• National Security Advisor Mike Waltz on Thursday became the first major ouster of President Donald Trump’s second term… kind of. Rumors of Waltz’s imminent firing swirled in the morning, only for Trump to later announce he plans to nominate Waltz to be the next ambassador to the United Nations. Waltz had reportedly been on thin ice with the White House for weeks now, after he included the editor in chief of The Atlantic in a Signal group chat where imminent military plans were discussed among some of the most senior members of the administration. Jake Traylor, White House reporter for Politico, joins us to explain Waltz’s ouster as NSA and the possibility of other “transitions” within Trump’s Cabinet.
• And in headlines: Former Vice-President Kamala Harris gave her first major public address since leaving office, the Department of Justice sued Hawaii and Michigan over their plans to sue fossil fuel companies for harms caused by climate change, and a federal judge barred the Trump administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans in South Texas.

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TRANSCRIPT

Josie Duffy Rice: It is Friday, May 2nd. I’m Josie Duffy Rice, in for Jane Coaston, and this is What a Day, the show that can’t stop laughing at the fact that the man Trump once derided as Little Marco is now running half the government. Good for you, Little Marco. Get a pay raise. Don’t be shy. [music break] On today’s show, the Department of Justice preemptively sues states before the states can sue fossil fuel companies. Yes, you heard that correctly. And former President Joe Biden announces his first daytime talk show appearance since leaving the White House. But let’s start with the administration’s national security shakeup. On Thursday, President Donald Trump announced that he was ousting National Security Advisor Mike Waltz weeks after Waltz accidentally added a journalist to a Signal group chat. For those who may have forgotten, in March, Waltz included Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, in a confidential chat discussing details about a military operation in Yemen. He later claimed that Goldberg’s contact was, quote, “sucked in to his phone.” After that, Waltz’s future in the administration was clearly uncertain, but Trump denied that he was planning on firing Waltz for the gaffe. But as of Thursday, Waltz is moving on. The king of firing people is playing this one a little more demurely. He posted on Truth Social that Waltz would be taking his talents to a different part of the Trump administration. The president has said he will nominate Waltz to be his ambassador to the United Nations. Meanwhile, Trump said, Secretary of State Marco Rubio will serve as interim national security advisor. So if you’re keeping track at home, this is Rubio’s, like, third, fourth job, maybe? So many jobs. This is the efficiency dream. Have the guy responsible for our international relationships and our national security work part-time in both those roles. Great. Yeah, makes a lot of sense. Here’s State Department spokesperson, Tammy Bruce, learning in real time that her boss has just been given yet another job. 

[clip of Tammy Bruce] It is clear that I just heard this from you. I had, I, this is the magic– 

Josie Duffy Rice: Clearly surprised by this news, Bruce tried to improv a coherent response. 

[clip of Tammy Bruce] It is as I think would be clear to all of you. You don’t want to get ahead of your skis in drawing conclusions or speculating about what may occur. Uh. And um you can have a general sense of what’s possible, and then you see that manifest usually. But I think the one thing I certainly that I’ve learned is that um uh things don’t happen until the president says they’re going to happen. Uh. So, the fact that that is, was it obviously Truth Social? Yeah.

Josie Duffy Rice: Again, Waltz’s departure is not a shock, exactly, given that he added one of the most famous journalists in America to a chat about a military attack, but it is still a blow to the administration, which has been trying to avoid the high turnover that characterized Trump’s first term. And that seems to be the reason that Trump is working so hard to spin this. Here’s Vice President J.D. Vance on Thursday. 

[clip of Vice President J.D. Vance] So he wasn’t let go. He is being made ambassador to the United Nations, which of course is a Senate confirmed position. I think you can make a good argument that it’s a promotion. Um. But we brought Mike on to do some serious reforms to the National Security Council. He has done that. I like Mike. I thinks he’s a great guy. He’s got the trust of both me and the president. 

Josie Duffy Rice: I love this. He’s like, we brought him on to fix national security. He did it in 100 days. So we’re just gonna put him in another job now. It’s another, it’s time for him to take on another Trump priority, human rights and international cooperation. I spoke to Jake Traylor, White House reporter for Politico about Waltz’s departure and the possibility of other transitions due to Signal gate, as speculation about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth continues. Jake, welcome to What a Day. 

Jake Traylor: Thanks for having me, what a day. 

Josie Duffy Rice: What a day, what a day. That’s every day these days. Um. 

Jake Traylor: Yeah. 

Josie Duffy Rice: So Waltz, his ouster had been rumored for for a while. Why do you think he um why do you think this is happening now? 

Jake Traylor: It’s really interesting. And my colleagues over at Politico, Dasha Burns and Rachael Bade, had some really great reporting on this in March, saying basically that the plan all along was that we would see Waltz eventually get kicked in some capacity. That essentially they did not want it to look like that they got rid of Waltz because of the signal group chat that became so infamous and looked so so rough for the administration. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Right. 

Jake Traylor: Um. And then what’s still really interesting to me is in all the reporting about Waltz being ousted from his position The fact that then, hours later, Trump then announces that he’s shifting him over to the UN. I’m still curious if that was a product of him trying to save face and not see him fired as we saw in the first administration, or if that actually was the plan–

Josie Duffy Rice: Right. 

Jake Traylor: –all along. So I can’t say as to why today specifically. We just, it seems they wanted to wait for things to die down and and obviously things are fully back in commotion. 

Josie Duffy Rice: So far-right activist, I feel like that’s not even a strong enough descriptor for Laura Loomer. 

Jake Traylor: Yeah. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Um, she’s, she something so, uh, but let’s call her a far right activist, right? 

Jake Traylor: Yeah sure. 

Josie Duffy Rice: She’s taking credit for this, for getting Waltz ousted. Is there any truth to that? Like what, what do we, what do we know about what actually influenced Trump to, to take this step? 

Jake Traylor: Yeah, a couple things. One, we know all along that President Trump was very upset with Waltz and that the situation took place. Waltz is the one, of course, for those that have had their heads under a rock, he was the one that added um the original journalist from The Atlantic into the Signal Group chat. So we knew all along, that like Waltz was the kind of the scapegoat, the person to blame. Separately, Trump met with Laura Loomer, I think weeks ago now, and and it is believed, and it’s been reported, I believe, as well, that Loomer brought up Waltz as one of the individuals who is not good for Trump to have around in his administration. So so to fully credit this happening to Laura Loomer and to the meeting she had with Trump now weeks ago, uh may be too much to assign. She did, however, Politico reached out to her and asked about, you know, was this one of ones that you had said that you wanted to get out? She just responded one word, Loomered, which is her kind of infamous word for what she does when she gets someone canceled or ousted. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Right. 

Jake Traylor: Or taken down. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Right. You mentioned that Trump is nominating Waltz to be the next ambassador to the UN. And I’m wondering, I mean, on one hand, that’s a big job to give someone that you clearly think you can’t trust and–

Jake Traylor: Yeah. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Doesn’t know how to, you know. But on the other hand, is this a demotion for him? 

Jake Traylor: Yeah, well, it’s certainly interesting because some would argue this ambassador to the UN role could be a more significant role. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Right. 

Jake Traylor: Than the one he was currently in. I mean, the ambassador to the United Nations is a very significant role. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Right. 

Jake Traylor: Especially right now in terms of just everything going on globally in Trump’s kind of isolationist technique. But for a long time, there’s been criticism of Walz in this position, even before Signal gate took place. I would say, at least publicly, this doesn’t appear as a demotion. Trump does’t isn’t one to care too much about titles, per se, when it comes to stuff like this. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Right. 

Jake Traylor: And now, craziest of all, is Marco Rubio doubling as Secretary of State. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Yeah. 

Jake Traylor: But also now as NSA as well. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Yeah, well, that’s what I was going to ask you about next. So Marco Rubio has too many jobs. I think we could–

Jake Traylor: Yes. 

Josie Duffy Rice: We can all agree. Uh, new interim national security advisor, secretary of state, national archivist, right, with, so with these kind of two huge national security roles, how does this work? 

Jake Traylor: Yeah, I think honestly, Josie, the answer is we don’t fully know yet. Like these these roles, though they have a lot of overlap, Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, they have overlap. They’re also certainly different. I think for context, I don’t think this has been done simultaneously since it was Henry Kissinger held both titles under Nixon. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Wow. 

Jake Traylor: And the Ford administration. And then you’re right. Like not that these are significant roles, but on top of these two very significant roles, he also is serving as the head of the National Archives. So like he has four titles now in this administration. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Right. 

Jake Traylor: I will say Marco Rubio has been actively present for a lot of these meetings and a lot of these conversations. We’ve seen him um in the Oval Office and in these rooms but he also kind of has been to the side. Like it’s been a lot of like Steve Witkoff or it’s been Trump himself or it has been JD Vance. And then Marco Rubio’s kind of been like the fourth or fifth player at the table. And so it’s, it kind of feels like he’s just picked up another, like, side character plot role in this big Trump administration where he’s got a lot of important titles, but he’s certainly not acting as a conventional secretary of state. I don’t imagine he’ll act as a conventional national security advisor as well. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Well, the two jobs do feel like you, they come from a different position, right? One of them is a little bit more defensive or oppositional, right, and then the secretary of state is kind of a mediation job, right. It’s like building relationships, et cetera. I wonder just how you think the two different goals of these roles, having one person play them, how that’s gonna play out?

Jake Traylor: Well, I’ll just add on top of that is you also have, you have these two roles that you’re right they’re they’re in some ways, they can be potentially adversarial and that’s intentional to to kind of have a full scope of a White House administration. It’s kind of why it’s meant to be held by two different individuals. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Right. 

Jake Traylor: With two different motivations. Separately, on top that you kind of have like Marco Rubio still, who has a kind of somewhat previous like hawkish stance when it comes to international affairs. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Right. 

Jake Traylor: Now playing into the Trump isolationism as well. And so it’s like, he’s balancing what Trump wants versus what he kind of used to be on top of now this NSA role, on top of the Secretary of State role as well. I’m curious how much of a yes he had in in agreeing to this additional tacked on role that he took on. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so there are a couple other rumors swirling around, right? That possibly, as you mentioned before, Steve Witkoff could be the next national security advisor. There are rumors that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth could be, the next one to be you know removed from his position. Um. What do you think about both of those? And on the Hegseth point. 

Jake Traylor: Yeah. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Where do you um think would be the tipping point for Trump to actually get rid of him? 

Jake Traylor: Yeah, it’s a good question because I think what we’ve seen is Donald Trump likes Pete Hegseth and he has liked him. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Right. 

Jake Traylor: And we even saw in the cabinet meeting like just a couple days ago, like he joked with him like, oh, my most controversial cabinet member. Like Trump’s aware of the controversy surrounding Hegseth, but like views him kind of as this like maverick who has faced a lot of controversy. I don’t know what would be the thing to tip Trump off on Hegseth. Also, it’s worth noting too, the White House and Trump have very heavily attempted to not have a first administration like they had where people were flying out left and right, where there was infighting, where there were firings. I think at all costs they’re trying to avoid another version of this. So I think it would take a lot for Hegseth. That being said, there are a lot of eyes on Hegseth and there’s a lot concern around how much he can be trusted and how much authority he should be given right now given everything that’s happened over at the Pentagon. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Yeah, I mean, the point you just made about Trump trying to signal a sort of different second administration, right, especially when it comes to the turnover. And now we’re just at this point, it’s 100 days back in office, the administration’s kind of trying to spin this term so far as like pure success, but there’s been a shift this week. We got some bad poll numbers, the economy numbers, you know, and now the first what looks like an ouster of a top advisor, no matter how they try to spin it. So what do you think? Is this a vibe shift? What are we seeing right now? Like how do you kind of think that this plays out going forward? 

Jake Traylor: Yeah, I’ll tell you this. This is not the 100 day fodder that Trump administration was probably hoping for. Like this week. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Right. 

Jake Traylor: This 100 day marker of the administration is supposed to be kind of celebratory of all the things that have been done. And we’ve seen the Trump administration do a lot of that, talk about the promises they’ve kept so far, but Trump is still Trump and his team, you have these loyalists come in where the major measure or marker of who is to come in is how loyal are they to Donald Trump? And because of that. I think you end up with there are some holes in this administration or there are some allegiances of who does Trump like the most or who does he have favor with and maybe he has favor with someone today, but it goes away tomorrow. That’s a very uh volatile metric or measure to have. And so as we see Trump potentially turn on Waltz, as we maybe see him turn on Hegseth, I think this is kind of inevitable. And it doesn’t mean that all the marbles are now going to fall out and we’re going to see firings left and right per se, but I do think this is kind of true to form Trump. It doesn’t mean it’s an entire return to the first administration, but I think a lot of us kind of had senses something like this was coming all along and it’s kind of coming to fruition now. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Jake, thank you so much for joining us. 

Jake Traylor: Thanks for having me. 

Josie Duffy Rice: That was my conversation with Jake Traylor, White House reporter for Politico. We’ll get to more of the news in a moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]

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Josie Duffy Rice: Here’s what else we’re following today. 

[sung] Headlines.

[clip of Kamala Harris] Instead of an administration working to advance America’s highest ideals, we are witnessing the wholesale abandonment of those ideals. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Former Vice President Kamala Harris gave her first major public speech since she left office. She spoke Wednesday at an event in San Francisco hosted by Emerge, an organization that backs Democratic women candidates running for office. And during her speech, she slammed her former opponent and now commander-in-chief Donald Trump. Harris went off about everything from the president’s tariffs to his immigration crackdown to his assault on colleges and universities. 

[clip of Kamala Harris] We all know President Trump and his administration and their allies are counting on the notion that fear can be contagious. They are counting on the notion that if they make some people afraid, it will have a chilling effect on others. But what they’re overlooking, what they have overlooked is that fear is not the only thing that’s contagious. Courage is contagious 

Josie Duffy Rice: Harris has largely kept out of the public eye since her loss in 2024. Her fiery speech Wednesday could signal that she’s gearing up for a political comeback. It’s rumored that she is weighing a bid for California governor in 2026. Sources told ABC News in March that she will make a decision by the end of the summer. Former President Joe Biden seems itching to step back into the spotlight as well. He and former first lady, Jill Biden, are scheduled to appear live on ABC’s The View next week. It will be their first joint interview since leaving the White House. The Biden’s choice to do the View makes sense. Joe became the first sitting president to appear live on the show last September, and he’s been a guest on the shows nearly a dozen times. The Bidens’ appearance is set for May 8th. A federal judge barred the Trump administration on Thursday from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans in South Texas it deems to be criminals. The ruling is a blow to the administration’s continuous crackdown on immigration. So let’s back up for a little bit of context. Earlier this year, the administration labeled the Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, as a designated foreign terrorist organization. And in March, Trump issued a proclamation claiming that TDA is threatening an invasion of the US in order to justify deporting alleged gang members through the Alien Enemies Act. In his ruling on Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr., a Trump nominee, by the way, said that the proclamation does not describe actions by TDA that fall within the statute’s meaning of invasion. Also, just a very important reminder here, the Alien Enemies Act has only been invoked three times in U. S. History before Trump, and all of them were during times of war. And judges in multiple states have since temporarily blocked the deportation of migrants detained under the law. The Department of Justice sued Hawaii and Michigan over their plans to sue fossil fuel companies for harms caused by climate change. The DOJ announced the two separate lawsuits on Thursday and this comes after Hawaii Governor Josh Green said earlier this week that his state intends to sue oil and gas companies and make them pay for damages caused by climate change, he cited the 2023 Maui wildfires and Michigan Attorney General Dana Nestle said last year that she may pursue litigation against the fossil fuel industry for negative impacts on her state’s climate and environment. But Hawaii and Michigan haven’t sued yet. The Trump administration is suing the states preemptively to stop them from suing in the future. The DOJ argues that Hawaii and Michigan’s planned legal actions, quote, “threaten American energy independence.” Legal experts say that this, you can’t sue if we sue you first maneuver is pretty unusual. In fact, one expert told the New York Times, quote, “procedurally, it’s wacky.” You learn this day one of law school. You can’t just, someone has to do something for you to sue them, come on. The DOJ also said on Thursday that it sued the states of Vermont and New York over their climate super fund laws that require fossil fuel companies to chip in for state initiatives to prevent and repair damage caused by climate change. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is planning on changing the way some vaccines are tested, spurring concern from medical experts. The potential shift would require new vaccines to go through placebo trials, meaning some people would receive the vaccine and others would receive a dud, like a saline shot. And then the results would be compared. An HHS spokesperson said in a statement, quote, “all new vaccines will undergo safety testing and placebo-controlled trials prior to licensure.” A radical departure from past practices. Health experts say it’s common to test vaccines for new viruses this way, but they say it makes little sense to do this for diseases where effective vaccines already exist, like polio or measles. Not to mention it’s potentially unethical. You’d essentially be giving someone a placebo for a disease with an existing effective intervention, leaving them more vulnerable to getting sick. The new testing could delay COVID boosters in the fall. And that’s the news. [music break]

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Josie Duffy Rice: That is all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, don’t let your boss make you do multiple jobs, and tell your friends to listen. If you are into reading and not just transcripts of Mike Waltz’s signal chats during cabinet meetings, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter, so check it out and subscribe at crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Josie Duffy Rice. And little Marco, update your resume. Recruiters are gonna love you. [music break]

Jane Coaston: What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producers are Raven Yamamoto and Emily Fohr. Our producer is Michell Eloy. We had production help today from Johanna Case, Joseph Dutra, Greg Walters, and Julia Claire. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our executive producer is Adriene Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. [music break]

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