Trump is planning 'purge' of White House staff after ousting Waltz, report says

Original reporting: Waltz was in danger before Signalgate (Politico)

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Source: The Independent

Trump is planning ‘purge’ of White House staff after ousting Waltz, report says

Others could soon follow ousted national security adviser Mike Waltz to the exit

Joe Sommerlad
Friday 02 May 2025 13:50 BST

Donald Trump’s decision to remove Mike Waltz as his national security adviser could be followed by a mass firing of White House staff being dubbed “The Purge,” according to a report.

The dismissals could come as soon as late next week, sources have told Politico, with one insider saying “a lot” of employees will be let go over perceived loyalty concerns, with the president preferring to announce their removal in one sweeping gesture, rather than in piecemeal fashion one-by-one.

While Trump has so far managed to avoid a repeat of the same level of staffing chaos as his first term, which saw almost as high a turnover as the average season of his NBC reality show The Apprentice, Waltz’s firing could mark the opening of the floodgates.

According to Politico, the outgoing adviser – whose tenure is the second-shortest in American history, behind only Michael Flynn’s three-week run – had quickly made enemies in his role by behaving in an arrogant manner. “He’s a staff

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Read more: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-mike-waltz-white-house-staff-purge-b2743732.html

Alternate link: https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-planning-purge-white-house-125047994.html

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Source: Politico

Waltz was in danger before Signalgate

Beyond Waltz, there may be ‘a purge’ of lower level White House staffers

By Dasha Burns, Sophia Cai and Robbie Gramer
05/01/2025 05:28 PM EDT

Signalgate may have been the tipping point for national security adviser Mike Waltz, but his downfall began before he accidentally added a journalist to a private chat about a U.S. attack on Yemen.

From the early days, senior administration officials were irked by his approach – seeing him as too cocky. “He’s a staff, but he was acting like a principal,” one person close to the White House who was granted anonymity to discuss internal dynamics said. National security advisers, while powerful, support presidents but do not run an agency like Cabinet secretaries.

In the wake of the Signal chat scandal in late March, outsiders called for his immediate firing over the apparent security breach, but some White House insiders speculated that the bad headlines would paradoxically buy Waltz time.

Trump views the media, including Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg, as the enemy, and did not want to look like he was reacting to coverage of Goldberg’s inclusion in the Signal chat by firing someone involved in the scandal.

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Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/01/waltz-ouster-backstory-00322187