National security adviser Michael Waltz reportedly meant to add a Trump administration spokesman to the Signal chat where detailed attack plans were discussed instead of the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffery Goldberg.
Months before the chat was created, Waltz had saved Goldberg’s number under the name of Brian Hughes, a former Trump spokesman, according to a new Guardian report that cites three people briefed on the situation.
Months later, Waltz reportedly added the contact, which he thought was Hughes but was actually Goldberg, into the Signal chat.
Waltz first came into contact with Goldberg’s phone number when the journalist reached out to the Trump campaign for comment on an October story. The campaign press team looped in Waltz, at the time their national security surrogate, into the request. Goldberg’s email was forwarded to then-Trump spokesman Brian Hughes, who copied and pasted the content of the email, including Goldberg’s phone number, to Waltz.
According to the report, Waltz then saved Goldberg’s number in his iPhone, under the contact card for Hughes, who is now the spokesman for the National Security Agency. The White House has said he did this because of Apple’s contact suggestions, which suggest that a user add a phone number to a new or existing contact if it suspects it is related.
Waltz had suggested on Fox News that Goldberg’s number had been “sucked” into his phone, perhaps “deliberately.” He also said he “never met” Goldberg, which the journalist rejected, claiming they’ve met at least two times.
The contact mistake seemingly went unnoticed until last month when Waltz added Goldberg’s contact to the March 13 message chain named “Houthi PC small group,” where several top administration officials, including Waltz and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, discussed plans for strikes against the Houthis in Yemen.
President Donald Trump weighed firing Waltz over the controversy, but decided against it, reportedly so as to not appear as though the Atlantic, a publication for which he has great distaste, had helped oust a top Cabinet official weeks into his second term.
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The Washington Examiner reached out to the White House to confirm this report but did not receive a response.
Goldberg told the Guardian that he is “not going to comment on my relationship with Mike Waltz beyond saying I do know him and have spoken to him.”
