as Trump’s envoy to Russia in his ongoing efforts to broker peace in Ukraine.

Sources cited by CBS revealed that White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles met with National Security Council personnel on Thursday as part of the reshuffling process.

CBS also mentioned that Waltz had initially been considered for resignation following the Signal controversy, but Trump had defended him at the time, calling him “a good man” who “learned a lesson.”

ABC News reported that Trump had grown “increasingly frustrated by Waltz” in the weeks leading up to his removal.

According to The New York Times, deeper concerns existed about Waltz’s foreign policy approach, characterizing him as “too hawkish to work for a president who campaigned as a skeptic of American intervention.”

CNN reported that Susie Wiles had already been critical of Waltz before the Signal incident even occurred.

Their coverage noted, “Multiple people familiar with the matter have increasingly described Waltz’s potential ouster as a matter of ‘when, not if.’”

CNN further stated that 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.”