Trump dismisses Signal national security leak as 'only glitch in two months'

Donald Trump defended his national security adviser yesterday and said the leak of highly classified military plans was "the only glitch in two months", as scrutiny intensified into how top US officials shared operational details for bombing Yemen in a group chat.

- Adam Gabbatt

Trump told NBC that Michael Waltz "has learned a lesson, and he's a good man" as Democrats called for an investigation into the sharing of the plans for airstrikes in Yemen on the Signal app.

The Atlantic reported that Waltz sent a connection request on Signal to the magazine's editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, on 11 March. Goldberg was then included in a chat group in which detailed information about plans for an attack on the Houthi armed group in Yemen was shared.

Trump told NBC News that Goldberg's presence in the chat had "no impact at all" on the military operation, and defended Waltz, claiming that the leak was "the only glitch in two months, and it turned out not to be a serious one", as the White House sought to downplay the incident.

Asked how Goldberg was added to the chat, Trump said: "It was one of Michael's people on the phone. A staffer had his number on there."

Goldberg said he assumed he was being spoofed until the attacks in Yemen occurred exactly as the participants described in the chat.

Key figures in the Trump administration, including Waltz; the defence secretary, Pete Hegseth; the secretary of state, Marco Rubio; and the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard; were in the Signal chat. Democrats have called for further investigations and possible resignations over the leak.

Hillary Clinton - the former US secretary of state who lost the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump amid a scandal over her use of a private server for classified emails - reacted to the news with a post on X saying: "You have got to be kidding me."