Trump Turns to Small Group of Advisers, Shrinks National Security Council
NSC’s role in overseeing national security decisions has been curtailed
Aug. 30, 2025 The Wall Street Journal
Some warn that Trump’s approach hurts the administration, denying him expert views and causing delays and mistakes in executing orders.
- President Trump has adopted a centralized approach to national security decisions, downgrading the role of the National Security Council.
WASHINGTON—When President Trump ordered airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities in June, U.S. diplomats who would normally be told of the decision were left in the dark.
After the attack, officials from Middle East countries pressed officials in Washington and at U.S. embassies in the region for information about whether the attack signaled Trump was launching a broader regime-change campaign, officials involved in those conversations said.
Almost no one had an answer, other than to refer them to Trump’s public announcement of the bombings. They hadn’t received talking points on what to tell other governments.
It was a sign of how far Trump has gone to create an ad hoc, centralized approach to national security decisions. He has downgraded the role of the National Security Council staff, which other presidents have relied on to oversee developing policy options, ensure presidential decisions are carried out and coordinate with foreign governments.
The NSC’s staff is now fewer than 150 compared with around 400 in previous administrations. Trump ousted national security adviser Mike Waltz after three months, assigning Secretary of State Marco Rubio to handle the job along with his role as top diplomat. The moves have left Trump reliant on a handful of senior advisers.
“It is a top-down approach,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. “Maybe previous administrations wanted to tell everyone everything to make them feel good, but we don’t really care if your feelings are hurt. We just need to get a job done.”
Other officials and critics warn this approach has hurt—not helped—the Trump administration.
“In many respects, the national security process has ceased to exist,” said David Rothkopf, author of a history of the NSC under several administrations and a staunch Trump opponent. Trump, he added, effectively is the national-security system—“the State Department and the Joint Chiefs and the NSC all rolled into one.”
The current system denies Trump the views of experts within the government that could inform his policies, said the critics. What’s more, officials charged with executing Trump’s orders often don’t know in detail what they are required to do, leading to delays, mistakes or even inaction, the critics added.
Trump’s process has encouraged freelancing by senior officials to gain the White House’s attention and advance their own priorities.
In May, Troy Fitrell, then the State Department’s top Africa official, announced during a speech in the Ivory Coast that there would be on the sidelines of the opening of the United Nations General Assembly in September a high-level gathering with African countries to focus on trade and investment.
Fitrell revealed the idea of a summit before it was confirmed on Trump’s schedule, administration officials said. He made plans to visit Britain before the U.N. gathering, leaving little time to squeeze in a meeting with African leaders.
No instructions to set it up were conveyed to officials and diplomats from the White House. Administration aides noted that Trump has already met with African leaders at the White House and expects more gatherings with his counterparts from the continent.
During his short tenure, Waltz staffed the NSC with seasoned congressional aides and officials who had served in Trump’s first term. Some were quickly ousted after being accused of disloyalty by far-right MAGA influencers such as Laura Loomer. Others resigned following Waltz’s removal.
Waltz and Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, then chief of U.S. Central Command, persuaded Trump in March to order weeks of airstrikes against Houthi militants in Yemen, even though most members of his national security team were against the operation.
The U.S. needed to husband its dwindling munitions stockpile for a potential war with China, they argued, adding that the U.S.-designated terrorist group was unlikely to surrender under U.S. bombing.
Two months into the campaign, Trump abruptly reversed course, announcing that the Houthis had agreed to no longer attack American ships. But Houthi attacks on Israel and against other countries’ ships have continued.
After Rubio took over as national security adviser in May, he argued for deep staff cuts to revert the NSC to its original function as more of an interagency coordinator and less of an advisory body. That approach best suited Trump’s top-down style, officials said.
Current and former Trump administration officials said the approach minimizes the risk of leaks that plagued his first term and allows the president and his close confidants to implement decisions swiftly, instead of debating them at length.
“There is just a lot of whiners in the bowels of the NSC who are complaining that they are not getting their voice heard, when, in fact, maybe their voice doesn’t need to be heard,” said Gordon Sondland, who served as Trump’s ambassador to the European Union in his first term.
The NSC’s day-to-day operations are handled by deputy national security advisers Andy Baker and Robert Gabriel as well as Mike Needham, the State Department’s counselor. They add detail to Trump’s more general orders and share them with senior officials ahead of meetings with Trump.
“They don’t have the same kind of bottom-up process that perhaps we’re most accustomed to,” said Condoleezza Rice, who served as national security adviser during the George W. Bush administration, at the Aspen Security Forum in July. “I don’t think you can stand outside and prescribe an NSC process. It depends a lot on the president.”
White House envoy Steve Witkoff often calls Trump immediately after meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin and other leaders. But summaries of those conversations rarely filter through to the government.
“We don’t expect anything more” from Witkoff than briefings for Trump and the senior national security team, said Leavitt.
With a slimmed-down NSC, sometimes Trump himself is out of the loop.
He was surprised to learn in July that the Pentagon had paused weapons deliveries to Ukraine during an inventory review until the freeze became public. Trump reversed the decision about a week later.
Write to Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com and Robbie Gramer at robbie.gramer@wsj.com
President Trump has adopted a centralized approach to national security decisions, downgrading the role of the National Security Council.