Trump says he ‘always thought’ Waltz was responsible for national security chat scandal

President Donald Trump appeared to place the blame for the Signal chat scandal on national security advisor Mike Waltz. The president was asked who was responsible for the scandal while signing an executive order on Wednesday evening.

“It was Mike, I guess. I don’t know, I always thought it was Mike,” Trump told reporters before calling the media’s reaction to the scandal a “witch hunt.”

This marks a significant change of tune for the president, who blamed someone else for the scandal when speaking to NBC. During the Tuesday phone interview, Trump told NBC that he believed that “it was one of Michael’s people on the phone. A staffer had his number in there.”

A reporter then asked if Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth should be worried about his position amid the scandal, and Trump rushed to his Cabinet member’s defense.

“Hegseth, he was doing a great job… How do you bring Hegseth into it? He had nothing to do with this,” Trump said in response. He also told reporters that he believes Signal, an encrypted messaging app, “could be defective” in light of the scandal.