Taking his knocks and fighting for his life

Waltz is taking a different approach as he fights for his political survival.

Waltz, who created the Signal chat and mistakenly added Goldberg, told Fox News he took “full responsibility” for the lapse, making him one of the only Trump administration officials to admit to a mistake.

But Waltz also deflected questions about how he even had Goldberg’s number in his phone.

“Have you ever had somebody’s contact that shows their name and then you have somebody else’s number?” Waltz asked Fox host Laura Ingraham. When she asked again how he ended up on Waltz’s phone, Waltz suggested that Goldberg used dirty tactics and somehow “got on somebody’s contact” and was then “sucked into this group.”

Waltz also implied that some of the security issues raised by using Signal were the fault of the bad technology options with which the incoming Trump administration had been saddled. He has also focused his ire on Goldberg and The Atlantic, accusing them of sensationalism. Waltz has called Goldberg “the bottom scum” and on Wednesday joined the chorus of Trump officials lambasting The Atlantic for changing its description of the conversation from “war plans” to “attack plans.”