This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . The next check for changes will be

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/23/trump-national-security-council

The article has changed 4 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 1 Version 2
Trump reportedly to make drastic cuts to US National Security Council Drastic cuts under way bending US national security council to Trump’s will
(about 7 hours later)
Staff to be cut to dozens, with more authority expected to be handed to state and defense departments Staff to be cut as office meant to formulate national security policy is reduced to implementing the president’s ideas, under watch of trusted aides
A large restructuring of the US National Security Council got under way on Friday as Donald Trump moved to reduce the size and scope of the once-powerful agency, five sources briefed on the matter said. The Trump administration started to dramatically overhaul the White House national security council on Friday, preparing to reassign hundreds of staff and consolidating power with aides trusted by the president, according to people familiar with the matter.
Staff dealing with a variety of major geopolitical issues were sent termination notices on Friday, said the sources, who requested anonymity as they were not permitted to speak to the media. The changes involved downsizing the NSC to about 150 from 300 staff and cutting a number of committees. Most NSC staff are drawn from other parts of the administration including the Pentagon and the state department, and were expected to be sent back to their home agencies.
The move comes just weeks after the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, took over from Mike Waltz as national security adviser. The NSC declined to comment. At the leadership level, the administration appointed the vice-president’s national security adviser Andy Baker and Donald Trump’s longtime policy aide Robert Gabriel to become dual-hatted as deputy national security advisers for the NSC, sources said.
The restructuring of the NSC is expected to further reduce the agency’s influence, transforming it from a powerful policymaking body into a small organization focused more on implementing the president’s agenda than on shaping it, the sources said. In practice, the move is expected to grant more authority to the state department, the defense department and other agencies, the sources said. The restructuring of the NSC marked the first set of major changes to the White House’s national security coordinating body since Donald Trump last month replaced Mike Waltz as national security adviser with the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who is serving in both roles.
The aim is to reduce the size of the NSC to just a few dozen people, down from hundreds. Four sources with knowledge of the plans said they expect the final headcount at the NSC to come out to around 50 people. It underscored how the NSC is set to be changed from a body that traditionally helped presidents formulate an overarching national security policy into one that implements ideas already held by the president.
The NSC is the main body used by presidents to coordinate national security strategy. Its staff often make key decisions regarding the US’s approach to the world’s most volatile conflicts and play a key role in keeping the US safe. Trump advisers familiar with the dynamics noted that the addition of Baker and Gabriel, senior aides to JD Vance and Trump respectively, is likely to ensure the White House maintains significant control of the NSC even with Rubio as its titular head.
The firings will reduce the NSC’s already pared-down staff. The body had more than 300 staffers under the Democratic president Joe Biden, but even before the recent firings under Trump, it was less than half the size of Biden’s NSC. They also suggested it would end the NSC’s traditional bottom-to-the-top approach, where staff filtered policy recommendations through multiple layers before they reached the cabinet level, since Baker and Gabriel are set to use the NSC to focus more on execution of their bosses’ views.
The NSC staffers who are cut from the agency will be moved to other positions in government, two of the sources told Reuters. In doing so, the new leadership may help solve the lingering problem of Trump’s second term NSC being left without an overarching strategy in the wake of Mike Waltz’s removal.
Many conservatives have long pushed for a pared-down NSC, arguing that a number of the positions are duplicative of functions found elsewhere in the government. The US strategy for the Russia-Ukraine conflict in particular had remained a work in progress, because Waltz wanted Trump to hit Vladimir Putin with deep, punitive sanctions if the Russian president failed to agree to a peace deal brokered by Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff.
The NSC has had a hard time recruiting top talent in recent months. Certain key positions, like the top post overseeing Latin American affairs, were never filled on a permanent basis. That recommendation from Waltz put him at odds with Trump and Vance, who have been more interested in finding ways to normalize relations with Moscow. With Vance’s top national security aide embedded into NSC leadership, implementing policy may be more straightforward.
Several high-ranking staffers were fired earlier in the year after the rightwing conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer presented Trump with a list of national security staffers she perceived to be disloyal. The abrupt nature of the personnel changes, which were communicated in a 4.20pm email sent by the NSC chief of staff, Brian McCormack, before the long Memorial Day weekend, means that some of the dismissals and restructurings are expected to drag on until next week, the sources said.
Disclosures that Waltz, the previous national security adviser, had accidentally shared information on an imminent bombing campaign in Yemen with an Atlantic journalist further dented morale. Senior staff leaving the NSC include Alex Wong, who was the principal deputy to Mike Waltz; Eric Trager, who had been handling Middle East affairs; Andrew Peek, who had been handling Europe; and the communications team.
As part of the restructuring, certain sections of the NSC – known as directorates – are expected to be combined with other directorates or eliminated altogether, three sources said. In most of the directorates that remain, only a few staff are left, the sources added. The changes come three weeks after Waltz was pushed out in the wake of a series of controversies including mistakenly adding a journalist to a Signal group chat that shared sensitive information about US missile strikes in Yemen before they took place.
Among the directorates that may cease to operate as independent bodies are those overseeing African affairs and multilateral organizations, like Nato, three sources said.