Trump has not asked Waltz to resign, but the Signal chat issue is "still a hot potato," one official said (2025)

Washington — National security adviser Mike Waltz and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have so far survived the disclosure that they ran a high-level meeting on a military operation via a non-government app and inadvertently included a journalist.

But President Trump continues to privately vent his irritation about it and is closely monitoring the news to see if the fallout is quieting down, according to sources familiar with the matter. The issue is "still a hot potato," one official told CBS News.

Sources said Mr. Trump has been more irritated that Waltz had the phone number for the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, than he was about the use of the Signal app by top national security officials to discuss coming plans for a military strike on Houthi targets in Yemen. The magazine published its account on Monday.

After Waltz admitted behind closed doors the authenticity of the reporting, White House officials debated whether he should resign, multiple sources said. But in the end, Waltz never made the offer, and Mr. Trump has not asked him to step down, several sources said. Publicly, Mr. Trump signaled his support for Waltz by calling him "a good man" who "learned a lesson."

The Signal situation, which Waltz called "a mistake," hasn't been the only snafu for the president's team this week. Mr. Trump on Wednesday evening was unaware that four U.S. military members had gone missing the day before in Lithuania until a reporter asked him about it during an on-camera event in the Oval Office.

The Army soldiers went missing early Tuesday during a military exercise. The Pentagon had publicly released information about the overseas incident at midday Wednesday, but staff hadn't yet told the president.

Asked if he had been briefed, Mr. Trump told the reporter: "No, I haven't," before moving on to the next press question. Mr. Trump typically chooses to not receive daily classified intelligence briefings, unlike past presidents. The search for the soldiers was continuing Thursday.

On Thursday, the White House still hadn't ruled out ousting someone over the Signal incident, sources said. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday, the president "continues to have confidence in his national security team."

But Mr. Trump is still unhappy with Waltz, as are some other top White House and Cabinet officials, according to multiple people familiar with their thinking.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, a Republican, sent a letter Thursday asking the acting inspector general for the Defense Department to conduct an inquiry into the incident and brief senators.

It was Waltz who added Goldberg to the Signal chain, sources said. Deputy national security adviser Alex Wong, who has been taking fire from staunch Trump supporters and the conservative media over the incident, wasn't involved in setting up the chat, although he was a participant in the conversation, sources said.

Senior officials don't think there was anything nefarious in adding the journalist to the chat — they believe it was inadvertent. A review of the incident by Elon Musk continued Thursday.

One reason for the public show of confidence in the national security team, several sources said, is that Trump and top officials refuse to hand The Atlantic — and Democrats — a perceived victory.

Nikole Killion and Robert Costa contributed to this report.

In:
• Houthi Movement
• Donald Trump
• Pete Hegseth