Trump Gives Dreaded Vote of Confidence to Adviser Behind Group Chat Fiasco

President Donald Trump admits the Signal group chat fiasco brought about by his national security adviser—of all people—was a hiccup for his team, but he is not rushing to can Mike Waltz just yet.

Read the Messages From Trump Officials’ Group War ChatLEFT ON READ

Tom Sanders

Instead, the president gave Waltz a dreaded vote of confidence Tuesday morning, telling NBC News the 51-year-old former Republican Congressman from Florida was a “good man” who “learned a lesson.”

Trump, 78, also said the snafu was the first “glitch” in his administration’s first two months, NBC reported, a telling concession from a politician who rarely admits to making any mistake (remember the sharpied hurricane map?).

The president still downplayed the gaffe, however, claiming it came and went with no damage done.

“The only glitch in two months,” Trump told NBC, “and it turned out not to be a serious one.”

Trump said the presence of Jeffrey Goldberg, of The Atlantic, in the should-have-been clandestine chat had “no impact at all” on the outcome of the March 15 airstrikes in Yemen, which the president described as being “perfectly successful.”

Trump Team Leaks War Plans in Jaw-Dropping Security Fiasco‘👊🇺🇸🔥’

Josh Fiallo

We still have not heard an explanation from Waltz about how he mistakenly added the magazine’s editor-in-chief—who Trump personally abhors—to a group chat with other top officials like JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to discuss a war plan.

Those in the Trump administration, aside from Hegseth who claimed Monday “nobody was texting war plans,” have admitted the text chain was “genuine.” That includes a string of messages from Vance where he questioned Trump’s decision making and foreign affairs knowledge.

Goldberg, 59, did not message at all in the chat. He said he initially feared the invite to connect with Waltz on Signal—an application popular among politicians and journalists for its encryption and self-deleting texts—on March 11 may be part of a “nefarious” attempt to trick him into reporting something untrue that would embarrass him, his magazine, and the mainstream media as a whole.

The editor said the “parlance” and tone used in the texts eventually had him suspecting they were genuine, however. His theory was confirmed when the timing of a military strike on Houthi rebels aligned with the plans laid out in the texts.

Goldberg exited the chat after this confirmation, he claims, and he sat on the bombshell story for over a week before publishing a full breakdown of what happened on Monday morning.

Goldberg appears to be among Trump’s most-despised journalists. He has been the butt of repeated insults—like being called a “horrible, radical-left lunatic” last summer by Trump and a “sleazebag” in the fall—after breaking multiple unsavory stories about the president, like his infamous “suckers” and “losers” line about killed-in-action U.S. soldiers from 2020.