How Did This Signalgate Official Keep Getting Paid After He Was Fired?

Mike Waltz at his Tuesday Senate confirmation hearing faced scrutiny for retaining his six-figure White House salary despite being ousted from his post as national security adviser.

Trump in May removed Waltz from his role at the National Security Agency and announced his nomination as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Waltz had by then been embroiled in scandal for months over the “Signalgate” fiasco, in which he created a Signal group chat to discuss classified planned military strikes in Yemen and accidentally added Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg.

And yet, according to the Associated Press, Waltz has remained on the White House payroll, receiving a $195,200 annual taxpayer-funded salary.

Senator Jacky Rosen of Nevada brought this up as Waltz testified before the Senate Tuesday, and the Trump nominee hit back with a tried and true Trumpism: fake news.

“Despite being removed from your role as national security adviser in May—removed from your role, right, not working—surprisingly, you’ve been on the White House payroll for the last few months,” Rosen said. “Throughout this hearing, you’ve made assertations that, if confirmed, you would root out waste and unnecessary overhead at the U.N. So, can you confirm for us whether you’ve been receiving a salary from the White House since being let go at the NSA?”

Waltz held that he “was not fired” and was “kept on as an adviser transitioning a number of important activities.”

“So you’re saying that you were not dismissed as was publicly reported?” Rosen asked.

“The reporting, senator, is fake news, which shouldn’t surprise anyone,” Waltz said.

Indeed, a White House official told the AP that Waltz stayed on to “ensure a smooth and successful transition,” and, per Politico, his title was changed to merely “adviser.” It’s unclear exactly what Waltz has been doing for the past few months, yet his six-figure salary has remained unchanged—a situation in which the nominee, who’s promised to bring Trump’s mission against purported “waste” to the U.N., apparently sees no irony.

Former national security adviser Mike Waltz took a page out of Donald Trump’s handbook Tuesday as he presented a wild scapegoat for his involvement in the Signalgate scandal.

During his confirmation hearing to become the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Waltz was asked about the fallout of mistakenly adding the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic to a Signal group chat where several high-ranking Trump Cabinet members openly discussed highly sensitive war plans.

“Were you investigated for this disclosure of sensitive operational information on Signal?” asked Connecticut Senator Chris Coons, who noted that it was common wisdom that the app was “not an appropriate, secure means of communicating highly sensitive information.”

“Thank you Senator, and that engagement was driven by and recommended by the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency, by the Biden administration CISA guidance,” Waltz stammered, peppering his response with several “uhs” that have been removed for clarity.

“I’m sorry,” Coons cut in. “Was the use of secure information on Signal—”

“The use of, no excuse me, the use of Signal is not only—as an encrypted app—is not only authorized, it was recommended in Biden’s, the Biden era CISA guidance,” Waltz continued, somehow finding a way to blame former President Joe Biden for his own egregious gaffe.

CISA best practices guidance released in December 2024 recommended the use of Signal for “highly targeted individuals” seeking “end-to-end encryption” and protection against cyber attacks. It doesn’t note how to prevent adding journalists from top secret group chats. A 2023 memo from the Department of Defense, however, prohibited the use of Signal and other “unmanaged apps” to discuss “non-public DoD information.”

New Jersey Senator Cory Booker took Waltz to task over another of his weak attempts to pin his enormous fumble on Goldberg. Waltz had previously claimed that the editor’s phone number had been “sucked in” to his phone by “somebody else’s contact.” Waltz also claimed he didn’t know Goldberg and called him “the bottom scum of journalists.”

“You said this journalist intentionally infiltrated that Signal chain. You said that he was ‘sucked in.’ You denied, deflected, and then you did something that really, to me, really lacks integrity, is that you sought out to demean and degrade that very journalist in crass and frankly cruel ways that made him a target,” Booker said. “That’s not leadership, when you blame people that tell the truth. That’s not leadership when you can’t say the words, ‘I made a mistake.’”

Lara Trump called for “more transparency” on the government’s disastrous investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.

Last week, the Justice Department’s memo declaring that Epstein kept no “incriminating ‘client list’” led to widespread outrage from Donald Trump’s supporters, who’d waited with bated breath for the administration to release a list of names.

During an appearance on conservative YouTuber Benny Johnson’s show, Trump’s daughter-in-law tried to walk the line between siding with the president and appeasing the fuming MAGA crowd he’d promised answers to.

“Well, I do think that there needs to be more transparency on this, and I think that that will happen,” she said.

Trump tried to defend her father-in-law’s pathetic response to the outrage. “As for the links to the president, I know that this is probably not the number one thing he’s focused on,” she said.

“I don’t know that this was top of mind for him, but he hears all the noise, and he hears all of the consternation out there, and I think he’s gonna want to set things right as well,” Trump continued. “So I believe that there will probably be more coming on this, and I believe anything that they are able to release that doesn’t, you know, damage any witnesses or anyone underage or anything like that, I believe they will probably try to get out sooner rather than later.”

To those who were upset by the DOJ’s findings, she assured them there was no greater conspiracy at work. “There’s no, like, great plot to keep this information away—that I’m aware of,” she said. “I do just believe that maybe it’s been slow rolled for reasons that hopefully we understand down the line.”

But the president doesn’t seem the slightest bit interested in providing more answers. Instead, he’s fighting conspiracy theories with more conspiracy theories. Last week, he took to Truth Social to insist that the Epstein files are “Radical Left inspired Documents” created by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden, and that the administration ought “not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.”

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier—the “brains” behind the so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” immigrant detention camp—threatened to strip state funding from Florida airports that fail to submit monthly reports on the “geoengineering and weather modification activities” at their facilities.

Uthmeier sent a crankish letter to Florida public airport operators on Monday, in which he vowed to enforce a piece of legislation signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis earlier this month that prohibits (and requires airports to report) the introduction of substances into the Florida atmosphere “for the express purpose of affecting the temperature, weather, climate, or intensity of sunlight.”

“Because airports are most likely to catch those who seek to weaponize science in order to push their agenda, your compliance with these reporting obligations is essential to keeping our state safe from these harmful chemicals and experiments,” Uthmeier wrote. “In Florida, we don’t jeopardize the public health so that we can bend the knee to the climate cult.”

Under the new law, public-use airports will be required to file monthly reports with Florida’s Department of Transportation starting in October.

Asked about the new mandate by the Orlando Sentinel, a spokeswoman for the operator of the Orlando International Airport and Orlando Executive Airport replied, somewhat shruggingly, that the airports would comply. However, she noted, “Neither airport performs any geoengineering or weather modification activities, nor are we … aware of any activity on airport properties that must be reported at this time.”

Uthmeier’s letter also supported baseless conspiracy theories attributing the deadly flooding in Texas over the July 4 weekend to weather modification—a claim that the director of Texas A&M’s Center for Extreme Weather has called “complete nonsense” and which even Republican Senator Ted Cruz dismissed as bunkum.

“I can’t help but notice the possibility that weather modification could have played a role in” the disasters in Texas, Uthmeier wrote, adding that “Florida’s new law seeks to prevent something like that from ever happening.”

Conspiracy theories about weather modification have become increasingly common on the right, with prominent figures like Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia elevating them amid extreme weather events.

Like much of Trump’s base, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is tired of watching the president align with the more traditional “neocon” wing of the Republican Party, particularly on the “end” to endless wars.

“It’s not just Ukraine; it’s all foreign wars in general and a lot of foreign aid,” Greene told The New York Times on Monday after Trump announced he’d be selling a large amount of weapons to NATO countries, which would then give the weapons to Ukraine. “This is what we campaigned on. This is what I promised also to my district. This is what everybody voted for. And I believe we have to maintain the course.”

“I said it on every rally stage: ‘No more money to Ukraine. We want peace.’ We just want peace for those people,” she continued. “And guess what? People haven’t changed.”

“Without a shadow of a doubt, our tax dollars are being used,” she added, refuting Trump’s claim that the latest weapons shipment would not cost taxpayers.

Taylor Greene is one of many MAGA hardliners left confused by the president’s switch up on Ukraine, especially just months after he and Vice President JD Vance verbally accosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

“No one’s walking around thinking about Ukraine. No one’s walking around thinking about Russia. They’re just not,” she said. “They walk around and all they think about is their bills, their problems and the road that may look like crap in front of their house—or they can’t buy a house…. We’re opening the door for younger generations to turn to radical leaders.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has declared undocumented immigrants ineligible for bond hearings, thus opening the door to the indefinite detention of millions of immigrants while their deportation proceedings are underway.

Previously, an immigrant facing detention who did not have a serious criminal history could request a hearing in which an immigration judge would consider various factors, such as flight risk and potential danger to the community, before deciding whether to release them on bond while their case progressed.

But now, in a stark departure from precedent, the agency will suspend bond hearings, per a July 8 memo obtained by The Washington Post.

In the memo, ICE acting Director Todd Lyons ordered the detention of undocumented immigrants “for the duration of their removal proceedings”—potentially months or years. Lyons justified the change in policy in light of Trump’s Justice and Homeland Security departments having “revisited [their] legal position on detention and release authorities” and determining that such immigrants “may not be released from ICE custody” barring rare exceptions.

Already, the American Immigration Lawyers Association informed the Post of denied bond hearings in over a dozen DOJ-run immigration courts in states such as New York, Virginia, Oregon, North Carolina, Ohio, and Georgia.

The new policy is based on a peculiar interpretation of a law stating unauthorized immigrants “shall be detained” after their arrests, which has, per the Post, historically been applied only to immigrants who’d recently crossed the U.S.-Mexico border, rather than—as it now will—to those who have lived and worked in the country for decades, many of whom have children who are U.S. citizens and may have strong legal cases against deportation.

As such, Lyons acknowledged in the memo that he fully expects the policy to face legal challenges, writing, per Reuters, that the change is “likely to be litigated.”

If this new policy stays in effect, it will staggeringly balloon the population of immigrants detained under inhumane conditions at ICE facilities across the country.

FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino’s foray into truancy is over—but not everyone was so confident that he’d be back. 

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins appeared on Anderson Cooper 360 Monday night to discuss Bongino, who didn’t show up to work Friday amid reports he was considering resigning over the lack of findings from the Department of Justice’s investigation into alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Apparently, Trump administration officials were so unsure of Bongino’s next move that they had texted Collins to ask whether he’d bothered to show up to work Monday. 

“Is it clear where Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino—his career—is headed tonight?” Cooper asked. 

“No, it’s not clear—even to White House officials, Anderson,” Collins said. “Who were texting each other, and texting me this morning asking, you know, whether or not they had figured out if he had shown up to work today, because it was still an open question in Washington this morning if he was going to be back at the FBI today.”

A senior Trump administration official told Axios that Bongino had “lost his mind and ran out of D.C.” after receiving “heat online” over the DOJ’s memo declaring that Epstein kept no “incriminating ‘client list.’” Bongino had spent a long weekend in Florida. 

Collins confirmed that Bongino hadn’t lost his job or quit. “But the relationship has deteriorated so much that there are officials inside the White House who have not spoken to Dan Bongino in days,” she said.  

CNN previously reported that Bongino had iced out all communications with his colleagues, and hadn’t spoken with anyone at the department since Wednesday. Axios confirmed that he’d gotten into an argument with Attorney General Pam Bondi that day. 

Collins said she’d been told that Donald Trump was “very angry” with Bongino, and with FBI Director Kash Patel “to a degree.” Patel, however, had come crawling back with a statement saying he had no intention of resigning from his post after receiving pressure from Trump to get in line. 

The consequences of Trump’s tariffs have begun to set in.

Prices are rising as normal Americans shoulder the burden of Trump’s fiscal policy of spite, and his tariffs cause basic goods to become more expensive. Annual inflation rose 2.7 percent last month, according to the Consumer Price Index data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Tuesday. That marks the highest increase in inflation since January. Core inflation, which doesn’t include food and energy prices, increased 2.9 percent.

This is something economists, and Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, have been warning for months now. But Trump has trudged on, insisting that the market is robust while trying to cyberbully Powell into prematurely lowering interest rates.

“The level of tariff increases announced so far is significantly larger than anticipated, and the same is likely to be true of the economic effects, which will include higher inflation and slower growth,” Powell said back in April.

It will be interesting to see how the Trump administration attempts to spin things if and when inflation reaches even higher peaks as his tariffs kick in. The president is already telling a different story.

“Consumer Prices LOW,” he posted Tuesday on Truth Social. “Bring down the Fed Rate, NOW!!!”

As President Trump’s heart hardens against Russian President Vladimir Putin, he recently asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy whether he could strike the Russian capital if provided long-range weaponry by the United States, according to recent reports.

On Tuesday, The Financial Times reported that Trump, in a July 4 phone call, asked Zelenskiy, “Volodymyr, can you hit Moscow?” and also inquired as to whether he could hit St. Petersburg, the second-largest Russian city.

“Absolutely. We can if you give us the weapons,” Zelenskiy is said to have replied. Trump was apparently open to this, reportedly mentioning a strategy to “make them [Russians] feel the pain” to pressure Putin to negotiate a peace deal.

The Washington Post’s David Ignatius seemingly reported on the same conversation on Monday, writing that Trump had reportedly asked why Zelenskiy “didn’t hit Moscow,” and urged Ukraine to “put more pressure” on the two Russian cities in order to get Putin to the table.

Ignatius also wrote that Trump’s recently announced batch of military aid to Ukraine could include permission to use American-made long-range ATACMS missiles Ukraine currently possesses, which would allow it to strike deeper into Russia—but not so far as to reach the two cities Trump reportedly mentioned in his phone call.

President Biden in November 2024, to the chagrin of some Trump allies, had allowed Ukraine to use ATACMS, leading the president’s son Donald Trump Jr. to accuse him of trying to “get World War Three going before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives.”

Ignatius reports that Trump has also considered granting Ukraine’s request for Tomahawk cruise missiles, which would be able to reach Moscow and St. Petersburg, but these remain off the delivery list for the time being.

The president has toughened his stance on Russia in recent days. On Monday, Trump threatened to slap massive tariffs on countries that trade with Russia and announced that the U.S. would send Patriot air defense missiles to Ukraine.

Trump’s newly reported conversation with Zelenskiy provides the most recent—and perhaps most striking—evidence that he is beginning to sour on Putin, as he increasingly comes to grips with the notion that the Russian president might not be the good-faith actor he once took him to be.

House Republicans on Monday struck down a Democratic-led effort to release the Epstein files in their entirety. The Republican-majority House Rules committee voted 6-5 to block an amendment that would force the Department of Justice to make all files publicly accessible.

Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina was the only Republican to vote for their release.

“Whose side are you on? That’s really what this Epstein file issue has become,” Representative Ro Khanna, who introduced the amendment, told MSNBC on Monday. “It’s not just about knowing who’s being protected, the rich and the powerful, in terms of who had interaction with Jeffrey Epstein. It’s the sense that people have that the government is too beholden to certain interests, who have their thumb on the scale. And that they’re not working for ordinary people.... This is something that many Republicans believe should happen.”

This is perhaps the most intense test of allegiance that the MAGA movement has faced so far. Trump didn’t just break a major promise by closing the Epstein case; he did so with indignation, as if his supporters were crazy for still talking about it. And although many of his supporters are scapegoating Attorney General Pam Bondi rather than Trump, it doesn’t seem like this issue will just go away. After Monday’s vote, Khanna said he would try again to get the files released.

The Epstein files are especially likely to keep festering because the stars of the MAGA movement—like Steve Bannon, Elon Musk, Laura Loomer, and Marjorie Taylor Greene—are still genuinely upset by it. Whether other Republicans will move with the same compass as Representative Norman remains to be seen.