'Should I fire him?' How Trump struggled over embattled senior advisor

29 March

Donald J. Trump

When Donald Trump was hosting the hit reality show "The Apprentice" during the 2000s, his most famous line was one that contestants dreaded: "You're fired." And Trump subsequently did plenty of firing during his first term as president — clashing with his secretary of state (Rex Tillerson), attorney general (Jeff Sessions), national security adviser (John Bolton) and other non-MAGA conservatives he had major disagreements with.

But Trump's second administration is much different from his first, comprised largely of loyalists who are less likely to question him. And so far this year, Trump isn't doing a lot of firing — although some Republicans are urging him to fire National Security Adviser Michael Waltz in response to the "Signalgate" scandal.

The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, in a bombshell article published on March 24, revealed that Waltz mistakenly invited him to a group chat in which Trump officials discussed plans for a military strike against Houthis in Yemen. The fact that a journalist was included, by mistake, in a group that discussed classified information is being described by many Democrats as an egregious security breach.

In an article published on March 29, New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Tyler Pager detail Trump's struggle over whether or not he should fire Waltz.

"For much of this week," the Times journalists explain, "President Trump was consumed by a single question: What should he do about his national security adviser, Michael Waltz? 'Should I fire him?' he asked aides and allies as the fallout continued over the stunning leak of a Signal group chat set up by Mr. Waltz, who had inadvertently added a journalist to the thread about an upcoming military strike in Yemen. In public, Mr. Trump’s default position has been to defend Mr. Waltz and attack the media."

Haberman and Pager continue, "On Tuesday, (March 25), the day after Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic broke the story about being included in the chat, the president said Mr. Waltz was a 'good man' who had nothing to apologize for. But behind the scenes, Mr. Trump has been asking people inside and outside the administration what they thought he should do."

The following day, Wednesday, March 26, Trump, according to the Times reporters, met with several members of his administration to discuss whether or not Waltz should be fired — including Vice President JD Vance, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.

"Late Thursday, (March 27) as the controversy swirled, Mr. Trump summoned Mr. Waltz to the Oval Office," Haberman and Pager report. "By the next morning, the president signaled to people around him that he was willing to stick with Mr. Waltz, three people with knowledge of the president's thinking said. People close to Mr. Trump say Mr. Waltz has been able to hang on in part because some in the administration still support him, and because Mr. Trump has wanted to avoid comparisons to the chaotic staffing of his first term, which had the highest turnover of top aides of any presidential administration in modern history."

The New York Times discussed Trump's second term with one of the people he fired during his first: Bolton.

The former national security adviser told the Times, "I would say the principle of getting a bunch of yes men and yes women around him is the guiding principle, a foundation of which is not having, or renouncing, any past that may be proof to the contrary. Anybody who's been around Washington 10 years, 15 years, has all kinds of backgrounds."

Read the full New York Times article at this link (subscription required).

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