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In public, President Trump has defended his national security adviser. But behind the scenes, he has been casting around for advice.
By Maggie Haberman and Tyler Pager
Maggie Haberman and Tyler Pager are White House correspondents. Maggie Haberman reported from New York and Tyler Pager from Washington.
March 29, 2025, 3:23 p.m. ET
For much of this week, 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. On Tuesday, 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.
He told allies that he was unhappy with the press coverage but that he did not want to be seen as caving to a media swarm, according to several people briefed on his comments. And he said he was reluctant to fire people in the senior ranks so early in his second term.
But for Mr. Trump, the real problem did not appear to be his national security adviser’s carelessness about discussing military plans on a commercial app, the people said. It was that Mr. Waltz may have had some kind of connection to Mr. Goldberg, a Washington journalist whom Mr. Trump loathes. The president expressed displeasure about how Mr. Waltz had Mr. Goldberg’s number in his phone.
