Trump shrinks National Security Council in major foreign policy shakeup

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

The NSC — staffed primarily by policy experts on loan from the State Department, Pentagon, intelligence agencies and other national security arms of the government — provides information and advice to the president for his biggest diplomatic and security decisions. But in Trump’s second term, it has played a smaller role.

Trump has instead leaned more on Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and others in his cabinet as he makes foreign policy decisions rather than taking in recommendations coming up from the NSC.

On May 1, Trump effectively dismissed his national security adviser Mike Waltz — the head of the NSC — in the first big shake-up of his top ranks. He said he would nominate Waltz to be ambassador to the United Nations.

Rubio has been running the NSC since in a very unusual double-role. The change was made after Waltz inadvertently invited a journalist into a private text chat discussing military plans for U.S. strikes on the Houthis in Yemen.

Trump shrunk the NSC in his first term, too

Near the end of his first term, Trump also pushed to shrink the NSC. The overhaul was designed by Robert O’Brien, Trump’s fourth and final national security adviser in his first term.

O’Brien said Trump had about 110 staffers at the NSC by the end of his first term, and saw room for further consolidation.

“We believe the NSC policy staff could be streamlined to 60 people, the same number of NSC staffers that President Dwight D. Eisenhower employed,” O’Brien wrote in the Washington Times op-ed with Alexander Gray, CEO of their firm.