Trump shrinks the National Security Council in Major Foreign Policy Shakeup: NPR

President Trump walks to Board Air Force One Prior to departure from the joint basis Andrews in Maryland on Friday on the way to New Jersey for the weekend.

Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty images

Hide caption

Schakel Caption

Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty images

President Trump has imposed enormous cuts on the National Security Council of the White House, and sent dozens of policy experts on Friday, one of the officials who was released against NPR.

The official said the dismissal were abrupt. Employees were informed at 4.30 pm and asked to leave at 5 p.m. “We all talk among each other,” said the officer, speaking of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. The cuts went deep. In the middle area, the workforce went from 10 staff to five.

The goal of the overhaul is to eliminate bureaucracy and duplication, whereby most parts of the operation switch back to their home departments and agencies, a second source with direct knowledge of the plans told NPR. The source spoke on condition of anonymity to protect private conversations.

After the cutbacks, the NSC will be left at about the same size, it was at the end of the first term of Trump, the source said. Spokespersons of the White House and the National Security Council did not respond to requests for comments.

The NSC – mainly staffed by policy experts on loan from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pentagon, Intelligence Services and other national security arms of the government – provides information and advice to the president for his greatest diplomatic and security decisions. But in Trump’s second term it is played a smaller role.

Instead, Trump leaned more about State Secretary Marco Rubio, Midden -East Envoy Steve WitkoffTreasury Secretary Scott Bessent and others in his cabinet while he takes decisions about foreign policy instead of taking recommendations from the NSC.

On May 1, Trump effectively rejected his National security adviser Mike Waltz -The head of the NSC-in the first big stir of its top ranks. He said he would nominate waltz as an ambassador in the United Nations.

Rubio has since carried out the NSC in a very unusual dual role. The change was made after Waltz has been invited unintentionally A journalist in a private text cchat Discussing military plans for American strikes at the Houthis in Yemen.

State Secretary Marco Rubio bears witness to Capitol Hill on Wednesday. The National Security Council has seen its influence in Trump’s second term, because the president is increasingly dependent on Rubio and other administrative officials for advice foreign policy.

John McDonnell/Getty images

Hide caption

Schakel Caption

John McDonnell/Getty images

Trump has also shrunk the NSC in its first term

By the end of his first term, Trump also pushed shrink the NSC. The revision was designed by Robert O’Brien, the fourth and final national security advisor of Trump in his first term.

O’Brien, now chairman of Consultancy American Global Strategies, wrote earlier this month That Trump was a similar challenge in his second term and said that the NSC was too large with too many “holdovers” of earlier administrations trying to control the policy. That article was one of the catalysts for the cutbacks, according to the now formator NSC officer who spoke with NPR.

O’Brien said Trump had around 110 employees at the NSC towards the end of his first term and saw room for further consolidation.

“We believe the NSC Policy personnel can be streamlined up to 60 people, the same number NSC Employees who worked President Dwight D. Eisenhower, “wrote O’Brien in the Washington Times Op-ed with Alexander Gray, CEO of their company.