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'The purge': Trump to fire 'a lot' of White House officials amid 'distrust and tension'

Carl Gibson
01 May

President Donald Trump holds a Cabinet meeting, Wednesday, April 30, 2025, in the Cabinet Room. (Official White House Photo by Molly Riley)

President Donald Trump has removed National Security Advisor Mike Waltz from his position, though that may just be the beginning of what could be a major staff shakeup at the White House this month.

That's according to a Thursday article from Politico, which reported that several unnamed sources with direct knowledge have confided that Trump has been itching to fire several mid-level staffers in his administration, which one is referring to as "the purge." While no details about the firings have been revealed so far, one source said "a lot" of layoffs were expected.

The outlet further reported that Waltz — who has since been nominated as the next U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations — had "been on thin ice for awhile now," even before the Signal scandal in which he inadvertently added a journalist to a group chat where Trump Cabinet officials discussed highly sensitive attack plans on an unsecured app.

READ MORE: 'Starting to see cracks': Trump admin scrambling to hire air traffic controllers before 'disaster'

Shortly after Trump named Waltz as National Security Advisor (which does not require Senate confirmation), Trump staffers noticed that the people he hired as his own staff were being rejected for not being sufficiently aligned with the MAGA wing of the Republican Party.

"The view was: ‘Wait why is he picking secret neocons for these jobs, that’s not how this administration is going to work,’” one of Politico's sources said. “Which is bulls---, but that was the view and that set the stage for vibes of distrust and tension."

Waltz's hiring decisions reportedly made Trump consider firing him, though the Signal scandal ironically ended up resulting in Waltz staying longer as Trump didn't want to be perceived as being too responsive to the media. And while Waltz was the one who added Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to the Signal group chat, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was the one who shared classified information about attacks on Houthi rebels in Yemen. But Politico's sources have said Hegseth's job was never truly in danger.

"I know that Pete has a lot more friends in the West Wing than Mike has," one source said.

READ MORE: (Opinion) Is the tide really turning against Trump? Expert says there's 'no going back'

Click here to read Politico's full report.

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