Democrats may be trying to make the most out of the latest Trump administration controversy — the back-and-forth over releasing investigatory documents related to Jeffrey Epstein — but they’re also still trying to make the Trump administration’s first major scandal, Signal-gate, stick.
When President Donald Trump’s nominee for United Nations Ambassador, Michael Waltz, came before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, Democrats trained their focus on Waltz’s participation in the Signal chat when he was Trump’s national security adviser.
Although Trump has quietly repurposed Waltz for this U.N. ambassador job, Waltz told senators he was not “fired” from the national security adviser role.
“The President never said that, nor did the vice president,” Waltz said, when Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen asserted that he had been dismissed. “I was kept on as an adviser transitioning a number of important activities.”
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That claim would square with recent disclosures that Waltz remained on the White House payroll as of July 1.
But Democrats were mostly interested in Waltz’s participation in the Signal chat that he had created with national security officials, the vice president and — inadvertently — the editor in chief of The Atlantic to discuss top secret military airstrikes in March. Several Democrats urged Waltz on Tuesday to admit having made a mistake in using Signal and adding a journalist to the group.
Waltz told them the use of Signal was “recommended” in Biden-era cybersecurity guidelines, even for sensitive military operations, and he insisted there was no classified military information shared in the group chat — a claim that experts have questioned.
Sen. Chris Coons pressed Waltz on whether the White House had investigated or disciplined him for his actions related to the Signal chat.
“I was hoping to hear from you that you had some sense of regret,” Coons said.
Sen. Cory Booker also said he was “disappointed” that Waltz did not take responsibility for the Signal chat, though Waltz did tell Fox News in March that he took “full responsibility” for making the group.
Sen. Tim Kaine also got in on questioning Waltz’s use of Signal, though he agreed that Waltz himself did not share classified information in the chat, adding that there are two active investigations into whether Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth did.
The Signal debacle was a main focus of Democrats, as they try to make a scandal stick. But they also wanted to know what Waltz thought about the Trump administration’s cuts to and implementation of foreign aid.
Sen. Chris Murphy asked Waltz about the administration’s “dismantling of many of our most important smart power tools,” like the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.S. Agency for Global Media.
“Why did you believe that it advanced U.S. national security interests to shut down our most important agencies to try to win the information war?” Murphy asked.
“I think the best way to block and tackle our adversaries abroad is through our amazing private sector, through innovation, through what we’re seeing in our leadership role in AI and in other spaces,” Waltz said. “And so as the president, as the secretary [of state] looked across the interagency and those entities, they made those decisions.”
Sen. Tim Kaine asked about reporting that paid-for American food assistance would be incinerated because it had spoiled while waiting to be distributed.
“We should always be good stewards of taxpayer dollars. And if it’s been purchased, then I don’t disagree it should be delivered,” Waltz said. He added that it was his first time hearing of that situation.
In response to a question from Republican Sen. Mike Lee, Waltz also said he would commit to using U.N. voting records as a metric for whether certain countries should receive U.S. foreign aid.
Trump announced on May 1 he was moving Waltz to the U.N., in the aftermath of Signal-gate and reportedly due to other internal conflicts between Waltz and other administration officials.
Waltz is the second person to be nominated for the U.N. Ambassador position after Trump pulled Rep. Elise Stefanik’s nomination in March, citing already-narrow voting margins in the House.
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