Minnesota Governor Tim Walz went viral for mocking now-former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz after the Trump administration announced he'd be leaving his position weeks after he was implicated in the Signal group chat scandal.
Waltz found himself at the center of what became known as "Signalgate" after he invitedAtlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg into a Signal chat with high-level Trump administration officials, particularly Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, discussing military strategy surrounding war strikes in Yemen.
Yesterday, weeks after the scandal first broke, President Donald Trump dismissed Waltz and tapped him to serve as ambassador to the United Nations instead—a notable reshuffling of senior White House staff and the first major personnel change Trump had hoped to sidestep during his second term. Waltz’s deputy, Alex Wong is also expected to be ousted.
Waltz held onto his position at the time largely because, according to aides, Trump was reluctant to appear as though he was caving to media pressure by letting him go.
And in came Walz with this simple quip:
"Mike Waltz has left the chat."
You can see his post below.
It was hilariously accurate.
Waltz was never seen as a strong ideological match for Trump or much of his inner circle, and while talk of his replacement had circulated quietly for weeks, those discussions escalated following the leak of the Signal chat.
Though he was originally scheduled to accompany the president to Michigan for his 100th day in office, Waltz stayed behind to manage a foreign policy issue, according to someone familiar with the situation.
The decision to remove him came so suddenly—as we've come to expect from the current administration—that many White House staffers only learned of it Thursday morning as senior officials began circulating word internally. By midmorning, aides were told the news was accurate and to await an official announcement from the president.
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