Image Source: Official White House portrait, via Wikimedia Commons
What Was the Accusation?
White House National Security Adviser Mike Waltz faced intense criticism in March 2025 after Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic, revealed that he had unexpectedly been added to a Signal group chat containing senior members of President Donald Trump’s national security team. The group, named “Houthi PC Small Group,” was being used to discuss an impending U.S. military operation against Houthi targets in Yemen. Participants included Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and other senior administration officials. Goldberg was able to observe the discussion before U.S. strikes began on March 15, creating a major controversy over operational security and the government’s handling of sensitive national-security information.
Goldberg reported that Waltz appeared to have initiated the Signal connection with him and created the group in which the discussions occurred. The National Security Council subsequently acknowledged that the message chain reported by The Atlantic appeared to be authentic. Administration officials maintained that classified information had not been transmitted in the chat, but the controversy intensified after The Atlantic published additional messages showing that Defense Secretary Hegseth had provided information about the timing, weapons and sequencing of the forthcoming strikes. Critics argued that sharing such operational details on a commercially available messaging application—and inadvertently making them available to a journalist—represented a serious security failure regardless of the formal classification status of the information.
On March 25, Waltz addressed the controversy in an interview with Laura Ingraham on Fox News. He accepted responsibility for creating the Signal group and described the incident as embarrassing. At the same time, he said he could not explain precisely how Goldberg’s contact information had been added. Waltz rejected suggestions that a staff member was responsible and said technical experts were investigating what happened. He also attacked Goldberg personally and suggested that a contact mix-up or some other technical explanation might account for Goldberg’s presence in the group. Waltz continued to support the administration’s position that classified information had not been shared.
Waltz also announced a corrective measure, saying that the officials involved would no longer use Signal for such communications. President Trump publicly defended Waltz immediately after the disclosure, initially describing the incident as a relatively minor mistake and saying Waltz did not need to apologize. Trump later identified Waltz as responsible when reporters asked who was to blame. The controversy therefore produced an image-repair response in which Waltz simultaneously accepted responsibility for creating the group, emphasized corrective action, disputed the most serious characterization of the security breach, and attacked the journalist whose accidental inclusion exposed it.
Key Apologia Strategies
Mortification, Corrective Action, Minimization, Attacking the Accuser
Video
Transcript
Excerpts from Mike Waltz’s March 25, 2025 interview with Laura Ingraham:
“I can tell you for 100% I don’t know this guy. I know him by his horrible reputation, and he really is the bottom scum of journalists. And I know him in the sense that he hates the president, but I don’t text him. He wasn’t on my phone. And we’re going to figure out how this happened.”
“A staffer wasn’t responsible. You 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. Now, whether he did it deliberately or it happened in some other technical mean is something we’re trying to figure out.”
“I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but of all the people out there. Somehow this guy – who has lied about the president, who has lied to Gold Star families, lied to their attorneys and gone to Russia hoax, gone to just all kinds of lengths to lie and smear the president of the United States – and he’s the one that somehow gets on somebody’s contact and then gets sucked into this group.”
“Lesson learned number one is you’ve got journalists out there who have made fame and fortune trying to trash this president. And so, we’ve got to tighten up. We are tightening up, and we have some of the best technology minds looking at how this happened.”
“We made a mistake. We’re moving forward, and we’re going to continue to knock it out of the park for this president.”
Excerpts of Donald Trump’s comments to the press about Waltz:
“I don’t know anything about it. I’m not a big fan of the Atlantic. To me, it’s a magazine that’s going out of business. I think it’s not much of a magazine, but I know nothing about it.”
“Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man.”
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s X post on March 25, 2025:
Jeffrey Goldberg is well-known for his sensationalist spin. Here are the facts about his latest story: 1. No “war plans” were discussed. 2. No classified material was sent to the thread. 3. The White House Counsel’s Office has provided guidance on a number of different platforms for President Trump’s top officials to communicate as safely and efficiently as possible. As the National Security Council stated, the White House is looking into how Goldberg’s number was inadvertently added to the thread. Thanks to the strong and decisive leadership of President Trump, and everyone in the group, the Houthi strikes were successful and effective. Terrorists were killed and that’s what matters most to President Trump.
