As Mike Waltz gets pushed out, ‘Laura Loomer gets a confirmed kill’
Mike Waltz has been a dead man walking in the White House for the past month, and the outgoing national security adviser started to act like it, Trump administration sources tell Axios.
Why it matters: “Signalgate” badly damaged Waltz, but it wasn’t his only problem. He got on the wrong side of everyone from conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.
- After a flood of reports that Waltz was being pushed out, President Trump confirmed the news but announced he was nominating him for a new role outside of Washington: UN ambassador.
Behind the scenes: Waltz didn’t work as well with other Cabinet and White House officials as was hoped.
- On a trip to Greenland in March, Vice President Vance counseled him about “working more collaboratively,” a senior White House official told Axios at the time.
- The former congressman and Green Beret also treated Wiles with a dismissive attitude, two officials said.
- “He treated her like staff and didn’t realize he’s the staff, she’s the embodiment of the president,” one of them said. “Susie is a deeply loyal person and the disrespect was made all the worse because it was disloyal.”
Then came Loomer, the pro-Trump conspiracy theorist and social media influencer who has crusaded against what she claims are “disloyal” people and “neocons” who never should have been hired in Trump 2.0.
- In a meeting with Trump a month ago, Loomer urged him to fire some of the staffers Waltz had appointed, and shared an old video of Waltz criticizing Trump years ago.
Friction point: Waltz didn’t fire everyone Loomer targeted — including his chief of staff Alex Wong, who is also now on his way out — but he acted like and was a diminished figure in the administration, the sources told Axios.
- “He’s like a beaten dog that keeps doing the same trick so he doesn’t get beaten again. It’s a little sad,” the senior White House official said in mid-April.
- “When you stack everything on Waltz, he just couldn’t survive. Laura Loomer gets a confirmed kill,” an administration adviser familiar with the discussions said.