Quotes
As the president has made it very clear, Mike Waltz continues to be an important part of his national security team and this case has been closed here at the White House as far as we are concerned,
Leavitt said on Monday
There have been steps made to ensure that something like that can obviously never happen again, and we're moving forward,
she saidThe Trump Administration’s mishandling of sensitive military plans was a staggering failure,
she wrote in a social media post
It's entirely appropriate for the [Department of Defense] inspector general to be able to look at it."
Oklahoma Senator James Lankford, a Republican, told CNN on Sunday morning
The public has a right to know how decisions about war and national security are made—and accountability doesn't disappear just because a message was set to autodelete."
American Oversight's interim executive director Chioma Chukwu said in a previous statement sent to Newsweek
No locations. No sources & methods. NO WAR PLANS. Foreign partners had already been notified that strikes were imminent. BOTTOM LINE: President Trump is protecting America and our interests."
National security adviser Mike Waltz wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter
Nobody's texting war plans...There's no units, no locations, no routes, no flight paths, no sources, no methods, no classified information. You know who sees war plans? I see them. Every single day...My job...is to provide updates in real time. General updates in real time, keep everybody informed. That's what I did."
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters on Wednesday
If you think you’re going to force the president of the United States to fire anybody you’ve got another thing coming. I’m the vice president saying it here on Friday: We are standing behind our entire national security team.”
Vance, then repairing his image after his actions were reported, told reporters on his trip to Greenland
Number one, everything they said there was classified. Number two, they violated national security by putting this in an unapproved and unsecure, unsecure application.”
Ray Bilger, a Democrat and veteran of the State Department foreign service, told attendeesClearly the subject matter that’s being discussed, the status of ongoing military operations, should be … considered classified information.”
Turner, on Sunday, told ABC’s This WeekMeet the Fake Press should instead explain how successful the attack was, and how Sleepy Joe Biden should have done it YEARS AGO. This story and narrative is so old and boring, but only used because we are having the most successful “First One Hundred Presidential Days” in the history of America, and they can’t find anything else to talk about.”
He added
The conversation should be about why did the Biden administration not do anything in the last two years, instead of this Signal chat. There was no classified information given out, it was a thoughtful conversation, and the attack was extremely successful.”
Republican senator Markwayne Mullin, in an interview with NBC News earlier in the day, spoke about the Signal chat controversy and said
A GREAT job by Senator Markwayne Mullin on beating back Kristen Welker’s, and the the Radical Left’s Witch Hunt, on the never ending Signal story. They just don’t stop - Over and over they go!”
Following this statement, Donald Trump, in a post on TruthSocial praised the senator for his responseThe Fake News Media has the lowest Approval Ratings in history, and for good reason. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”
Trump also slammed NBC News in the post sayingI don't think we should rest on the fact that nothing bad happened this time,
Gordon said
I think we have the capability — actually, right now, in Iran's weakened state — to threaten them very strongly,
the retired general saidI’m glad the operation was successful,
Gordon said, referring to the U.S. military strikes on Houthi terrorist targetsThis was so inappropriate. This was so sloppy. You know, Signal [is] fine, but don't put classified information. If this had been any military officer or intelligence officer and they'd done that, they'd be fired,
Warner saidThe information as published recently appears to me to be of a sensitive nature. I would have wanted it classified."
He added
One is, obviously, how did a reporter get into this thread in the conversation,
he told Bash