National security adviser Mike Waltz insinuated Tuesday that the journalist who was added to a group text chain with other senior Trump administration officials discussing plans to bomb Yemen may have infiltrated the group intentionally.
Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, published a bombshell story Monday detailing how he was inadvertently added to a group message chain on Signal that appeared to include high-ranking Trump administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, just two days after being invited to connect on the secure messaging platform by a user named Michael Waltz.
Appearing on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” on Tuesday evening, Waltz said he does not know Goldberg, and claimed to Fox host Laura Ingraham that Goldberg’s contact information had “somehow” replaced the contact information for a person Waltz did intend to add to the group.
“You know Laura, I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but of all the people out there, somehow this guy who has lied about the president… he’s the one that somehow gets on somebody’s contact and then gets sucked into this group,” Waltz said.
“I just talked to Elon [Musk] on the way here, we have the best technical minds looking at how this happened,” Waltz continued. “But I can tell you, 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.”
“You don’t know what staffer is responsible?” Ingraham asked.
“A staffer wasn’t responsible,” Waltz responded. “I take full responsibility, I built the group and my job is to make sure everything’s coordinated.”
Ingraham pressed Waltz to explain how Goldberg could have ended up on the chain if Waltz did not know him or have his phone number stored. Waltz maintained that Goldberg’s number must have been placed in the contact information for someone else Waltz knows and did intend to include in the group.
“You’ve got somebody else’s number on someone else’s contact, so of course I didn’t see this loser in the group,” Waltz said. “It looked like someone else. Now whether he did it deliberately or it happened in some other technical means is something we’re trying to figure out.”
Waltz later insisted the texts contained zero classified information, and reiterated his claim that he does not know Goldberg personally.
“I wouldn’t know him if I bumped into him or saw him in a police lineup,” Waltz said. “I do now. I knew him by reputation for lying about the president over and over and over again. What I can tell you for certain, certainly wasn’t reaching out or talking to him at all. Why would I?”
The Atlantic did not immediately return HuffPost’s request for comment on Waltz’ insinuation, but earlier Tuesday released a statement condemning officials in President Donald Trump’s administration for their “attempts to disparage and discredit” Goldberg and the magazine’s reporting.
“Our journalists are continuing to fearlessly and independently report the truth in the public interest,” read the statement.
Trump himself has downplayed the incident as a “glitch” and claimed the press is only focusing on the group text “because we’ve had two perfect months.”
Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tusli Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe have all denied that classified information was shared on the group chat, but have thus far declined to disclose what the texts in question said.
Goldberg, meanwhile, said he is considering whether to publish the material.
The White House did not immediately return HuffPost’s request for comment on Waltz’s Fox News appearance.