Name: Mike Waltz to leave national security adviser role, US media reports | BBC News
Uploaded: 2025-05-03T00:10:47.000Z
Duration: 9 min 3 s
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but I want to return to the breaking news coming out of Washington that the National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and his deputy are reported to be leaving their posts.

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There you see it on the screen CBS our partner in America reporting that in terms of sources talking to them and let's speak to Tom Bateman our State Department correspondent and Tom let me start by asking you about this breaking news we'll come to that resources deal a little later but these are the first casualties of this Trump administration for people who perhaps don't know some of the background just remind people about that whole huge controversy around the signal chat group yeah absolutely and first of all to let you know that the White House being asked about this as you would imagine at the moment saying that it won't comment on reports from anonymous sources but as you say our colleagues at CBS quoting several sources saying that Mike Waltz and Alex Wong will leave their positions today and as you say that would be a highly significant moment the first to leave their posts in any senior official position in this second Trump administration now as for Mike Waltz it's it's interesting that we've heard a lot less from him publicly he's been a lot less publicly visible over the last few weeks having gone from a position of really high visibility in the administration I mean I remember being in the room as a group of journalists interviewed him and Marco Rubio the Secretary of State in Saudi Arabia when the administration had just met the Russians the first meeting between the minister of the US administration and the Russians in quite a significant amount of time so he was at the highest profile levels of foreign policy for the administration and then we had March which was that signal chat that was set up by Mike Waltz the National Security Advisor included several high-level officials in that and others working for them and he had mistakenly included Jeffrey Goldberg the editor of the Atlantic magazine who then broke the story about how this signal chat had been set up in which Pete Hegseth the Defense Secretary shared what the administration denied was classified information but was clearly attack plans for the bombing of Houthi positions in Yemen but not only that row about classified information being used on a commercial chat application at the most senior levels of the US administration but also sort of deeply embarrassing internal discussions between the members of the administration about first of all whether they wanted to go ahead with this plan to bomb the Houthis because some members of the administration particularly J.D.

Vance the vice president and Pete Hegseth the Defense Secretary had been concerned about whether or not they were bailing out the Europeans getting access through the Suez Canal for trade routes that they argued were more beneficial to the Europeans than them and you saw this discussion between J.D.

Vance and Pete Hegseth the Defense Secretary where the Europeans were described as pathetic as freeloaders and that there was a disdain for doing anything that would help the Europeans but a sense that they would sort of be asked to pay for it later so it had significant diplomatic and geopolitical consequences in the aftermath of that the question started to emerge about whether Mike Waltz's position was tenable.

Donald Trump had come to his defense described him as a good man when he was asked about it seemed to sort of brush it away and dismiss it but totally behind the scenes I think the president was asking a lot of questions about it.

Tom I just break in because we're looking at pictures of J.D.

Vance at the Andrews Air Base and he was heading towards the cameras but now he's clambered aboard the steps to the aircraft he's on the phone and I thought he might be a question or two might be shouted at him but he hasn't been.

Tom I'll come back to you in a second but I want to actually just bring in Bernd de Boosman who is there at the White House for us he's actually on the phone and Bernd, Tom was just saying questions are being asked there at the White House about this breaking development what are they saying officially?

Well officially they're not commenting on anonymous reporting which has kind of become a standard line when there's reports from anonymous sources in US media now the behind closed doors the perception is that something of this magnitude will almost certainly come from the mouth of the president himself so all the all eyes and ears will be on President Trump he has an event coming up just in a few minutes a prayer event here at the White House and then later today he's scheduled to fly to Alabama to give a commencement speech at a university and there'll be a lot of questions being asked about him but really at the moment the White House is being very very quiet about this late breaking development.

Was there a sense there amongst reporters amongst the media that this was on the cards because there was just an enormous amount of scrutiny an enormous amount of calls for a sacking at the time but then it went quiet and now this development but had reporters seen it coming or is this a surprise?

I think most reporters here at the White House wouldn't be surprised if this is confirmed to be the case particularly after Signal Gate Mr. Walsh kind of seemed to to disappear prior to that he he was kind of a very frequent fixture here outside the White House he would often give early morning interviews to the television network before coming to address to address the reporters who are who are here at the time on this happened several times a week but after Signal Gate which ultimately I think it's something that many observers here blamed him for adding Jeffrey Goldberg to the signals chat that was later publicized he was kind of seen as being as the man responsible for that and then he became kind of a much quieter presence at the White House he would be at the event such as yesterday's cabinet meeting but we would rarely hear from him in media interviews after that took place.

Tom in terms of the choreography of this why wasn't he fired pretty much immediately?

Well that was a question that President Trump had been asked from the outset about this because such was the concern about the use of a commercial messaging chat app to discuss what were clearly although the administration denied it classified attack plans the way in which it was set up with a whole series of individuals on the group including the sort of aides to senior officials you know the question was kind of immediately asked about this appeared to be a kind of resignable or resigning offense because of what had taken place but I think it was pretty clear that President Trump was perhaps waiting this out to see if the clamor died down and how survivable perhaps Mike Waltz's was in his position.

The timing of course why now this late into the into the situation is I think a second question about what has happened since then and actually at the moment that we've seen one of the highest profile foreign policy announcements that the administration has wanted to champion because they have just signed that minerals deal with the Ukrainians that's something Donald Trump been pressing for weeks it led to that row in the Oval Office the sort of humiliating attack on President Zelensky by President Trump and the the Vice President JD Vance at that moment so actually now was a moment where they've really been sort of hailing and championing what they see as a big success in foreign policy a big moment for them about the signing of this deal so whether there's a connection between the way these things are being choreographed I think another question we'll have to wait to see exactly what President Trump says and of course we get a word from Mike Waltz himself.

Tom we will leave it there thanks very much for taking us through just the early analysis of that breaking story and Bernd to thank you there from the White and as Bernd was saying President Trump due at a live event a prayer event I think he described it as in the next few minutes and as both our correspondents were saying news like this would you would expect come from the president itself in terms of confirmation so perhaps we might get that in the coming minutes we'll keep an eye on that live event that the president is doing