President Donald Trump does not plan on firing anyone over the Signal national security group chat incident, he said in an interview on Saturday.
Trump discussed the matter during brief phone interview with NBC News over the weekend, telling the network: “I don’t fire people because of fake news and because of witch hunts.”
On Monday, The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg revealed that he had been inadvertently added to a national security group chat in which top Trump officials discussed airstrikes in Yemen. That chat included Vice President JD Vance, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and other members of Trump’s inner circle on March 15, as the national security team deliberated launching airstrikes on the Houthis.
Asked by NBC News on Saturday if he still has confidence in Hegseth and Waltz, Trump replied: “I do.”
“I think it’s just a witch hunt and the fake news, like you, talk about it all the time, but it’s just a witch hunt, and it shouldn’t be talked [about],” Trump told NBC.
He added: “We had a tremendously successful strike. We struck very hard and very lethal. And nobody wants to talk about that. All they want to talk about is nonsense. It’s fake news.”
Trump has repeatedly said that he isn’t familiar with the Signal app, when pressed for specifics on whether his team should have been using it.
“I have no idea what Signal is. I don’t care what Signal is,” Trump said again Saturday. “All I can tell you is it’s just a witch hunt, and it’s the only thing the press wants to talk about, because you have nothing else to talk about. Because it’s been the greatest 100-day presidency in the history of our country.”
(Photo by ANDRDW THOMAS/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)
The White House confirmed Monday that the chat appeared to be authentic, and has since said that no classified information was shared. Hegseth has also pushed back against the notion that “war plans” were shared, and the entire Trump team has aggressively messaged that The Atlantic is a liberal, anti-Trump publication and that Goldberg himself is a hack.
“The National Security Advisor has taken responsibility for this matter, and the National Security Council immediately said alongside the White House Counsel’s Office that they are looking into how a reporter’s number was inadvertently added to this messaging thread,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said this week. “We have said all along that no classified material was sent on this messaging thread. There were no locations, no sources or methods revealed, and there were certainly no war plans discussed.”
“There’s arguably no one in the media who loves manufacturing and pushing hoaxes more than Jeffrey Goldberg,” she added.
“Goldberg is an anti-Trump hater,” said Leavitt. “He is a registered Democrat. Goldberg’s wife is also a registered Democrat and a big Democrat donor who used to work under Hillary Clinton. This is the same Jeffrey Goldberg who infamously lied about weapons of mass destruction to get us into the Iraq War, which cost trillions of dollars and thousands of American soldiers.”
“And how else has Goldberg discredited himself?” she continued. “By absurdly claiming that President Trump was Vladimir Putin during the 2016 campaign, by peddling the ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ hoax that tried to hijack President Trump’s first term, by inventing the ‘suckers and losers’ hoax to help Joe Biden in the 2020 election, by peddling a hoax about President Trump involving Gold Star families to help Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, which our campaign at the time, vigorously denied.”
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[[{“value”:”
President Donald Trump does not plan on firing anyone over the Signal national security group chat incident, he said in an interview on Saturday.
Trump discussed the matter during brief phone interview with NBC News over the weekend, telling the network: “I don’t fire people because of fake news and because of witch hunts.”
On Monday, The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg revealed that he had been inadvertently added to a national security group chat in which top Trump officials discussed airstrikes in Yemen. That chat included Vice President JD Vance, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and other members of Trump’s inner circle on March 15, as the national security team deliberated launching airstrikes on the Houthis.
Asked by NBC News on Saturday if he still has confidence in Hegseth and Waltz, Trump replied: “I do.”
“I think it’s just a witch hunt and the fake news, like you, talk about it all the time, but it’s just a witch hunt, and it shouldn’t be talked [about],” Trump told NBC.
He added: “We had a tremendously successful strike. We struck very hard and very lethal. And nobody wants to talk about that. All they want to talk about is nonsense. It’s fake news.”
Trump has repeatedly said that he isn’t familiar with the Signal app, when pressed for specifics on whether his team should have been using it.
“I have no idea what Signal is. I don’t care what Signal is,” Trump said again Saturday. “All I can tell you is it’s just a witch hunt, and it’s the only thing the press wants to talk about, because you have nothing else to talk about. Because it’s been the greatest 100-day presidency in the history of our country.”
(Photo by ANDRDW THOMAS/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)
The White House confirmed Monday that the chat appeared to be authentic, and has since said that no classified information was shared. Hegseth has also pushed back against the notion that “war plans” were shared, and the entire Trump team has aggressively messaged that The Atlantic is a liberal, anti-Trump publication and that Goldberg himself is a hack.
“The National Security Advisor has taken responsibility for this matter, and the National Security Council immediately said alongside the White House Counsel’s Office that they are looking into how a reporter’s number was inadvertently added to this messaging thread,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said this week. “We have said all along that no classified material was sent on this messaging thread. There were no locations, no sources or methods revealed, and there were certainly no war plans discussed.”
“There’s arguably no one in the media who loves manufacturing and pushing hoaxes more than Jeffrey Goldberg,” she added.
“Goldberg is an anti-Trump hater,” said Leavitt. “He is a registered Democrat. Goldberg’s wife is also a registered Democrat and a big Democrat donor who used to work under Hillary Clinton. This is the same Jeffrey Goldberg who infamously lied about weapons of mass destruction to get us into the Iraq War, which cost trillions of dollars and thousands of American soldiers.”
“And how else has Goldberg discredited himself?” she continued. “By absurdly claiming that President Trump was Vladimir Putin during the 2016 campaign, by peddling the ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ hoax that tried to hijack President Trump’s first term, by inventing the ‘suckers and losers’ hoax to help Joe Biden in the 2020 election, by peddling a hoax about President Trump involving Gold Star families to help Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, which our campaign at the time, vigorously denied.”
“}]]
