Meet the MAGA Donald Trump whisperer who claims she's the real reason he fired Mike Waltz

Donald Trump finally fired Mike Waltz, his National Security Advisor tonight - weeks after the Signalgate scandal.

Last month it emerged Waltz had - apparently accidentally - added the Editor of The Atlantic Magazine to a group chat on Signal, a privacy-focused - but not military-grade secure - messaging app.

The chat was used to discuss operational details of a strike on Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Such high level secret conversations normally take place in person, or if not in person using a SCIF - a secure communications clean room set up by intelligence officers to ensure they cant be bugged or hacked.

So the President had some pretty good reasons to give Waltz the heave - even if Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, also embroiled in the scandal, is apparently safe for now.

But that might not be all there is to it. One high profile MAGA figure reckons Waltz was vulnerable for different reasons - and that she's the real reason he was fired.

Laura Loomer has been a fringe figure in Trump for years. She's apparently liked very much by Trump himself, but viewed with suspicion by some of his team.

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She calls herself an "investigative journalist", and cut her teeth with Project Veritas - a website which specialised in bad faith hidden camera videos that appeared, often with selective editing, to show people on the left saying embarrassing things.

Now she's set herself up as kind of a freelance political vetting operation, doing research on people in Trump's orbit to make sure they're "loyal".

She recently made headlines when she had a private meeting with Trump in the Oval Office, where she reportedly told him that a string of people in the National Security team - which Waltz led - were not to be trusted.

Several members of the team were fired - with Trump acknowledging her recommendations were behind his decision.

Now, Loomer seems to be claiming credit for Waltz' departure too.

In a podcast with journalist Tara Palmeri, Loomer claimed she'd planned to show Trump a decade-old video of Waltz criticising Trump as evidence of his disloyalty.

But she said she'd been interrupted before she could play it for Trump, by Waltz himself coming into the Oval.

"Hopefully he sees the video," she said in the podcast, published earlier this month.

And today, after news broke of Waltz's imminent departure, she reportedly messaged a reporter at Politico to say he had been "Loomered".

Loomer had been complaining to administration officials that she had been excluded from the vetting process for National Security Council aides.

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In her view, Waltz relied too much on "neocons" - referring to hawkish neoconservatives within the Republican Party - as well as others who Loomer argued were "not-MAGA-enough" types.

Trump said he's naming Secretary of State Marco Rubio as acting national security adviser to replace Waltz.

Waltz will instead become America's ambassador to the United Nations.

Also departing is Waltz's chief of staff, Alex Wong, who Palmeri has also written critical articles about.

"I am pleased to announce that I will be nominating Mike Waltz to be the next United States Ambassador to the United Nations. From his time in uniform on the battlefield, in Congress and, as my National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz has worked hard to put our Nation's Interests first," Trump wrote on social media.

"In the interim, Secretary of State Marco Rubio will serve as National Security Advisor, while continuing his strong leadership at the State Department. Together, we will continue to fight tirelessly to Make America, and the World, SAFE AGAIN."