mike waltz

'They pulled it': Republican takes credit for derailing confirmation of Trump Cabinet pick

One three-term Senate Republican is now claiming responsibility for throwing doubt on the confirmation of President Donald Trump's latest Cabinet appointment.

Axios reported Wednesday that Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) acknowledged that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has scuttled a planned confirmation vote for former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who Trump picked as his administration's next ambassador to the United Nations (UN). Because Republicans have only a slim 12-10 majority in the committee, a single Republican defection would lead to a tie, making confirmation impossible.

"They pulled it for now," Paul said of Waltz's planned confirmation vote. "We're going to see what happens over the next week."

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During his confirmation hearing last Tuesday, Paul grilled Waltz over his past support for keeping approximately 8,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan when Waltz was a member of the House of Representatives. The Kentucky Republican said during the hearing that he resented Waltz's vote — noting that he took the same position as one of Trump's biggest political opponents.

"The idea that Congress should be involved with declaring war is sort of passé. It's old-fashioned," Paul said at the time. "But when it comes to ending a war, you voted with Liz Cheney and the others to say that the president couldn't end the war."

If Waltz hopes to make it out of the committee and have his nomination advanced to the full Senate, he would need one Democratic senator to vote with Republicans. Should his nomination fail, Axios reported that one likely replacement could be Richard Grenell, who was Trump's one-time acting director of national intelligence and who is currently involved in an overseas real estate development project with Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Trump initially nominated Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) as UN ambassador, though her nomination ended up being stalled for months as Republicans were hesitant to lose her vote due to their slim House majority. Stefanik gave up her position as House Republican Conference chair in anticipation of her confirmation. She's now reportedly mulling a run for governor of New York in 2026.

READ MORE: 'I'm gonna go nuclear': Senator promises to 'fight' if Republicans 'rig the game' in Texas

Click here to read Axios' full article.

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

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.

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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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'Parade of incompetence' revealed with new Trump security bombshell

Less than two weeks ago there was SignalGate, the Trump administration’s national security scandal that potentially endangered the lives of U.S. service members, and risked exposing military plans, by using an insecure channel to discuss, map out, and announce progress of an attack in Yemen. Then there was the Trump administration’s passwords scandal, where passwords, email addresses, and phone numbers of top Trump national security officials were easily found online. And just yesterday, GmailGate, the Trump administration’s use of the even less-secure commercial email app, to conduct government business.

All three crises involved President Donald Trump’s national security team, including White House national security adviser Mike Waltz, who admitted to setting up the insecure Signal chat.

On Wednesday afternoon, Politico reported that Waltz’s team actually had set up 20 or more different Signal group chats, for national security crises.

“National security adviser Mike Waltz’s team regularly set up chats on Signal to coordinate official work on issues including Ukraine, China, Gaza, Middle East policy, Africa and Europe, according to four people who have been personally added to Signal chats,” according to Politico. “Two of the people said they were in or have direct knowledge of at least 20 such chats. All four said they saw instances of sensitive information being discussed.”

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“Waltz built the entire NSC communications process on Signal,” said one of the four sources.

Experts have warned that the use of Signal in certain circumstances may violate national security regulations, as well as federal law surrounding retention of government communications.

The use of Signal on personal cell phones is also problematic because those mobile devices can easily be compromised, experts say. CISA, the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, has recommended the use of Signal instead of less secure platforms, but not for classified or sensitive communications.

“None of the four individuals said they were aware of whether any classified information was shared, but all said that posts in group chats did include sensitive details of national security work,” Politico noted.

Additionally, on Sunday, The Wall Street Journal reported more concerning national security lapses.

“Two U.S. officials also said that Waltz has created and hosted multiple other sensitive national-security conversations on Signal with cabinet members, including separate threads on how to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine as well as military operations. They declined to address if any classified information was posted in those chats,” the Journal reported. It was not clear if these were among the 20 or more chats Politico reported on Wednesday.

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“In under 10 days, we’ve heard about journalists added to unclassified chats and sensitive data being shot around on personal emails,” lamented U.S. Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), the Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “And now we’re hearing there’s dozens more chats. It’s a never-ending parade of sloppy, reckless incompetence.”

U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL), also responding to the latest news from Politico, wrote: “President Trump must put our troops and national security first. Waltz must step down. If he won’t, President Trump should fire him.”

Democratic congressional candidate Cait Conley is a former National Security Council official who “spent nearly 20 years in the military, including a stint working on counterterrorism for the National Security Council under former President Biden,” The New York Times has reported. She also worked at CISA, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

“This is not an Administration that’s serious about protecting America. Every person on those (20!) group chats should have known better,” Conley observed.

“The national security advisor continues to put our country at risk by using chats to discuss sensitive issues, allowing our adversaries to potentially intercept these messages,” commented former Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary and former Special Assistant to the President Sabrina Singh. “This is not putting America First – it’s the opposite.”

U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA), a former Air Force JAG officer, wrote: “National Security Adviser Waltz should resign for repeatedly playing fast and loose with OpSec. Signal should not be used to discuss sensitive information. The Pentagon warned against using Signal even for unclassified information.”

MSNBC host Symone Sanders Townsend snarked, “Amateur hour at the OK Corral and that’s even offensive to the amateurs.”

“This is Trump’s CLOWN CAR CABINET!,” charged CNN commentator Maria Cardona. “Incompetent, unqualified, unserious. AND these massive national security blunders, put US all is SERIOUS danger! They need to go!!”

READ MORE: ‘Paralyzed’: Johnson Mocked for Shutting House Down After ‘Brutal’ Defeat

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'Too easy to hack': Senior Trump official blasted after 'another insecure messaging scandal'

Officials in President Donald Trump's administration are under fire for failing to adhere to generally accepted safety standards for sensitive information. The Washington Post broke the story on Tuesday that aides of National Security Advisor Mike Waltz have been using commercial email to share information that could pose a risk to the U.S. if revealed to adversaries.

The Post revealed members of President Donald Trump’s National Security Council — particularly White House national security adviser Michael Waltz — conducted government business over personal Gmail accounts, according to documents and interviews with three U.S. officials. National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes told the paper he hadn't personally seen evidence of the national security adviser using the Gmail account as described, but he said Waltz's "legacy contacts" have occasionally emailed work-related information to accounts.

“They are so g----n stupid, dangerous and hypocritical,” wrote Democratic National Committee Chief Marketing Officer Shelby Cole on X. Cole referenced the drumbeat of GOP voices calling for the head of former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton during Trump’s first campaign roughly eight years ago.

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The history was not lost on critics mere days after Waltz and high-ranking members of Trump’s security team used a publicly-available app to plan a deadly strike in Yemen. The Signal outrage struck hard last week because of the embarrassment of Waltz’s team inviting Atlantic reporter Jeffrey Goldberg directly into officials’ private chat. Cognitive neuroscientist Devin Duke tweeted that top Trump officials using Gmail was "honestly worse than SignalGate."

Senior editor Jim Swift of the conservative-leaning The Bulwark (and former editor of the conservative Weekly Standard) appeared outraged at the steady drip of mistakes. He responded by posting the meme of Richard Jordan from the film "Hunt for Red October" in which the text "you've lost another submarine" was replaced with text reading: "you're telling me National Security Advisor Mike Waltz has another insecure messaging scandal?"

The news also infuriated onlookers who still remember Republican calls for Clinton’s disqualification after reports that she, as U.S. Secretary of State, used a private email server for official public communications rather than official State Department email accounts maintained on protected federal servers. National media outlets like the New York Times were criticized for amplifying GOP outrage at the time. Investor and social media commentator Mario Pawlowski sarcastically wrote: "But Hillary's emails, bro."

But critics called this latest news even worse than the Signal controversy because Gmail is considerably less fit for official government business than Signal, primarily because Signal at least self-deletes exchanges. Author and historian Harvey G. Cohen tweeted: "Gmail is even more insecure for top secret conversations than Signal is. It's NOT approved for such purposes by the U.S. gov't--it's too easy to hack."

READ MORE: 'You own this': Top GOP senator who backed RFK Jr. now under attack after HHS mass firings

Click here to read the Washington Post's full report (subscription required).

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'Echoes of Trump’s first term' as national security advisor loses support in White House

National Security Advisor Mike Waltz is on increasingly thin ice in President Donald Trump's administration, according to new reports.

In a recent article by journalists Josh Dawsey, Meridith McGraw and Alexander Ward, the Wall Street Journal delved into how Waltz — who was recently embarrassed after accidentally inviting Atlantic magazine editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to a Signal group text thread in which highly sensitive attack plans in Yemen were discussed – had a frank conversation with Trump in the Oval Office about his continued role in the White House. Trump was reportedly angry with Waltz for being the central figure in "the administration’s first big national-security crisis" and apparently mulled firing him in conversations with other top administration officials.

During a Monday interview on CNN, hosts Boris Sanchez and Brianna Keilar asked Dawsey if Waltz's role in the Signal fiasco had "echoes of Trump's first term" in which he was effectively forced to fire Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as national security advisor after an embarrassing scandal just weeks after taking office. The Journal reporter acknowledged that "there are lots of people in the White House who want Trump to potentially make a change here."

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"He's not a particularly popular figure, and it already begun to frustrate folks even before the Signal group chat leaked," Dawsey said. "So I think what you're seeing is a president who decided not to make a move for now, partially because he says he doesn't want to give the media, quote, unquote, a 'scalp.' But he's quite frustrated with his national security adviser."

Dawsey recalled how in 2017, Trump's first year as president "was besmirched by firings and personnel drama and infighting," but he now has "a more efficient operation" with "fewer leaks [and] fewer knife fights." And he added that until last week's drama, Trump was feeling more "confident" and that White House morale was high. Dawsey opined that because Trump has not expressed similar sentiment toward others embarrassed in the leaks, like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, that Waltz may be on a shorter leash as a result.

As Dawsey and his colleagues reported in the Journal, the Yemen attack plans chat was not the first time Waltz had "sensitive national security conversations" on Signal. While the outlet didn't confirm whether classified information was shared in those conversations, Waltz apparently discussed ceasefire proposals for the Ukraine-Russia war.

"I think what was so frustrating to Trump in the last week has been this sort of return to the constant kind of coverage of scandal and drama and chaos and that sort of was what his first year in office, frankly, frequently suffered," Dawsey said. "I don't think [Waltz] was the most popular figure before this happened ... So you're seeing a lot of this blame going towards towards Mike Waltz."

READ MORE: 'Grave sign': Yale scholar delivers 'warning to Americans' before fleeing 'fascist dictatorship'

Watch the video of Dawsey's segment below, or by clicking this link.


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Passwords, contact info for top Trump NatSec officials 'publicly' available: report

Highly sensitive information belonging to several top national security officials from the Trump administration—including passwords and cell phone numbers linked to their Signal accounts—is publicly available online. The encrypted messaging app was used in a major breach of classified national security information earlier this month, according to a leading German news outlet, DER SPIEGEL, which concluded that it is “conceivable that foreign agents were privy to the Signal chat group” discussions.

“DER SPIEGEL reporters were able to find mobile phone numbers, email addresses and even some passwords belonging to the top officials,” the news site reported Wednesday. The top officials include National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth—all of whom were part of the Signal chat in which a military attack was mapped out and carried out.

The sensitive information has been used by the three top officials in various ways, and reportedly remains in use.

READ MORE: ‘Liar’ Hegseth Faces ‘Immediate’ Resignation Demand From Growing List of Democrats

Some are “linked to profiles on social media platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn. They were used to create Dropbox accounts and profiles in apps that track running data. There are also WhatsApp profiles for the respective phone numbers and even Signal accounts in some cases.”

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s data was “particularly easy for DER SPIEGEL reporters to discover,” including his cell phone number and email address.”

The reporters “turned to a commercial provider of contact information that is primarily used by companies for sales, marketing and recruitment,” and then they “sent the provider a link to Hegseth’s LinkedIn profile and received a Gmail address and a mobile phone number in return, in addition to other information.”

“A search of leaked user data revealed that the email address and, in some cases, even the password associated with it, could be found in over 20 publicly accessible leaks. Using publicly available information, it was possible to verify that the email address was used just a few days ago.”

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The DER SPIEGEL investigation, it said, also “revealed an additional grave, previously unknown security breach at the highest levels in Washington. Hostile intelligence services could use this publicly available data to hack the communications of those affected by installing spyware on their devices.”

But National Security Advisor Mike Waltz’s data was also easily accessed, including “several passwords for Waltz’s email address in leaked databases. The information also led to Waltz’s profiles for Microsoft Teams, LinkedIn, WhatsApp and Signal.”

“DER SPIEGEL reporting has demonstrated, though, that privately used and publicly accessible telephone numbers belonging to [Gabbard] and Waltz are, in fact, linked to Signal accounts,” the German news outlet states. “It is thus conceivable that foreign agents were privy to the Signal chat group in which Gabbard, Waltz and Hegseth discussed a military strike.”

That essentially voids the arguments made by the Trump administration, Republican lawmakers, and right-wing news outlets which have said that the military strikes were successful, and no Americans were harmed so the breach of national security is, as President Trump claimed, a mere “glitch.”

READ MORE: ‘Putin Is Giddy’: NSA Knew Signal Was Vulnerable to Russian Hackers Before Security Breach

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GOP rep defends Trump’s calls to deploy the military against his political opponents

One Republican member of Congress is now openly defending former President Donald Trump's call to use the military as a means of crushing American dissent.

Earlier this week, Trump told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo that he wasn't ruling out deploying the U.S. military against "the enemy from within," which apparently includes "radical left lunatics." Trump even mentioned Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California), who is the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, when discussing "lunatics that we have inside." And on Tuesday morning, CNN host John Berman got Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Florida) on the record in favor of the former president's proposal.

"Do you think deploying the military against political opponents is something that's responsible to discuss from political candidates?" Berman asked.

READ MORE: 'Ok, no': CNN host spars with far-right rep refusing to commit to peaceful transfer of power

"I think that's completely appropriate," Waltz said. "I think it's responsible to discuss deploying the National Guard, which is clearly part of the military, John, to keep our streets safe, to keep rioters out of the street. Everyone is welcome to protest peacefully. but when it exceeds that into violence as it did many times in 2020, then the National Guard was deployed and should be deployed and that has happened in a bipartisan way across many administrations separately."

Notably, Waltz also didn't differ from Trump when asked specifically about Trump describing Schiff as an "enemy from within." The Florida Republican referenced Schiff's censure by the GOP-controlled House of Representatives over his claims about Trump's 2016 campaign getting assistance from Russia, as well as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's unfounded claim that Schiff leaked classified information.

"When you have senior members of the intelligence committee lying and leaking from from compartmented hearings when you have them lying to the public in an open hearing that is detrimental to our republic, to our democracy and public trust in our institutions and that's what he was talking about," Waltz said. "And that is not good for the country."

Waltz also insisted that Trump was put in unnecessary danger by commentators criticizing him over his repeated threats to democracy and the rule of law, suggesting that the two attempts on Trump's life were a byproduct of that rhetoric. Berman pushed back, saying Waltz has "tossed around" words like "socialism" and "Marxism" to describe his Democratic colleagues. Berman also mentioned to Waltz that former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley — whom Trump appointed to be the top U.S. military official in 2019 — called the ex-president "fascist to the core."

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"Socialism is a longstanding political ideology. That's very different than saying someone is going to be — the world's most God, I mean, Godawful dictator in Hitler, and that clearly is radicalizing people to take action where they believe the ends justify the means to kill him," Waltz said. He additionally defended calling Vice President Kamala Harris a Marxist, saying: "there is Marxism that is underpinning many of her policies, including price controls."

"All I'm saying Congressman, is when Mark Milley says 'no one has ever been as dangerous to the country as Donald Trump, now I realize he's a total fascist,' he's saying that Donald Trump espouses fascist policies," Berman countered. "It's a political ideology. Fascism is a political ideology."

Waltz — who is a retired colonel in the U.S. Army — didn't acknowledge Milley's remarks about Trump. He instead suggested that America was on the brink of "World War Three" and referenced Russia's war on Ukraine and Israel's ongoing military campaigns in Gaza and in Lebanon as evidence of things being "pretty darn dangerous" under President Joe Biden's administration.

Watch the segment below, or by clicking this link.

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'Ok, no': CNN host spars with far-right rep refusing to commit to peaceful transfer of power

Ever since Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) refused to acknowledge that former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election during this week's vice presidential debate, Republicans have been playing defense on election denial. The most recent instance of that happened when CNN host Pamela Brown questioned a Republican member of Congress on Thursday.

Toward the end of the segment – which touched on Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith's newly unsealed document justifying his D.C. election interference case against Trump — Brown asked Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Florida) if he would commit to a "peaceful transfer of power" after the election regardless of whether the next president was Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris. Waltz notably refused to say yes outright.

"This is politically driven. It's being done deliberately in the weeks before [the election]," Waltz said. "And I got to tell you, I'm not hearing from a single constituent any concerns about this. It's the inflation, the economy, the border, crime and the world that's in chaos. And that's the reason that the Harris campaign abandoned all of this."

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At that point, Brown interjected, saying: "I'm not asking about what voters are going to vote on." Waltz then cut in to say "we absolutely have to have a peaceful transition." However, he noted that "President Trump had his concerns" about the 2020 election and "pursued them in court" before he ultimately left office "on his own accord."

"But he also pressured his vice president to overturn the will of the voters, and state officials —" Brown said, before Waltz cut her off again.

"He pressured his vice president to take a view of a very vague law that the Congress since stepped in and clarified," the Florida Republican said.

"OK, no," Brown responded, before trying unsuccessfully to move on.

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"But we did! The Electoral Count Act, Pam!" Waltz shouted.

"The Electoral Count Act did not allow the vice president to overturn the will of the people," Brown said. "But really quickly just to be clear you will commit to a peaceful transfer of power—"

"—That was so vague, that was so vague, the Congress stepped in to try to clarify. It was a 120 year-old law," Waltz interjected.

"—Because January 6 happened," Brown insisted. "And, OK, listen, will you commit to a peaceful transfer of power?"

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"We've had protests that have exploded into riots all over this country, including in Minneapolis, including in Portland," Waltz said. "So I don't think you necessarily draw the causality. But at the end of the day, yes, yes, we should have peaceful transfer of power in this country, absolutely—"

"—And you will certify the results if every state certifies the results?" Brown asked.

"If it is a free and fair election, absolutely," Waltz responded, which prompted an exasperated Brown to cut in once again.

"But what does that mean? What does a free and fair election mean?" She asked. "2020 was a free and fair election, and members of Congress tried to overturn the results, so what does that mean to you?"

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"Well, ask Hillary Clinton when she said Trump was not a legitimate president," Waltz countered.

"No, no no. Being a poor loser, being, a sore loser, which Democrats have been, is different than trying to overturn the will of the people," Brown said as Waltz continued trying to shout over her.

"We talked about this, you and I, in 2021, and I voted to certify, others didn't, they had their concerns. But we worked things out in the courts, and we worked things out in debate," the Florida congressman said. "There should never be a riot. And at the end of the day, we had Joe Biden come in as president."

Watch the video of the exchange below, or by clicking this link.

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