President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are doing some serious house cleaning and a huge restructuring at the National Security Council, according to new reports.
More than 100 people were notified they were terminated on Friday, according to one report.
The NSC had ballooned to more than 300 people under Joe Biden. It now has about half that. The idea is to get it down to just a few dozen people.
They are moving some of its tasks to the State and Defense Departments, according to Axios.
- A White House official involved in the planning characterized the reorganization as Trump and Rubio’s latest move against what they see as Washington’s “Deep State.”
- “The NSC is the ultimate Deep State. It’s Marco vs. the Deep State. We’re gutting the Deep State,” the official said of the move, which will cut the NSC staff to about half of its current 350 members. Those cut from the NSC will be moved to other positions in government, officials said.
- “The right-sizing of the NSC is in line with its original purpose and the president’s vision,” Rubio told Axios in a statement. “The NSC will now be better positioned to collaborate with agencies.”
The problem was “a bottom-to-the-top approach that doesn’t work. It’s going away,” according to a senior White House official. The NSC was supposed to “coordinate and advise — not carry out — policy,” another official explained.