Trump and Rubio restructure National Security Council to reduce bureaucracy

President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are restructuring the National Security Council (NSC) to reduce its size and move key functions to the State and Defense departments. The decision implies the elimination of nearly half of the NSC's current 350 members.

According to senior White House officials, the restructuring of the National Security Council is in response to the conviction that the agency had become a bastion of the so-called "deep state," made up of career bureaucrats who, according to the administration, have held back the implementation of President Trump's agenda. "We're gutting the Deep State," declared one of those involved in the redesign. The cut staff will not be laid off but transferred to other government agencies.

From an executive body to an advisory body

Rubio noted that the new model will return the agency to its original purpose. "The NSC will now be better positioned to collaborate with agencies," the secretary said in a statement published by Axios.

The White House asserts that this transformation responds to years of inefficiency: overlapping committees, cumbersome processes, and an institutional culture that Trump's team says slows decision-making. "That's the bottom-to-the-top approach that doesn't work. It's going away," another senior official asserted.

Less debate, more action

While some defenders of the traditional NSC system argue that its multiple layers promote debate and deep analysis, the Trump team considers the opposite: that such a dynamic is only useful when there are internal divisions, something they claim is not happening in this Cabinet.

"All of them know each other and like each other, and they know they're there to execute the president's will," one official said, citing as a recent example the swift implementation of Trump's order to remove sanctions on Syria, even when the Justice Department had listed it as a country sponsoring terrorism.

Rubio's role and the revamped team.

Rubio will remain at the helm of the NSC as interim adviser indefinitely, according to close sources. Trump is confident in his ability to lead without bureaucratic interference. Joining him will be Andy Barker and Robert Gabriel as deputy national security advisers.