President Donald Trump’s national security advisor Mike Waltz was photographed using Signal during a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, just one day before the president announced to replace Waltz with Secretary of State Framework Rubio.
The United States National Security Advisor Mike Waltz reviews his mobile phone while attending a cabinet meeting held by President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington, on April 30, 2025.
Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters
In the photo, taken by a Reuters photographer, the names of the people that Waltz had been sending text messages included Vice President JD Vance, Rubio, director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s envoy in the Middle East.
The Communications Director of the White House, Steven Cheung, defended the use of the application by Waltz on Thursday afternoon, saying: “The signal is an approved application that is loaded on our government phones. Thank you for your attention on this matter.”
Waltz was criticized in March after inadvertently inviting a journalist, Jeffrey Goldberg del Atlántico, a group of signals with other national security officials, such as Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, where they discussed an attack by the United States against terrorists in Yemen.
Waltz said he didn’t know how Goldberg arrived at Chat and said no confidential information was shared. Trump defended Waltz and crowned the calls to fire him.
On Thursday, Trump announced that he would nominate Waltz to be an ambassador of the United States before the United Nations, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio will serve as an interim national security advisor while maintaining his current role as well.
The United States National Security Advisor Mike Waltz reviews his mobile phone while attending a cabinet meeting held by President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington, on April 30, 2025.
Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters
Although Trump publicly supported Waltz, the sources told ABC News that the president has been increasingly frustrated with him after it was under intense scrutiny for the signal controversy.
Despite the position of the administration that Signal is an approved application, the Pentagon’s internal control agency criticized the use of the signal application of a former official in 2021, qualifying it as a non -compliance with the “records for retention of records” of the department and an unauthorized means to communicate confidential information.
Last month, the interim inspector of the Department of Defense, Steven Stebbins, announced that he was starting an investigation into the use of Hegseth’s signal during Yemen’s attack. On Thursday, an American official confirmed to ABC News that the IG was investigating a second signal chat in which Hegseth shared the time for the attack with his wife, brother and lawyer.
The Wall Street Journal reported expanded research.
“The objective of this evaluation is to determine to what extent the Secretary of Defense and other personnel of the Department of Defense complied with the policies and procedures of the Department of Defense for the use of a commercial messaging application for official businesses. In addition, we will review compliance with the requirements of classification and retention of records,” he said in a statement.
Republican leaders have blocked the efforts of Democrats to investigate the signal chat about Yemen’s attack in Congress.
