Another Hit to the 'Deep State' As Trump and Rubio Clean House at NSC

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.

Now it's "what the president wants, get it done," a senior official said. "It wasn't, 'Oh, let's get the sub-PCC to send it to the PCC to go to the DC to go to the PC.' "

That's how it's supposed to work. The President dictates policy, not the bureaucracy or advisers. But, likely under Biden, they had a much more prominent role. But that's how you get unelected bureaucrats who think they control things and they dictate. Now it looks like that's over.

Rubio will remain the acting National Security Advisor, with Andy Baker and Robert Gabriel as his deputy national security advisors. Baker is the National Security Advisor to Vice President JD Vance, and he will hold both roles. Gabriel is an assistant to the President for Policy.

This follows a couple of people getting fired at the National Intelligence Council by the Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. That caused former CIA Director John Brennan to have a massive tantrum, which is always a great thing.

The answer, of course, was to get people working together, but being led by the President. You have that now with the Cabinet and officials seeming to speak as one voice, for the President's agenda. We've been seeing that with the Cabinet heads speaking up at Congressional hearings. This move also should improve policy and not have folks working in other directions. They're now having it work as it was meant to work. On top of it, they're streamlining it, much as they have been streamlining the other departments.

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You will likely hear the gnashing of teeth from those who want to preserve the entrenched bureaucracy in the wake of this, and that's always a great thing.