A White House review has reportedly discovered how an Atlantic editor’s number got added to National Security Adviser Michael Waltz’s phone and later added to a private group chat with the Trump administration’s top national security officials.
The Guardian reported Sunday that Brian Hughes, a then-Trump campaign spokesman who is now a National Security Council spokesman, had copied and pasted an email query from Goldberg during the 2024 presidential campaign — which included Goldberg’s contact number — and texted it to Waltz, who then accidentally saved the number in his phone under Hughes’ contact information.
Goldberg’s number was erroneously saved during a “contact suggestion update” by Waltz’s iPhone, the review found.
Later, Waltz would accidentally include Goldberg instead of Hughes when setting up a group chat to discuss U.S. military strikes against the Houthis on the encrypted messaging application Signal — which government officials have been allowed to use to communicate since the Biden administration.
Goldberg revealed the contents of the group chat on the strikes later, which Trump critics tried to use to attack members of the administration in the chat — most notably Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The paper cited three people briefed on the matter. It also reported that President Donald Trump had “briefly considered” firing Waltz over the episode, and that he was more angered by Waltz having Goldberg’s number in his phone than that they had used the app to discuss the strikes.
The paper alleged that Trump decided against firing him since he did not want to give the Atlantic and the media the satisfaction of forcing out a top cabinet official just two weeks into his second term, but also due to the findings of the review.
Since the episode, Trump has defended Waltz and traveled with him as recently as Thursday, in a perceived show of support for him.
The report also said Waltz has gained sympathy from some inside Trump’s orbit since Signal is an authorized application, and there is no alternative platform to text in real time across different agencies and the Biden administration — which also used Signal — did not develop one. According to the report, the Trump White House had told officials to use Signal, as they had during the transition, instead of regular text-messaging chains.
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