On March 24, Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, wrote an article titled “The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans.”  While Republicans were quick to dismiss the story altogether and Democrats continued piling the blame on Republicans, many were left unsure who was actually responsible for the leaks.

Let’s make one thing clear: This whole situation is Mike Waltz’s fault, but Donald Trump should receive just as much criticism as Waltz, as it was his choice to hire Waltz in the first place.

In his article, Goldberg explained that he had been texted what he claimed to be “war plans” for planned strikes on Yemen, containing information about “weapons packages, targets and timing,” in a group chat on Signal with 18 members of the Trump administration including Waltz, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and more. 

What happened in the media following the publication of this article was probably more predictable than most are willing to admit. Many on the right were quick to dismiss this article as nothing more than a Trump hit piece from a leftist journalist whose paper endorsed his opposition, not once, or twice but three times back-to-back-to-back, while many on the left simply continued to talk about Trump’s “stupidity.” 

Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state, two-time failed presidential candidate and resident expert on leaking classified military information, said in part about Trump’s handling of classified information, “What’s much worse is that top Trump administration officials put our troops in jeopardy by sharing military plans on a commercial messaging app and unwittingly invited a journalist into the chat. That’s dangerous. And it’s just dumb.”

Rich stuff from Clinton, but I digress.

While it’s important to highlight the clear left-wing bias of The Atlantic, as well as the editor-in-chief himself, to dismiss Goldberg’s article altogether would be grossly irresponsible. However, to be fair to President Trump, it seems that he did not know of the Signal group chat. In fact, he was not even in it at all. Instead, it was Waltz who caused this whole mess to begin with.

Waltz, who currently serves as the president’s national security advisor, claimed responsibility for creating the group chat that included Goldberg. In an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingram March 25, Waltz attempted to clean up his mess by suggesting that he had no clue who Goldberg was, or how he ended up in the group chat to begin with, despite screenshots indicating it was indeed Waltz who added Goldberg.

“I don’t know this guy. I know him by his horrible reputation and really is a bottom scum of journalists… I don’t text him, he wasn’t on my phone, and we’re going to figure out how this happened,” Waltz said in part.

When Ingram pressed Waltz to figure out how a leftist journalist ended up in a war planning group chat, he asked Ingram, “Have you ever had somebody’s contact that shows their name and then you have somebody else’s number there? You’ve got somebody else’s number on someone else’s contact, so of course I didn’t see this loser in the group. It looked like someone else.”

We have all heard lies from politicians, but this one is something else. This either means somebody put Goldberg’s number into Waltz’s phone without him knowing, or there were people in the chat with whom Waltz wasn’t close enough to know their phone numbers. Either of these two possibilities makes Waltz unfit to serve as a national security advisor.

Additionally, Waltz doesn’t exactly have the best track record when it comes to national security or foreign policy decisions. While I can respect his military service as a green beret who earned four bronze stars with the United States Army, I have nothing but contempt for his work in the Bush administration, serving as the counterterrorism advisor to the appropriately named former Vice President Dick Cheney, who was one of the loudest voices in support of invading Iraq to find weapons of mass destruction that, to this day, have never been found.

Which leads me to my next point. 

President Trump was reelected due in large part to his focus on “America First” ideas relating to domestic, economic and foreign policy. Many voters, myself included, voted for the president to put an end to needless foreign wars that benefit only the military industrial complex, as well as the nations we are fighting on behalf of. This idea put Trump at odds with many traditional Republicans and Democrats, all the way from Nikki Haley and Cheney to Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris and everyone in between. Having understood this, why did Trump think it was a smart idea to give a key cabinet position to Cheney’s former counterterrorism advisor? One simply can not “drain the swamp” and end the wars when the main architect of the swamp and the wars has such a high-ranking position in the cabinet.

The main story that is unfortunately buried by Waltz being a dunce is that Trump has seemingly abandoned the idea of staying out of other people’s wars. 

As shown in Goldberg’s article, Vice President Vance would seem to agree. Vance pointed out that he believed Trump was making a mistake striking the Houthis as it is inconsistent with his messaging relating to the war in Ukraine. 

In the group chat, Vance said in part, “I think we are making a mistake. 3% of U.S. trade runs through the Suez. 40% of European trade does. There is a real risk that the public doesn’t understand this or why it’s necessary. The strongest reason to do this is, as POTUS said, to send a message. But I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now. There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices. I’m willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself. But there is a strong argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is, etc.”

Trump, as well as his supporters like myself, often talk about the president being given a mandate by the American people. This is, of course, in reference to the fact that he won the electoral college, all seven swing states (a feat not achieved in 40 years) and the popular vote (first time since 2004).

Above all, those of us in the political right wing believe that he not only has a mandate to follow through on his agenda, but he also has a mandate to ensure that his administration isn’t plagued by opposition in the way that it was in his first administration. 

During his first term, he had plausible deniability with regard to stacking his cabinet with deep state assets and neoconservatives that undermined his agenda, due to his inexperience. This time around, after being twice impeached, after facing countless indictments resulting in over 700 years behind bars, after watching the FBI conduct a panty raid on his wife and nearly being killed twice, Trump has no excuse to allow neocons into his orbit. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that he has a sworn duty to make sure they aren’t even allowed to see the White House gates.

As a conservative, I feel that it is our duty to praise Trump when he keeps his promises and fights for the American people, as the media has shown to be incapable of doing so. I also feel that it is our duty to call him out when he screws up, and he made more than a few mistakes with respect to “Signalgate.”

For starters, his cabinet should have learned from his former opponent to never discuss what could be considered classified information in a non-secure channel. Second, he should have never considered, for even a fraction of a second, hiring an advisor in Waltz who previously worked for the neoconservative opposition that destroyed the Middle East, and finally, Trump should have never agreed to strike the Houthis. 

America is tired of fighting everybody else’s wars. America is tired of pointless sandbox adventures to needlessly spill the blood of American sons, daughters, husbands, wives, mothers and fathers just so defense contractors can cash a check, or so politicians can get reelected. 

I voted for President Trump. I supported him throughout the election and I still do. However, I believe it is important to call balls and strikes. President Trump deserves praise for many things, but he needs to be criticized for putting himself in a position for such a situation as this to happen.

Nobody forced Trump to hire Waltz, he made that decision himself. Now, I believe it’s time for the president to call back to his roots at the Apprentice, and say…

“Mike Waltz, you’re fired!”