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White House National Security Adviser Waltz Being Forced Out, Sources Say
US President Donald Trump, right, and his White House national security adviser, Mike Waltz. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
US President Donald Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz is being forced out of his job, four people briefed on the matter said on Thursday, in the first major shakeup of Trump’s inner circle since he took office in January.
Waltz‘s deputy, Alex Wong, an Asia expert who was a State Department official focused on North Korea during Trump’s first term, is also leaving his post, two people told Reuters.
Waltz, a 51-year-old former Republican lawmaker from Florida, faced criticism inside the White House when he was caught up in a March scandal involving a Signal chat among top Trump national security aides.
The national security adviser is a powerful role that does not require Senate confirmation. It was not immediately clear who would take over from Waltz. The National Security Council did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Sources said the options included US special envoy Steve Witkoff, who has been involved in Russia-Ukraine diplomacy as well as the Middle East, and Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio could assume the position on a temporary basis while a permanent selection is settled upon, sources said.
The Waltz ouster caps a month of personnel turmoil within Trump’s national security establishment. Since April 1, at least 20 NSC staffers have been fired, the director of the National Security Agency has been dismissed, and three high-ranking Pentagon political appointees have been shown the door.
The purges have seriously hurt morale in some areas of the national security establishment, according to several officials within or close to the administration. Some elements of the government are low on relevant national security expertise, and in some cases, it has proven difficult to attract high-level talent, the officials added.
The NSC is the main body used by presidents to coordinate security strategy, and its staff often make key decisions regarding America’s approach to the world’s most volatile conflicts.
Waltz was blamed for accidentally adding the editor of The Atlantic magazine to a private thread describing details of an imminent US bombing campaign against Iran-backed Houthi terrorists in Yemen. The Atlantic reported on the mishap.
At a subsequent Cabinet meeting with Waltz in the room, Trump expressed his preference for holding such conversations in a secure setting, a clear sign of his displeasure. But he and others in the White House publicly expressed confidence in Waltz at the time. Waltz also attended Trump’s televised Cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
WAVE OF FIRINGS
The NSC that Waltz will leave behind has been thinned by dismissals in recent weeks.
The bloodletting began a month ago, when Laura Loomer, a right-wing conspiracy theorist, handed Trump a list of individuals in the NSC she deemed to be disloyal during a meeting at the White House. Following that meeting, four senior directors were released.
Those four senior directors – who oversaw intelligence, technology, international organizations, and legislative affairs, respectively – had a long history in conservative policymaking and no apparent animosity toward Trump, leaving colleagues puzzled by their dismissals, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.
Some NSC staffers were upset that Waltz did not more forcefully defend his staff, those people said.
Since then, more than 20 additional NSC staffers of various profiles have been let go, typically with no notice, the people said.
In recent weeks, multiple officials have declined positions at the NSC amid the ongoing personnel upheaval, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter. Some areas of the council are now lightly staffed, with both the Latin America and Africa sections lacking permanent senior directors as of last week.
The Signal controversy was not the only mark against Waltz in Trump’s eyes, sources said.
A person familiar with the Cabinet’s internal dynamics said Waltz was too hawkish for the war-averse Trump and was seen as not effectively coordinating foreign policy among a variety of agencies, a key role for the national security adviser.
Another source said Trump wanted to get to the 100-day mark in his term before firing a cabinet-level official.
Waltz‘s ouster could be of concern to US partners in Europe and Asia who have seen him as supportive of traditional alliances such as NATO and tempering more antagonistic views toward them from some other Trump aides, according to one foreign diplomat in Washington who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Democrats who were outraged about the Signal scandal welcomed the news about Waltz.
“About time,” said Democratic Senator Adam Schiff.
The post White House National Security Adviser Waltz Being Forced Out, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Trump Says He Wants ‘Real End’ to Nuclear Problem With Iran, Israel Warns Khamenei
Smoke rises following an Israeli attack on the IRIB building, the country’s state broadcaster, in Tehran, Iran, June 16, 2025. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
US President Donald Trump said he wanted a “real end” to the nuclear dispute with Iran and indicated he may send senior American officials to meet with the Islamic Republic as the Israel–Iran air war raged for a fifth day.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said meanwhile that Iran‘s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could face the same fate as Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who was toppled in a US-led invasion and eventually hanged after a trial.
“I warn the Iranian dictator against continuing to commit war crimes and fire missiles at Israeli citizens,” Katz told top Israeli military officials. Shortly after, Iran‘s state media reported an explosion was heard in Tehran.
Several explosions were later heard in the east and north of the city of Isfahan in central Iran, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.
Speaking to reporters after his early departure from Canada, where he attended the Group of Seven nations summit on Monday, Trump predicted that Israel would not be easing its attacks on Iran.
“You’re going to find out over the next two days. You’re going to find out. Nobody’s slowed up so far,” he said.
Trump said he might send US Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff or Vice President JD Vance to meet with Iranian officials.
Washington has said Trump is still aiming for a nuclear deal with Iran, even as the military confrontation unfolds.
Trump said his departure from the G7 summit had “nothing to do with” working on a deal between Israel and Iran, after French President Emmanuel Macron said the US had initiated a ceasefire proposal.
Something “much bigger” than that was expected, he said on his Truth Social platform late on Monday.
REGIONAL INFLUENCE WEAKENS
Khamenei has seen his main military and security advisers killed by Israeli air strikes, leaving major holes in his inner circle and raising the risk of strategic errors, according to five people familiar with his decision-making process.
Israel‘s military said Iran‘s military leadership is “on the run” and that it had killed Iran‘s wartime chief of staff Ali Shadmani overnight four days into his job after replacing another top commander killed in the strikes.
With Iranian leaders suffering their most dangerous security breach since the 1979 revolution that toppled a US-backed monarch and led to clerical rule, the country’s cyber security command banned officials from using communications devices and mobile phones, Fars news agency reported.
Ever since the Tehran-backed Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and triggered the Gaza war, Khamenei‘s regional influence has been weakening as Israel has pounded Iran‘s proxies – from Hamas in Gaza to Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and militias in Iraq. And Iran‘s close ally, Syria’s autocratic president Bashar al-Assad, has been ousted.
Israel launched its air war, its largest ever on Iran, after saying it concluded Iran was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons and has pointed to its right to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, including enrichment, as a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Israel, which is not a party to the NPT, is the only country in the Middle East widely believed to have nuclear weapons. Israel does not deny or confirm that.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stressed that he will not back down until Iran‘s nuclear development is disabled, while Trump says the Israeli assault could end if Iran agrees to strict curbs on its nuclear program.
Before the attack began, the UN’s nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) declared Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations for the first time in almost 20 years.
The IAEA said on Tuesday there were indications of direct impacts on the underground enrichment halls at the Natanz facility, and that there was no change to report at the Fordow and Isfahan sites.
Katz said the Iranian nuclear facility at Fordow, where an enrichment site is dug into a mountain, was an issue that will “of course” be addressed.
SHIP COLLISION
Israel says it now has control of Iranian airspace and intends to escalate the campaign in the coming days.
Israel‘s advantage leaves few obstacles in the way of its expanding bombardment, though it will struggle to deal a knock-out blow to deeply buried nuclear sites without the US joining the attack, experts say.
Iran has so far fired nearly 400 ballistic missiles and hundreds of drones towards Israel, with about 35 missiles penetrating Israel‘s defensive shield and making impact, Israeli officials say.
Iran‘s Revolutionary Guards said they had hit Israel‘s Military Intelligence Directorate and spy agency Mossad’s operational center early on Tuesday. There was no Israeli confirmation of such attacks.
Iranian officials have reported 224 deaths, mostly civilians, while Israel said 24 civilians had been killed.
World oil markets are on high alert for any strikes on Iran‘s energy infrastructure or elsewhere in the region that could hit global supply.
Two oil tankers collided and caught fire on Tuesday near the Strait of Hormuz, where electronic interference has surged during conflict between Iran and Israel, but there were no injuries to crew or spillage reported. About a fifth of the world’s total oil consumption passes through the waterway.
Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson said Israel‘s “uncalculated” attack on Iran‘s South Pars gas field was worrying “everyone” but production was steady.
Iran shares the field, the world’s biggest, with Qatar.
The post Trump Says He Wants ‘Real End’ to Nuclear Problem With Iran, Israel Warns Khamenei first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Pulls Out of Two More Bases in Syria, Worrying Kurdish Forces
US military vehicles drive in Hasakah, Syria, Dec. 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Orhan Qereman
US forces have pulled out of two more bases in northeastern Syria, visiting Reuters reporters found, accelerating a troop drawdown that the commander of US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces said was allowing a resurgence of Islamic State.
Reuters reporters who visited the two bases in the past week found them mostly deserted, both guarded by small contingents of the Syrian Democratic Forces – the Kurdish-led military group that Washington has backed in the fight against Islamic State for a decade.
Cameras used on bases occupied by the US-led military coalition had been taken down, and razor wire on the outer perimeters had begun to sag.
A Kurdish politician who lives on one base said there were no longer US troops there. SDF guards at the second base said troops had left recently but declined to say when. The Pentagon declined to comment.
It is the first confirmation on the ground by reporters that the US has withdrawn from Al-Wazir and Tel Baydar bases in Hasaka province. It brings to at least four the number of bases in Syria US troops have left since President Donald Trump took office.
Trump’s administration said this month it will scale down its military presence in Syria to one base from eight in parts of northeastern Syria that the SDF controls. The New York Times reported in April that troops might be reduced from 2,000 to 500 in the drawdown.
The SDF did not respond to questions about the current number of troops and open US bases in northeastern Syria.
But SDF commander Mazloum Abdi, who spoke to Reuters at another US base, Al Shadadi, said the presence of a few hundred troops on one base would be “not enough” to contain the threat of Islamic State.
“The threat of Islamic State has significantly increased recently. But this is the US military’s plan. We’ve known about it for a long time … and we’re working with them to make sure there are no gaps and we can maintain pressure on Islamic State,” he said.
Abdi spoke to Reuters on Friday, hours after Israel launched its air war on Iran. He declined to comment on how the new Israel-Iran war would affect Syria, saying simply that he hoped it would not spill over there and that he felt safe on a US base.
Hours after the interview, three Iranian-made missiles targeted the Al Shadadi base and were shot down by US defense systems, two SDF security sources said.
ISIS ACTIVE IN SYRIAN CITIES
Islamic State, also known as ISIS and Daesh, ruled vast swathes of Iraq and Syria from 2014 to 2017 during Syria’s civil war, imposing a vision of Islamic rule under which it beheaded locals in city squares, sex-trafficked members of the Yazidi minority and executed foreign journalists and aid workers.
The group, from its strongholds in Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq, also launched deadly attacks in European and Middle Eastern countries.
A US-led military coalition of more than 80 countries waged a yearslong campaign to defeat the group and end its territorial control, supporting Iraqi forces and the SDF.
But Islamic State has been reinvigorated since the ouster of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in December at the hands of separate Islamist rebels.
Abdi said ISIS cells had become active in several Syrian cities, including Damascus, and that a group of foreign jihadists who once battled the Syrian regime had joined its ranks. He did not elaborate.
He said ISIS had seized weapons and ammunition from Syrian regime depots in the chaos after Assad’s fall.
Several Kurdish officials told Reuters that Islamic State had already begun moving more openly around US bases which had recently been shuttered, including near the cities of Deir Ezzor and Raqqa, once strongholds for the extremist group.
In areas the SDF controls east of the Euphrates River, ISIS has waged a series of attacks and killed at least 10 SDF fighters and security forces, Abdi said. Attacks included a roadside bomb targeting a convoy of oil tankers on a road near the US base where he gave the interview.
The post US Pulls Out of Two More Bases in Syria, Worrying Kurdish Forces first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Trump Says US Won’t Kill Iran’s Supreme Leader, ‘At Least Not for Now’
US President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, US, Feb. 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
President Donald Trump said on Tuesday the US knew exactly where Iran‘s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was “hiding,” that he was an easy target but would not be killed, at least for now.
“We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
“But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin,” Trump said.
The post Trump Says US Won’t Kill Iran’s Supreme Leader, ‘At Least Not for Now’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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