Inside Waltz’s ouster: Before Signalgate, talks with Israel angered Trump
The fired national security adviser engaged in intense coordination with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about military options against Iran ahead of an Oval Office meeting between the Israeli leader and Trump, two people said.
[...] But Waltz also upset Trump after an Oval Office visit in early February by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, when the national security adviser appeared to share the Israeli leader’s conviction that the time was ripe to strike Iran, two of the people said.
Waltz appeared to have engaged in intense coordination with Netanyahu about military options against Iran ahead of an Oval Office meeting between the Israeli leader and Trump, the two people said.
Waltz “wanted to take U.S. policy in a direction Trump wasn’t comfortable with because the U.S. hadn’t attempted a diplomatic solution,” according to one of the people.
“It got back to Trump and the president wasn’t happy with it,” that person said.
Netanyahu’s office released a statement Saturday confirming that he met with Waltz ahead of his Oval Office visit with Trump but denying that he had “intensive contact” with him. [...]
The view by some in the administration was that Waltz was trying to tip the scales in favor of military action and
was operating hand in glove with the Israelis.
“If Jim Baker was doing a side deal with the Saudis to subvert George H.W. Bush, you’d be fired,” a Trump adviser said, referring to Bush’s secretary of state. “You can’t do that. You work for the president of your country, not a president of another country.”
Rubio, the temporary replacement, hails from the same traditionalist wing of the Republican Party as Waltz. But he
has more readily shed his old views, officials say, and has emerged as a forceful spokesman for Trump. That includes policy on Russia and Ukraine, where the secretary of state has threatened both sides that Washington could walk away from peace talks, with the consequences seemingly worse for Kyiv.