Trump admin looks to gut ‘deep state’ with National Security Council overhaul

President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have begun restructuring the National Security Council (NSC) in an effort to gut the “deep state.”

The restructuring involves reducing the NSC’s size by firing hundreds of staffers and then transferring many of its functions to the State and Defense departments, according to Axios.

Trump and Rubio want to shake up the “notoriously bureaucratic” NSC, which Axios notes is “filled with longtime officials who don’t share the president’s vision.”

Marco Rubio just eliminated 100 National Security Council members.

You know the type who hide in the National Security Council?

Traitors like this were…

Alexander Vindman. pic.twitter.com/fKK8HHW36k

— C3 (@C_3C_3) May 24, 2025

“The NSC is the ultimate Deep State,” an anonymous White House official told the outlet. “It’s Marco vs. the Deep State. We’re gutting the Deep State.”

“The right-sizing of the NSC is in line with its original purpose and the president’s vision,” Rubio himself added in a statement. “The NSC will now be better positioned to collaborate with agencies.”

The restructuring began Friday with the dismissals of 100s of staffers.

“[T]he dismissals were abrupt,” NPR has confirmed. “Staffers were notified at 4:30 p.m. and asked to leave by 5 p.m. … The cuts went deep. For example, in the Middle East section, headcount went from 10 staffers to five.”

The goal is to reduce the NSC back to the size it was at the end of Trump’s first term, before now-former President Joe Biden assumed office and drastically expanded the council.

“Under Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, the NSC policy staff ballooned in size and scope well beyond anything envisioned or intended at the NSC’s inception after World War II,” according to the first Trump administration National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien.

“Under recent Democratic presidents, the staff has grown to occupy a significant chunk of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus,” he added in a recent column for The Washington Times.

My piece with ⁦@robertcobrien⁩ in ⁦@WashTimes⁩ on how to get the National Security Council right to serve ⁦@realDonaldTrump⁩ and his agenda. https://t.co/8663jAlxu6

— Alex Gray (@AlexGrayForOK) May 14, 2025

“Under the Democrats, NSC staffers too often saw their role as dictating to Cabinet departments and running policy, including operational military and intelligence matters, from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave,” O’Brien continued. “Many senior military officers have horror stories of receiving micromanaging directives from Obama- or Biden-era NSC staffers.”

All this comes weeks after former National Security Adviser (NSA) Mike Waltz was ousted from his position following the Signal debacle and replaced with Rubio as interim NSA.

Waltz’s ouster was reportedly motivated in part by the influence of conservative influencer Laura Loomer.

“Loomer had encouraged Trump to purge aides who she believes are insufficiently loyal to the ‘Make America Great Again’ agenda,” according to the Associated Press.

“She also complained to sympathetic administration officials that Waltz was too reliant on ‘neocons’ — shorthand for the more hawkish neoconservatives within the Republican Party — as well as what she perceived as ‘not-MAGA-enough’ types,” the AP notes.

In my interview with @LauraLoomer, she explains that she came to the White House last month with a video that would end Mike Waltz’s career as National Security Advisor. The Audio version of our interview is finally LIVE. Follow the show below. pic.twitter.com/R1iMQVZD5b

— Tara Palmeri (@tarapalmeri) May 1, 2025

So what is the purpose of the NSA anyway? Created during the Truman administration, it exists to advise the White House on national security and foreign policy issues. But Trump doesn’t want the advice of its biased members. He’d rather trust his State Department staffers instead.

Trump’s allies, meanwhile, have called for him to adopt the model used by former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, who served in the role in the late 1970s and 1980s and was known for keeping a small staff.

The left, of course, isn’t happy with any of this downsizing.

A former senior NSC staff member whined to The Washington Post that the downsizing is “both a reflection of Trump’s paranoia that the NSC staff constitutes the ‘deep state’” and “also a very deliberate effort to kneecap the role of the NSC in generating interagency consensus.”

“The purpose is to make sure there are no alternatives and no constraints to the president’s prerogative,” the staffer added.

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V. Saxena is a staff writer for BizPac Review with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University.

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