Trump, Waltz shrug off new reporting on Signal chat: 'Not a really big deal'

President Trump and embattled national security adviser Michael Waltz dismissed new reporting from The Atlantic detailing messages from a Signal group chat that inadvertently included journalist Jeffrey Goldberg and featured administration officials discussing the timing of an attack on Houthi rebels.

“There weren’t details, and there was nothing in there that compromised. And it had no impact on the attack, which was very successful,” Mr. Trump said in an interview with Vince Coglianese on “The Vince Show.”

“A thing like that — maybe Goldberg found a way,” Mr. Trump continued. “Maybe there’s a staffer, maybe there’s a very innocent staffer, but … I think we’ll get to the bottom of it very quickly and it’s really not a big deal.”

Mr. Waltz, who set up the chat, pushed back against the idea that a staffer was responsible for mistakenly including Mr. Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, in the group chat.

“Well, look, a staffer wasn’t responsible,” he told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham in an interview Tuesday night. “And look, I take full responsibility. I built the group to make — my job is to make sure everything’s coordinated.”

On Wednesday, after The Atlantic published previously unreported text messages, Mr. Waltz said the additional messages proved “no war plans” were discussed during the chat.

“No locations. No sources & methods. NO WAR PLANS. Foreign partners had already been notified that strikes were imminent. BOTTOM LINE: President Trump is protecting America and our interests,” he wrote on X.

On Wednesday morning, The Atlantic published the full internal discussions among Trump officials.

The newly published chat offers details about the attack in Yemen that were not included in the original article, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sending a specific timeline of the airstrike and which weapons would be used ahead of the attack being carried out.

“The statements by Hegseth, Gabbard, Ratcliffe, and Trump — combined with the assertions made by numerous administration officials that we are lying about the content of the Signal texts — have led us to believe that people should see the texts in order to reach their own conclusions,” Mr. Goldberg and co-author Shane Harris wrote Wednesday.