Democrats are calling on President Donald Trump to fire Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, blasting the Commander-in-Chief for waiting an entire month to act on SignalGate—widely regarded as the most serious national security breach of his current presidency, and one of the worst since his previous term. On Thursday, Trump responded by effectively demoting National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, nominating him to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

“They’re firing the wrong guy,” Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters, The New York Times reported on Thursday. “They should be firing Hegseth.”

Secretary Hegseth remains under fire for his role in Signalgate. The Defense chief reportedly shared sensitive and classified information with non-authorized personnel, including his wife, his brother, and his attorney.

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Last month, The New York Times reported that sources said that “the information Mr. Hegseth shared on the Signal chat included the flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets targeting the Houthis in Yemen — essentially the same attack plans that he shared on a separate Signal chat the same day that mistakenly included the editor of The Atlantic.”

“Trump is ousting his National Security Advisor Mike Waltz,” noted House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. “Next up? The woefully unqualified Secretary of Defense must resign or be fired immediately.”

“It took more than a month for Trump to hold anyone accountable for the Signalgate fiasco,” observed U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA). “Next up should be Pete Hegseth.”

Also responding to the Waltz news, U.S. Senator Tina Smith (D-MN) wrote: “Now do Hegseth.”

“Waltz is out,” said U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA). “Hegseth, you’re next.”

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“Pete Hegseth should be next,” wrote U.S. Senator Peter Welch (D-VT).

It appears that despite President Trump’s admonishment, and his suggestion to not use Signal, Waltz and other top Trump national security officials continue to do so:

Outgoing national security adviser ⁦@MikeWaltz47⁩ using Signal at a cabinet meeting this week with ⁦@realDonaldTrump⁩. ⁦@Reuters⁩ photo by ⁦@evelynpix⁩ pic.twitter.com/Dr0P4YEeJy

— Jeff Mason (@jeffmason1) May 1, 2025

But according to Fox News, Secretary Hegseth’s job is safe.

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Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin on-air announced that “for now, we understand that the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, who shared sensitive, some say classified attack plans on that signal group chat is safe.”

Hegseth “was at the White House today in the Rose Garden, and other National Security Council officials brought in by National Security advisor, Mike Walz will likely be out soon, we’re told, as threats of U.S. Military action against Iran increase. 48 days ago, the U.S. Began an open ended military campaign to destroy the Hootis, and Iranian back proxy that’s been firing missiles at shipping targets in the Red Sea.”

“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth,” Griffin added, “warned Iran in a late night tweet that its deadly support for the Houthies won’t go unanswered. Warning of military consequences in all caps, a message that sounded like an ultimatum eliciting partisan reaction from the hill.”

U.S. Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) wrote, “If anyone should get canned, it’s Hegseth.”

The powerful Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, U.S. Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) added: “Reminder that Pete Hegseth is still serving in an incredibly important job that he has repeatedly shown he cannot do.”

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Image via Reuters

President Donald Trump is reportedly considering naming billionaire real estate mogul Steve Witkoff—his de facto envoy to Moscow—as the next National Security Advisor. Witkoff, who has no diplomatic or national security experience but does reportedly have ties to a Russian oligarch, has come under fire for his apparent closeness to Vladimir Putin. Among the concerns are that Witkoff has repeatedly been meeting the Russian leader alone, without any senior U.S. officials or policy experts present, to allegedly discuss ending Russia’s illegal war on Ukraine.

Thursday afternoon President Trump named Secretary of State Marco Rubio as interim National Security Advisor, and announced that Mike Waltz, now his former NSA, will be his nominee for U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, according to ABC News.

Regardless of President Trump’s intentions for Witkoff, serious concerns continue to swirl around him.

Anders Åslund, an economist and former Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, has described Witkoff as “pro-Putin.” The former head of the UK’s MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, has described Witkoff’s comments as “pro-Putin,” according to Sky News.

“Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Special Envoy, has a serious and unreported conflict of interest in Russia-Ukraine negotiations: his relationship with Ukraine-sanctioned businessman Len Blavatnik,” reported The Counteroffensive‘s Tim Mak, a former NPR investigative reporter.

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Witkoff’s “fortune is largely made up of the Witkoff Group, the New York-based real estate developer he founded in 1997,” Forbes reported in November. “He also owns homes in Manhattan, the Hamptons and south Florida, where he’s developing projects including the Dutchman’s Pipe Golf Club, a Jack Nicklaus-designed course with a luxury hotel, in partnership with Soviet-born billionaire Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries.”

Critics have been blasting Witkoff for meeting alone with President Putin — even his translator is reportedly provided by the Kremlin.

The New York Post calls the solo act “a break with longstanding diplomatic procedure,” and notes that “Russian media have picked up on a pattern of Witkoff parroting Putin, with state television announcers recently commenting that the American easily accepts Moscow’s narratives — even when Russians don’t.”

Witkoff’s actions are so upsetting to national security experts that one, Republican former U.S. Congressman Adam Kinzinger, last week called Witkoff’s decision to meet with Putin without any other U.S. representation, “pure, unadulterated, evil.”

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy lamented, “I believe Mr. Witkoff has adopted the strategy of the Russian side.”

“Consciously or not, he is spreading Russian narratives. Either way, it does not help,” Zelenskyy warned.

The Post also reports that Witkoff has been labeled a “bumbling f—— idiot,” by a former official in Trump’s first administration.

The Financial Times last week reported that Ukraine has “long suspected Witkoff of pro-Russian sympathies.”

Last week, Fox News’ Chief National Security Correspondent Jennifer Griffin blasted the Trump administration:

“Where are the subject matter experts with Witkoff? Putin, the KGB officer, is laughing,” Griffin noted. “Meanwhile the instability at the Pentagon is not helping project strength during these delicate negotiations. There is still no confirmed NSA [National Security Agency] (Cyber Command) director after Defense Secretary Hegseth fired Gen Hauck and his deputy for no reason, not even a nominee yet for the person overseeing the crown jewel of US intelligence and SIGINT, which might come into handy when you are negotiating with Putin and Xi.”

Among those reporting Witkoff is being considered for the vital role as National Security Adviser are Mark Halpern, Politico’s Jake Traylor, and CNN’s Kaitlan Collins and Kevin Liptak.

Politico adds that in addition to Witkoff, other possible candidates to replace Mike Waltz include “Trump’s top policy chief Stephen Miller, NSC senior director for counterterrorism Sebastian Gorka and Trump’s special envoy for special missions Richard Grenell.”

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Image via Reuters

Mike Waltz, President Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor and a central figure in the SignalGate scandal, is reportedly on his way out—and may have already been removed—according to multiple reports. His deputy, Alex Wong, is also departing, though it remains unclear whether they are resigning or have been dismissed. Additional departures are expected. President Trump reportedly is expected to discuss the situation.

Waltz would be the first top official of the second Trump administration to exit under a cloud.

“Trump is planning to oust national security adviser Mike Waltz,” Politico’s Pentagon and national security reporter Paul McLeary wrote late Thursday morning, stating that he “has lost the confidence of other administration officials, according to three people familiar with the decision.”

“Names for a replacement,” Politico reported, “have been discussed around the West Wing for weeks, but the plans to remove Waltz potentially as soon as this week gained steam in recent days, according to two of the people and another person close to the White House.”

But Fox News‘ Haris Faulkner on-air has reported that Waltz is “out,” and Fox News chief national security reporter Jennifer Griffin added that “it’s been confirmed” that Waltz and Wong “have been pushed out of that position by the President.”

Griffin also reported that “what we have seen, we’ve seen a vacuum created here, surrounding Defense Secretary Hegseth.”

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“So there has been incredible instability at the top of the National Security team for the President,” Griffin said, noting that Fox News’ Jackie Heinrich “is reporting that there could be more shoes to drop.”

Griffin stated that U.S. Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat, “believes that that more shoes could drop, is suggesting that there are more firings to come.”

Kaine also talked about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Griffin said, and “had expressed extreme concern about a late night tweet by defense Secretary Hegseth, in which he threatened Iran with potential military action, if they don’t control the Houthies.”

Online, Fox News reported that its sources “said additional staffers removed from the office will likely be announced, and President Donald Trump is expected to speak publicly about the matter.”

“Just yesterday,” CNN’s Kaitlan Collins added, “officials insisted his job was safe. But he’s been fighting for it all week after it was made clear earlier that he couldn’t stay on.”

Semafor reports that its sources “stressed that nothing is final until Trump announces it.”

Waltz had accidentally added the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic to an insecure Signal group chat that national security experts say should never have been used to discuss battle plans, and later, specific details of an attack on the Houthis in Yemen.

Calling him “sometimes ideologically out of step with Trump,” The Wall Street Journal suggested that Waltz’s SignalGate scandal was not the only challenge he was facing.

“Trump and senior administration officials, including White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, had been frustrated with Waltz even before the Signal debacle. Waltz hired aides that his critics said didn’t appeal to Trump’s MAGA base and struggled to relay the president’s national security priorities on television—once seen as the former Florida congressman’s strength, according to administration officials.”

And CNN senior national security analyst Juliette Kayyem noted, “I suspect this has less to do with Signalgate than it does with Russia. Waltz has diminished for a bit. This was not a surprise.”

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U.S. foreign policy expert Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, also noted Waltz’s exit is “Not surprising,” but for different reasons:

“Trump had something like 6 DHS Sec; 4 SecDefs; 4 DNI; 4 AGs; 2 SecStates; 4 NSAs in Trump 1.0. Loyalty and no screwups are currency of the realm in 2.0.”

Waltz was a Republican U.S. Congressman from Florida who was first elected in 2018, and resigned to work in the Trump administration. He graduated with honors from the Virginia Military Institute and served in the U.S. Army Special Forces during the war in Afghanistan.

On Wednesday, during Trump’s Cabinet meeting, Waltz said, “Mr. President, over the last four years, the world experienced a total lack of zero leadership under Biden, and then we’ve had 100 days of your leadership with respect, with strength, starting with they’ll be all hell to pay if you don’t let our people go.”

And just hours ago, Waltz was praising the Commander-in-Chief and the Defense Secretary on Fox News.

Watch the video below or at this link.

Mike Waltz was on Fox & Friends just hours before his firing slathering praise on Trump and Pete Hegseth pic.twitter.com/D1Pe1172h0

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 1, 2025

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