Waltz shares how he accidentally added journalist to Signal chat
US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz (Getty Images)
US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz took full responsibility for creating a chat group on Signal, which sparked a major scandal, according to CNN.
" And look, I take full responsibility. I built the – I built the group. My job is to make sure everything’s coordinated," said Waltz in an interview with Fox News on the evening of March 25.
Continuing to disregard the journalistic integrity of The Atlantic's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, Waltz tried to give a clear explanation of why the contact information of the reporter, whom President Donald Trump despises, ended up on his phone.
"It’s embarrassing, yes. We’re going to get to the bottom of it," he said.
When asked about how he ended up with Goldberg's phone number, Waltz suggested that the reporter's number might have accidentally been listed under someone else's name - the person he intended to add to the Signal group.
"Have you ever had somebody’s contact that shows their name, and then you have – and then you have somebody else’s number there? Right? You’ve got somebody else’s number on someone else’s contact. So, of course, I didn’t see this loser in the group. It looked like someone else," Waltz explained.
He added that we're trying to figure out if he did this on purpose, or if it happened through some other technical means, and mentioned that he had never met Goldberg.
Waltz didn't name the person he had intended to add to the chat, but said, "the person who I thought was on there was never on there." He also expressed his support for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Although Waltz claims that the information shared in the Signal chat wasn’t classified, he said he would have preferred Goldberg not to release the full texts of the messages.
Scandal surrounding the secret Signal chat
Recently, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic Jeffrey Goldberg was accidentally added to a secret chat of Donald Trump's administration, where discussions about strikes on Yemeni Houthi rebels were taking place.
Members of Congress and Senators have called for an investigation into the situation.
In response, Waltz denied that military plans were discussed in the chat. He accused journalist Goldberg of spreading false information.
This scandal could lead to the resignation of US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, although Fox News has ruled out this possibility.
For more details about the controversial incident, read our article.
