On Friday, dozens of White House National Security Council staff were suddenly fired. The purge affected both administration appointees and career officials seconded to the NSC from the State Department, Pentagon, and other agencies, writes The Washington Post citing sources. Employees received dismissal notifications via email shortly before the start of the long weekend — on Friday around 4:30 PM. Many will now return to their agencies.
The cuts are being made under the new national security advisor Marco Rubio, who replaced Mike Waltz after a scandalous leak in Signal, and simultaneously holds the position of Secretary of State. As WP explains, after Waltz's resignation, the presidential administration indicated that a large-scale NSC purge was inevitable.
An official White House representative confirmed the cuts and announced that two new deputy national security advisors have been appointed: Andy Baker, who was the national security advisor to Vice President J.D. Vance, and Robert Gabriel, Trump's policy advisor.
Supporters of the reduction argue that the NSC has turned into a bloated bureaucratic structure over the past decades. Under Obama, the staff numbered 222 people, under Biden — 186. For comparison, during Trump's first term, there were only 119 employees. Now the staff (excluding administrative) could be reduced to 60 people.
However, critics of this measure claim that to reduce the NSC staff, the White House will have to grant more authority to other national security agencies, which is hard to imagine with Trump's individual leadership style.
Internal strife within the NSC somewhat defined Trump's first term, leading to regular staffing shuffles, writes WP. During Trump's first presidential term, he had four national security advisors — the longest-serving of them, John Bolton, became a staunch critic of the president's foreign policy.
Problems to some extent persisted during Trump's second term. In April, the White House fired at least five key aides in the NSC staff after far-right activist Laura Loomer visited the Oval Office and urged Trump to remove disloyal people.
Photo: The Washington Post