Washington [US], May 2: U.S. President Donald Trump has transferred National Security Advisor Mike Waltz to the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations after the social media leak.
President Trump announced on May 1 on the social network Truth Social that he had nominated National Security Adviser Mike Waltz to be the US ambassador to the United Nations and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to temporarily serve as adviser to replace Mr. Waltz.
"From his time in uniform on the battlefield, in Congress and then as my National Security Adviser, Mike Waltz has worked hard to put the interests of the country first. I know he will do the same in his new role," Trump praised the adviser.
Waltz's departure as adviser was foreseen, after he mistakenly added a journalist to a White House officials' chat group discussing plans to strike the Houthis in Yemen in March. The incident sparked a backlash when top U.S. officials used the commercial messaging app Signal to discuss and share sensitive military information.
Democratic senators argue that Mr. Waltz's removal is not enough because the main character who needs to be removed is Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who allegedly shared information about the strike on a chat group. Hegseth is also accused of sharing the information with another Signal group that includes his wife and brother, and is being investigated by the Pentagon.
In response to the criticism, US Vice President JD Vance in an interview with Fox News said that Waltz was not removed from office but was in fact being promoted. "He is being nominated as ambassador to the United Nations, a position that naturally needs to be approved by the Senate. (President) Donald Trump has fired a lot of people. He did not appoint them to positions approved by the Senate afterwards. If the president wanted to remove him from office over the Signal case, a story that was not remarkable, he had already done it. But he decided that it was better for Mike to take on this new role," Vance said.
In a related development, a Reuters reporter took a photo at a cabinet meeting on April 30 showing Waltz still using Signal on his phone to communicate with other senior officials such as Secretary of State Rubio, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Vice President Vance.
According to The Guardian, Waltz appears to have installed third-party software to allow Signal to be stored, but this also makes the platform less secure.
In response, White House Communications Director Steven Cheung wrote on social media that "Signal is an approved app that is loaded onto our government phones."
Source: Thanh Nien Newspaper
