WASHINGTON — Mike Waltz, the former national security adviser who left his position in May in the wake of the Signal chat controversy in March, will face a confirmation hearing Tuesday on Capitol Hill for his nomination as United Nations ambassador.
Waltz came under intense scrutiny in March for inadvertently adding a journalist to a Signal chat with top Trump officials discussing a U.S. military strike on Houthi rebels in Yemen.
President Donald Trump nominated Waltz to the U.N. post at the same time he announced Secretary of State Marco Rubio would take over Waltz’s post on an interim basis.
Trump defended Waltz in public, telling NBC News the day after details came to light in an article by The Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg that Waltz “has learned a lesson and is a good man.”
Waltz later told Fox News that “I take full responsibility. I built the group.”
Waltz is likely to face some uncomfortable questions from Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a member of the committee, told CBS News in May after Trump announced the shuffle that Waltz’s confirmation hearing would be “brutal.”
In an interview with “ABC News Live,” Goldberg said he received a message request on Signal from Waltz, or someone “who’s purporting to be Mike Waltz” in March. Goldberg said he accepted the request and several days later he was added to a group that included Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, with Waltz apparently creating the chat.
Goldberg told ABC News a “long conversation” occurred between the group chat members on March 14, discussing “whether or not they should or shouldn’t take action in Yemen.”
The next day, he said he received a text in the chain from someone claiming to be Hegseth, or “somebody identified as Pete,” providing what Goldberg characterized as a war plan. The message included a “sequencing of events related to an upcoming attack on Yemen.”
Hegseth, Waltz and other White House officials denied the group had shared “war plans” in the chat but Pentagon acting Inspector General Steven Stebbins announced he was starting an investigation into Hegseth’s use of Signal during the Yemen attack. A U.S. official confirmed to ABC News that the IG was looking into a second Signal chat in which Hegseth shared timing for the attack with his wife, brother and attorney.
Before taking the role as national security adviser, Waltz served three terms in Congress representing Florida’s 6th Congressional District and sat on the Intelligence, Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees. He was the first Green Beret to be elected to Congress.
During the presidential campaign, he was a key Trump surrogate on defense and foreign policy.
Before running for elected office, Waltz served in various national security policy roles in the George W. Bush administration in the Pentagon and White House. He retired as a colonel after serving 27 years in the Army and the National Guard.
Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
