Trump Adviser Behind Train-Wreck Signalgate Chat Is on His Way Out

Multiple Trumpworld officials involved in the Defense Department’s Signalgate scandal are leaving their posts.

National security adviser Mike Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong, are exiting the administration, CBS News’s Jennifer Jacobs reported Thursday. The pair are expected to leave by the end of the day.

But the roles aren’t likely to stay open for long. Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, is reportedly in talks to replace Waltz, according to Politico. Witkoff has been busy the last several months attempting to work out a peace deal with Hamas in Gaza and end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Other contenders include White House deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, National Security Council Senior Director for Counterterrorism Sebastian Gorka, and the special envoy for special missions Richard Grenell. The last of those options served for a handful of months as Trump’s acting director of national intelligence during his first term, and was in talks for other top intelligence positions in December as Trump drew up his Cabinet.

Waltz has been the epicenter of several embarrassing episodes for the Trump administration in the last couple of months. In March, Waltz committed an egregious national security flub by accidentally inviting a journalist from The Atlantic to a Cabinet group chat on Signal that discussed sensitive, real-time war details about bombing Yemen.

That news brought the supposed chief intelligence expert’s myriad other misgivings to light. In the wake of the Signal scandal, an account sharing Waltz’s name had seemingly left his Venmo profile public. In doing so, the intelligence official disclosed the names of hundreds of his personal and professional associates, including government officials and lobbyists.

The list also included several major media personalities, such as Bret Baier and Brian Kilmeade of Fox News, Brianna Keilar and Kristen Holmes of CNN, a cable news producer, local news journalists, a national security reporter, documentarians, and “noted conspiracy theorist Ivan Raiklin,” reported Wired.

Waltz was also one of several top Trump administration officials caught with their personal data—such as account passwords, cell phone numbers, and email addresses—listed online, reported the German newspaper Der Spiegel.

And, as it turns out, Waltz “regularly” used Signal to discuss work, according to Politico. He reportedly had at least 20 group chats to discuss issues in Ukraine, China, Gaza, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe.

Behind closed doors, Donald Trump was reportedly furious with Waltz’s pattern of errors and was “suspicious” that Waltz’s contact list apparently included journalists critical of the administration.

“The president was pissed that Waltz could be so stupid,” one anonymous source familiar with the situation told Politico, in the aftermath of the Signal scandal.

Still, the Trump administration publicly reiterated its confidence in its intelligence pick, describing Waltz as a “good man” who had learned his lesson.

Trump has reportedly been sensitive to the idea of ousting Waltz, believing that doing so could be interpreted as a bend to public pressure. One source familiar with the situation at the National Security Council told CBS News that the president believes enough time has passed that the administration can reasonably reframe Waltz’s and Wong’s departures as part of a “reorganization.”

Waltz’s removal also marks another embarrassing loss for Republicans, who traded the former Florida representative to the executive branch at a cost to their slim majority in the House.

This story has been updated.

Donald Trump doesn’t think he’s done anything wrong in his second term as president.

On a NewsNation town hall with Chris Cuomo, Stephen A. Smith, and Bill O’Reilly, Trump, who phoned in to the event, was asked by an audience member, Lee Shapiro, what he thought his biggest mistake was in the first 100 days of his new term.

“I’ll tell you, that’s the toughest question I can have because I don’t really believe I’ve made any mistakes,” Trump said to laughter from the audience, which was divided between Democrats, Republicans, and independents.

“I think Lee is reassured,” joked O’Reilly, a former Fox News host.

Trump appears to be in deep denial. His administration is facing more than 200 lawsuits over his immigration policies, his ill-advised tariffs, his revenge against law firms, his attempts to shut down government agencies, and many more actions. On top of that, his secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, has been embroiled in scandals over leaks and discussing battle plans in private group chats.

The president has shown signs of cognitive decline over the past year. If Trump was unwilling to hear criticism before, now he’s unable to acknowledge the consequences of his own actions. With Congress and much of the Supreme Court failing to hold him accountable, it appears that Americans are stuck with a president who causes problems for the country and doesn’t take responsibility.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller is doubling down on Donald Trump’s ridiculous way of dismissing the rising prices of consumer goods.

During a White House press briefing Thursday morning, Miller attempted to defend the president’s strange remark from the day before that parents might have to buy fewer toys for their kids while his destructive tariffs on China take effect.

“Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls. And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting Wednesday.

Miller tried to make sense of the comment in his typical antagonistic fashion.

“He was making the point that I think almost every American consumer agrees with,” Miller said.

“If you had a choice between a doll from China, that might have, say, lead paint in it that is not as well constructed, as a doll made in America that has a higher environmental and regulatory standard and that is made to a higher degree of quality, and those two products are both on Amazon, that yes, you probably would be willing to pay more for a better-made American product,” he continued.

“But here’s the key point: With the tax cuts, the regulation cuts, the energy price decrease, and everything else that President Trump is doing to unleash this era of American prosperity and prevent the road we were on, to get off that road of financial ruin and doom, means that it will be cheaper than ever to manufacture in America,” he added.

It’s worth noting that, in the same breath, Miller touted a supposed higher degree of quality for American-made goods while also promising that Trump would strip the very regulations that ensure that quality in an effort to make production less expensive.

As the Trump administration has begun to reckon with just how destructive Trump’s sweeping tariffs will be for the domestic and global economies, they have made a sharp pivot to convince Americans that desire is in fact the root of all suffering. In March, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claimed that “access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American dream.” In fact, being able to afford to live is a huge part of the American dream, and abundant consumer conveniences have become baked into our national identity.

The administration’s weird warnings that Americans will have to hunker down with the toys they’ve already got flies in the face of Trump’s grandstanding about prosperity.

Meanwhile, toy companies are reporting that Christmas may be in jeopardy. Greg Ahearn, chief executive of the Toy Association, a U.S. industry group representing 850 toy manufacturers, warned of “a frozen supply chain that is putting Christmas at risk.”

“If we don’t start production soon, there’s a high probability of a toy shortage this holiday season,” Ahern said.

House Republicans on Wednesday killed a measure that would have stopped ICE from being able to deport or detain U.S. citizens. The measure was originally an amendment introduced by Representative Pamila Jayapal to President Trump’s massive budget bill.

“My amendment is simple, and I hope that it has bipartisan support. It simply states that none of the funds in this bill may be used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain or deport U.S. citizens,” Jayapal said. “Whether you’re a Democrat or Republican, I hope we can all agree that U.S. citizens should never be detained by ICE or any agency conducting civil immigration enforcement. They certainly should not be deported.”

The Republican Party does not agree with that. The Trump administration has already deported multiple U.S.-citizens, including a four-year old with cancer. The issue came up at the very same hearing where Republicans decided to allow ICE to deport more U.S. citizens.

“Your bill will deport more kids who are American citizens with cancer,” Representative Eric Swallwell asked. His statement was met with complete silence.

“The fact that Democrats and my colleague Representative Pramila Jayapal feel the need to even introduce an amendment that says ICE cannot deport U.S. citizens is bats*t crazy,” Representative Ted Lieu said on the House floor.

“How about this,” Representative Daniel Goldman raised. “Raise your hand if you do not think children with cancer who are American citizens should be deported.”

Half of the hands in the room were raised.

“Looks like it’s all the Democrats and none of the Republicans.”

Elon Musk isn’t happy about a report that his own company is looking to replace him.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Tesla’s board of directors had begun the process of finding a new CEO to replace the billionaire bureaucrat who was galavanting around Washington with a chain saw, people familiar with the discussions told the paper. The board reached out to several executive search firms, and was ultimately able to narrow its efforts to one major firm, the outlet reported.

Following an initial spike after Musk had effectively bought Donald Trump the White House, the electric vehicle-maker spent the first three months of the year watching its value deflate and its brand curdle as its CEO spent more time cozying up to the increasingly unpopular president.

It’s unclear whether Musk, who stepped down as the chairman of the board of directors in 2018, was aware that the company was beginning to look for new leadership. As the board of directors first embarked on their search about a month ago, they warned the CEO that he needed to spend more time at the company, and Musk didn’t argue.

In a furious post on X Thursday, Musk claimed that the report was a complete fiction.

“It is an EXTREMELY BAD BREACH OF ETHICS that the @WSJ would publish a DELIBERATELY FALSE ARTICLE and fail to include an unequivocal denial beforehand by the Tesla board of directors!” he wrote.

Robyn Denholm, the chairman of Tesla’s board of directors, flat-out denied the reporting.

“Earlier today, there was a media report erroneously claiming that the Tesla Board had contacted recruitment firms to initiate a CEO search at the company. This is absolutely false (and this was communicated to the media before the report was published),” Denholm said in a statement Thursday. “The CEO of Tesla is Elon Musk and the Board is highly confident in his ability to continue executing on the exciting growth plan ahead.”

Last week, in a humiliating first-quarter earnings report, Tesla said that profits had crashed by a whopping 71 percent, falling to a mere $409 million, compared with $1.39 billion from the same quarter last year. The drop was a direct result of Musk’s entanglement with Trump’s administration.

Tesla has become a symbol of the Department of Government Efficiency’s likely unconstitutional government overhaul and extreme cost-cutting measures that have led to sweeping layoffs and essential services being gutted. Teslas have quickly become the target of widespread protests against the administration.

Trump’s embrace of a sweeping “reciprocal tariff” policy, and steep tariffs on imported cars and auto parts, also rocked the industry, hurting Musk’s value personally. In Trump’s first 100 days in office, Musk lost a whopping 25 percent of his total personal wealth.

Following the earnings report last week, Musk told investors that he planned to cut down his time in Washington to two days a week, but said that he would likely continue working with the Trump administration until the end of the president’s term.

Musk insisted that he would continue to advocate for lower tariffs but said that the decision was “entirely up to the president of the United States.”