President Donald Trump moved to dramatically downsize the National Security Council, part of a restructuring that could see the group responsible for coordinating and implementing foreign policy at the White House cut in half.
The restructuring effort was described Friday by a White House official on the condition of anonymity. Some NSC officials were placed on administrative leave and given less than two hours to clean out their desks, CNN reported.
The move comes weeks after Trump sidelined Michael Waltz, the former Florida congressman who he appointed as the National Security Adviser, and installed Secretary of State Marco Rubio as the interim head of the NSC.
Waltz faced heavy criticism after the inadvertent addition of a journalist to a Signal group chat that discussed sensitive military plans, and was instead nominated as US Ambassador to the United Nations.
Since then, Trump has eyed reducing the footprint of the NSC at the White House. Aides have said that in his administration, policy decisions are largely made by the president and implemented by staff, negating the need for deliberative councils.
Curtailing the foreign policy apparatus has been a particular focus of some of Trump’s far-right supporters, including activist Laura Loomer, who have argued that longtime government staffers are seeking to subvert the president’s agenda. Loomer took credit for the removal of Waltz, as well as an April overhaul that saw the removal of National Security Agency Director Timothy Haugh and his deputy, Wendy Noble.
But the deep cuts to the NSC are likely to intensify questions about Trump’s policymaking process at a time when the president is attempting to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine, negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran, and set tariff rates with dozens of nations. The reorganization comes hours after Trump announced his intention to slap the European Union with sweeping additional tariffs, rattling global markets.
Earlier this week, Rubio defended the administration’s approach to foreign policy during testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, saying his goal was “not to dismantle American foreign policy, and it is not to withdraw us from the world, because I just hit 18 countries in 18 weeks.”
“That doesn’t sound like much of a withdrawal,” he said.