NEW YORK, March 25. /TASS/. US President Donald Trump said he still trusts his national security advisor Mike Waltz despite the scandal over the leak of data on US military strikes in Yemen.
"Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he's a good man," NBC News quoted the US leader as saying.
Trump added that the presence of the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine in a chat with members of the US administration in the messenger Signal "had no impact" on the US operation in Yemen. The US leader considers this incident as "the only glitch in two months, and it turned out not to be a serious one."
Earlier, The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg published an article in which he said he received a request to join Signal, an encrypted messaging app, from a "Mike Waltz" on March 11. He was then included in a group chat dubbed "Houthi PC small group" with what appeared to be other top administration officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard and others.
For several days, "a fascinating policy discussion" was conducted in the chat, the article said. According to the editor, on March 15, user "Pete Hegseth" posted a message that contained details of planned strikes against the Houthis, including targets, weapons, and the estimated time of the start of the strikes, which, according to Goldberg, coincided with the time of publication of the first messages about the bombing on social networks.
Goldberg said that Brian Hughes, the spokesman for the National Security Council, confirmed the veracity of the Signal group. "This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain," Hughes wrote. "The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials. The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to troops or national security," he emphasized.
On March 15, the United States launched heavy airstrikes against Houthi positions, which control about one-third of Yemen's territory. According to the US Central Command, the operation is aimed at protecting US interests and ensuring freedom of navigation. In response, the Ansar Allah movement launched a series of missile and drone attacks on the USS Harry Truman aircraft carrier in the northern part of the Red Sea. There was no information on damage to the ship as a result of the attacks.