In a phone interview with NBC News on Saturday, March 29, 2025, President Donald Trump made it clear he has no intention of axing anyone from his team over the recent Signal group chat controversy that’s been lighting up headlines. The incident, which saw a journalist accidentally looped into a national security discussion, has sparked a firestorm of criticism—but Trump isn’t fazed.
“I don’t fire people because of fake news and because of witch hunts,” Trump told NBC, brushing off the uproar with his signature defiance. The chat in question, exposed by The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg on Monday, included heavy hitters like Vice President JD Vance, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Dated March 15, 2025, it captured Trump’s inner circle hashing out plans for airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen.
When pressed by NBC on whether he still trusts Hegseth and Waltz, Trump didn’t hesitate: “I do.” He doubled down, calling the whole ordeal “just a witch hunt and the fake news, like you, talk about it all the time, but it’s just a witch hunt, and it shouldn’t be talked [about].” Instead, he pivoted to tout the mission’s success: “We had a tremendously successful strike. We struck very hard and very lethal. And nobody wants to talk about that. All they want to talk about is nonsense. It’s fake news.”
The Signal app itself? Trump claims he’s clueless about it—and doesn’t care to learn. “I have no idea what Signal is. I don’t care what Signal is,” he said, repeating a line he’s stuck to whenever the topic comes up. “All I can tell you is it’s just a witch hunt, and it’s the only thing the press wants to talk about, because you have nothing else to talk about. Because it’s been the greatest 100-day presidency in the history of our country.”
The White House’s Response To The Leak
The White House has since confirmed the chat’s authenticity but insists no sensitive details were spilled. Hegseth, meanwhile, has scoffed at suggestions that “war plans” were laid bare. The administration has come out swinging, painting The Atlantic as a biased, anti-Trump rag and Goldberg as a discredited partisan.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt addressed the mess this week, pinning the blame on an innocent mistake. “The National Security Advisor has taken responsibility for this matter, and the National Security Council immediately said alongside the White House Counsel’s Office that they are looking into how a reporter’s number was inadvertently added to this messaging thread,” she explained.
“We have said all along that no classified material was sent on this messaging thread. There were no locations, no sources or methods revealed, and there were certainly no war plans discussed.”
Leavitt didn’t hold back on Goldberg, either. “There’s arguably no one in the media who loves manufacturing and pushing hoaxes more than Jeffrey Goldberg,” she charged.
“Goldberg is an anti-Trump hater. He is a registered Democrat. Goldberg’s wife is also a registered Democrat and a big Democrat donor who used to work under Hillary Clinton. This is the same Jeffrey Goldberg who infamously lied about weapons of mass destruction to get us into the Iraq War, which cost trillions of dollars and thousands of American soldiers.”
She kept the hits coming: “And how else has Goldberg discredited himself? By absurdly claiming that President Trump was Vladimir Putin during the 2016 campaign, by peddling the ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ hoax that tried to hijack President Trump’s first term, by inventing the ‘suckers and losers’ hoax to help Joe Biden in the 2020 election, by peddling a hoax about President Trump involving Gold Star families to help Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, which our campaign at the time, vigorously denied.”
For Trump and his team, this is just another bump in the road—one they’re determined to steamroll with a mix of bravado and counterattacks.
The message is clear: they’re not backing down, and they’re not firing anyone.
The Fairview Gazette will keep you updated on any new information regarding the Signal Chat leak.
