we are staying with that important breaking news coming to us from the united states, because our us partner cbs amongst others in the us, reporting that the national security adviser mike waltz and his deputy alex one will be leaving their posts today, according to sources talking to cbs. i want to show you some pictures of mike waltz, seen a little earlier today walking into the white house. these are the pictures from not that long ago. no word in terms of the actual conversations that have gone on in there, we were talking to our correspondent at the white house with the

questions being fired a little earlier, and there was no official confirmation. the usual line, which was that we will not comment on unreported statements made by the media. so no confirmation from the white house yet, but mike waltz seen going into the white house a little earlier. let me show you like pictures from the white house, because, as we were hearing a short while ago, we are expecting an event with the us president, and our reporter at the white house was saying, you would expect a major decision like this to actually be confirmed by the president himself. so when donald trump emerges there, the scene very much set up already, perhaps we will get word confirming that breaking development that has been widely reported in the united states. with me still is tom bateman, our state department

correspondent. tom, who wait for the official confirmation but multiple sources confirming the story and it is a major developed. -- multiple sources reporting the story. yes, and the line from the white house remains that they do not comment on stories from non-government sources, and we will get that until president trump himself says something about it if he is going to do that. we were talking about the significance of this high level departure from this second trump administration. his first administration also marked by a succession of both national security advisers and secretaries of state, who during the course of that four years also lack their posts. -- also left their posts. there is a sense of a pattern. what those around donald trump are trying to do in the second

administration was guarded from the kinds of tensions and issues that exploded very early on in the first trump term, to prevent these kind of things. during the first trump term, they were often more about serious policy disagreements, sometimes by more establishment republican figures than mr trump had appointed. there was also a clear intention and motivation this time around to prevent that happening to get people more ideological line to president trump. we saw that in somebody like mike waltz on certain issues, they were not necessarily on the same place, but this has much more been around a particular incident, and a crisis of something that went wrong, where i think you would have had those within both the administration, but certainly the national security infrastructure, deeply worried about what had happened with

this very serious security information breach. so it seems almost inevitable that that is the core reason for this and the reporting around that that lead up to this. there has been quite a gap between the story itself that unfolded during march and, if this is is departure today. is usa, there was great shop at the time a few weeks ago as the casualness of the use of attack plans, there was a big debate about whether it was classified information are not, but it was certainly very detailed accounts of what they planned in attacks against the houthis and just the casual way that information was being circulated. yes, both in the use of a commercial messaging app to share this information, but also just the tone and

language being used. perhaps that was an insight into how senior officials talk among themselves when they think there is not media scrutiny, but it was deeply embarrassing. as well as the issues around the way that, as you say, the administration denied this was classified information, many independent observers looked at it with expertise and believe clearly that it was, it was telegraphing specific military plans. but beyond that, there was a political dimension to it, because of the way in which the administration the isle of arran attitudes were exposed -- the administration's attitudess were exposed. they were having discussions about whether they wanted to go ahead with this military operation to attack the houthis and free up

commercial trading routes in the red sea, which they believed would largely benefit the europeans, because this is a key trading route that flows to and from the suez canal. there was a discussion there about this not helping the us and would help the europeans, and use of this moment where he takes f, defence secretary, responds to jd vance, in a discussion about helping the europeans, and the defence secretary described the europeans as freeloaders and pathetic when jd vance had said he did not want to bailout europeans again. in the end, the attack went ahead as discussed on the signal chat, and stephen miller, a key aide and adviser to president trump, he effectively ended the discussion by saying, the president has agreed it should happen, and then it did. it was a very close insight into how

those around president strong operate and talk among themselves, they did not know any of this would be published because mike waltz had mistakenly added name ??macro1, the editor of the atlantic magazine to the charter. in the handling of the aftermath, there was the detail of what you have just taken us through, but so important in the way that donald trump's cabinet actually works and all of his appointees, in terms of the president's perspective, loyalty, and in a sense that was working against any sort of quick decision about any sort of firing. these are people that are loyal to the president. yes, and as i mentioned earlier, there had been a sense, and atmosphere that because what had happened in president trump's first attempt where he lost successive senior members of

the administration from very early on, there was a determination to try and prevent that happening and prevent what they perceived to be a media campaign driving one of president trump asked mackie appointees out of office so soon in his second term. but the scale of what had taken place meant that at the time, it was felt that it had got very close to that situation but president trump dismissed it, saying he regarded mike waltz as a good man and he did not seem overly concerned or worried about the breach and the leak of information itself. and that is why it is slightly perplexing that there has been this long gap, the story had largely died down, although we had seen other instances of stories around the way signal

was being used within the administration itself, but largely have gone away. then you have this moment where foreign policy announcement in terms of the minerals deal being signed with ukraine, the administration has been coming out and wanting to tout this historic, big foreign policy achievement as they see it, but the headlines have been pushed aside over that because of this reported news about mike waltz. yes, there could be some annoyance that, as they see it, but success has been eclipsed by this breaking news. this dominating rather than the story they would like to see dominating on screens. absolutely, and remember what a moment the minerals deal had been because the point at which they hoped to sign at all of that ceremony and fanfare a couple of months ago when volodymyr zelensky had been invited, they were due to hammer out the final details of the agreement, and then sign it

at the white house together, and that moment was displaced by the bus stop in the oval office, humiliating attack on volodymyr zelensky by president trump and jd vance, accusing him of being disrespectful and not respecting the office of the president when he came. and then he left unceremoniously before even that signing ceremony took place. what we have seen since then is that minerals deal effectively being renegotiated, it has become a much smaller body of text in terms of the agreement itself, but some key concessions given by the white house to volodymyr zelensky, he has a much better deal than the reported drafts around a couple of months ago. but the us may well feel they have done something they wanted to achieve in terms of getting access to critical minerals, energy, deposits in future in ukraine, and they have

certainly been touting that as something that will both help protect the ukrainians and their sovereignty but also give some financial state for the united states in ukraine. and that is around this wider ceasefire agreement that has not been making progress as far as the administration has been concerned between ukraine and russia. this is a moment where they have been saying, they have touted this historic deal and that is really the thing they want to be talking about today but clearly the attention is focused elsewhere now. before i ask you the next question, i want to explain to viewers what they are seen on screens, because that is a picture of mike waltz, national security adviser on the right of the screen, but the live pictures are from the white house and people are just beginning to take their seats, suggesting we are not that far away from seeing donald trump. and this was a scheduled event,

so there is no guarantee that donald trump would actually talk about this story at the moment, it is sourced to cbs, and the white house batting questions away. president may or may not confirm this story, but this rare event about to start in the next few minutes. we are waiting to see the us president and if he confirms the story, because it is a significant development that the national security adviser mike waltz is said to be departing his post, alongside his deputy alex wong. just a final question to you, tom. we have talked a lot about mike waltz and that signal chat, in terms of why alex wong would be leaving as well, your thoughts on that? that is something we simply do not know. if it is connected to the signal chat, it may well be that it emerges,

if the administration had a role in the way that was formulated, you could then see why he would be asked to leave as well. or whether or not this would be part of the arrangement with mike waltz as they were effectively a team together, that is a question will have to wait for details on. what i would say about mike waltz, it has been really clear over the last few weeks how he has taken publicly a much lower profile in the administration. he was very much there in the front row, with all of these foreign policy, as foreign policy was unfolding and donald trump attempted to pursue it in terms of multiple negotiations around different conflicts at the same time across the world, he was a key part of that, i mentioned how he was in the

room with the russians as the us illustration had that first meeting in soggy arabia earlier this year. i was in the room sitting with him -- in he was one of the leading faces of donald trump's foreign policy team. -- saudi arabia earlier this year. he has vanished since march and has been far less visible and far less fronting up, as we have seen that shift towards a lot of the work to steve whip off, altron's envoy to the middle east and then in russia and ukraine. he is a real estate developer and had no senior political experience is put into this role by donald trump and when you assess the kinds of people donald trump refers

to deal with, we might now see him taken on a wider role in light of this news today. i will pause you there because i want to just return to these live pictures because i do not think we are that far-away from the actual event at the white house starting properly. people had taken to their feet so i don't think we're that far away from actually seeing and hearing us president, and while we wait, let's talk to the washington bureau chief at the chicago sometimes. welcome to the bbc news. i might have to interrupt you if we see the president but your immediate reaction to these breaking lines being reported in the us? my reading of the tea leaves is that there are three reasons why donald trump