President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are continuing to overhaul the National Security Council and shift its main functions to other agencies like the State and Defense departments.
The latest efforts to slim down a federal agency come weeks after Trump announced former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz would depart his post at the White House overseeing the agency and serve as UN ambassador. Waltz himself began the streamlining process in January, when, in one of his first moves as Trump’s national security adviser, he ordered 160 NSC staffers off the job pending a comprehensive review of the agency’s alignment with Trump’s agenda.
The current plans to upend the agency would include whittling down the size of the National Security Council, which the Trump White House believes is full of long-term, bureaucratic staffers who don’t align with Trump’s agenda.
Additionally, the restructuring will move Andy Barker, national security advisor to Vice President JD Vance, and Robert Gabriel, assistant to the president for policy, into roles serving as deputy national security advisors.
Axios was the first to report the Trump administration’s restructuring plans. A White House official confirmed Axios’ reporting to Fox News Digital.
A White House official involved in the planning said Trump and Rubio are driving the change in an attempt to target Washington’s so-called ‘Deep State.’
‘The NSC is the ultimate Deep State. It’s Marco vs. the Deep State. We’re gutting the Deep State,’ a White House official told Axios.
The National Security Council is located within the White House and provides the president guidance on national security, military and foreign affairs matters.
Waltz’s departure from the agency followed his involvement with other administration officials, like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in the Signal chat controversy over strike plans against the Houthis in March.
But Waltz had been focused early in his short tenure on the issue of what the Trump administration considers ‘deep state’ infiltration of the agency. The former Green Beret and Florida congressman was especially concerned about Biden administration political appointees and holdovers assigned to the NSC from other agencies.
Since Waltz’s departure earlier this month, Rubio has taken on the role of national security advisor. That’s in addition to leading the State Department and serving as acting archivist and acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which the administration is aiming to dismantle this year.
Fox News Digital was the first to report that the State Department planned to absorb the remaining operations and programs USAID runs so it would no longer function as an independent agency. The move requires cutting thousands of staff members in an attempt to bolster the efficiency of the existing, ‘life-saving’ foreign assistance programs, according to a State Department memo Fox News Digital obtained.
Fox News’ Emma Colton contributed to this report.
