'Should I fire him?' Inside Trump's deliberations over the fate of Michael Waltz

Donald Trump was consumed by a single question. What should he do about his national security adviser, Michael Waltz?

«Should I fire him?» he asked aides and allies as the fallout continued over the stunning leak of a Signal group chat set up by Waltz, who had inadvertently added a journalist to the thread about an upcoming military strike in Yemen.

In public, Trump's default position has been to defend Waltz and attack the media. On Tuesday, the day after Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic broke the story about being included in the chat, the president said Waltz was a «good man» who had nothing to apologize for.

But behind the scenes, Trump has been asking people inside and outside the administration what they thought he should do.

He told allies that he was unhappy with the press coverage but that he did not want to be seen as caving to a media swarm, according to several people briefed on his comments. And he said he was reluctant to fire people in the senior ranks so early in his second term.

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But for Trump, the real problem did not appear to be his national security adviser's carelessness about discussing military plans on a commercial app, the people said. It was that Waltz may have had some kind of connection to Goldberg, a Washington journalist whom Trump loathes. The president expressed displeasure about how Waltz had Goldberg's number in his phone.

On Wednesday evening, Trump met with Vice President JD Vance, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, White House personnel chief Sergio Gor, Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff and others about whether to stick with Waltz.

Late Thursday, as the controversy swirled, Trump summoned Waltz to the Oval Office. By the next morning, the president signaled to