Carl P. Leubsdorf
Top administration officials are taking steps that will enhance President Donald Trump’s control of national security policy and minimize the consideration of dissenting views.
Pending moves by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard seem intended to result in less staff consideration of the possible implications of alternative policy courses and more focus on carrying out Trump’s ever-evolving views.
They would also make the U.S. government’s national security apparatus more closely resemble the top-down autocracies that Trump so openly admires.
The changes follow Trump’s decision to add the national security adviser’s portfolio to Rubio’s Cabinet duties, while seemingly steering much of the secretary’s traditional role as America’s chief diplomat to presidential Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.
The last person to hold both the Cabinet post and the national security adviser’s job was Henry Kissinger, during the Nixon and Ford administrations of the 1970s. Unlike Rubio, however, Kissinger played a major role in devising policy options and advising the two presidents on their impact, while also acting as the administration’s chief overseas diplomat.
Rubio, by contrast, is less an initiator of this administration’s policies and more a facilitator in overseeing their implementation.
That was underscored by what looms as the former Florida senator’s first major act as the national security adviser. As first reported by NBC News, Rubio plans a major reduction in the NSC’s staff and a significant revision of its role.
“Rather than a large staff generating policy recommendations for the president, the idea is to create a version along the lines Trump prefers – more top-down, with the president directing the national security adviser who then leads the staff to carry out those orders,” according to two of the sources NBC cited.
The role of the president’s assistant for national security affairs has evolved since it was first created in 1947 with the title of executive secretary of the National Security Council. In subsequent administrations, it quickly morphed from mid-level administrator to major presidential adviser, both managing the development and review of national security policy and coordinating the roles of other agencies like the state and defense departments.
As its role was enhanced, the size of the NSC’s staff has ballooned, from about 20 during John F. Kennedy’s presidency in the early 1960s to about 300 when Trump took office, a number the new administration promptly cut in half.
Trump’s initial appointee, former Florida Rep. Mike Waltz, sought to play a role like that of prior national security advisers. But his independence reportedly grated on some top officials.
His tenure ended soon after he took responsibility for the Signalgate controversy, in which he included a leading Washington reporter in a message group discussing pending U.S. military action. When some presidential allies complained his more hawkish views were out of sync with Trump’s, he was pushed out and nominated as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, a higher ranking but less influential job.
Rubio is unlikely to encounter similar problems. Since joining the administration, he has tempered his earlier, more outspoken views, such as support for immigration reform and Ukraine, and has fallen into line as a loyal Trump trooper.
According to NBC, Rubio discussed the revised structure of the NSC with White House personnel director Sergio Gor during the president’s recent Middle East trip.
In some ways, the Office of National Intelligence, which Gabbard heads, was designed to perform a similar role in coordinating intelligence agencies that the National Security Adviser plays in managing the foreign policy apparatus. It was created after a bipartisan commission found major failures in intelligence coordination during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
But some Trump officials reportedly see it as unnecessarily duplicative of the government’s other intelligence and counter-terrorism agencies it is designed to coordinate, primarily the Central Intelligence Agency.
To strengthen her role and provide greater control of the intelligence data that goes to the president, The New York Times reported that Gabbard is moving the coordination of the president’s Daily Intelligence Brief from the Central Intelligence Agency to her agency.
That is the daily summary and analysis of intelligence data on global threats and other pending national security issues that is presented to the White House. The Times quoted an official as saying the change was designed to provide the president more “timely and actionable” intelligence and said CIA officials were apprised of the change in a memo last week.
At the same time, Fox News reported, Gabbard moved an advisory group called the National Intelligence Council from the CIA to her office and ousted its chairman, a veteran China expert named Michael Collins, and his deputy.
That followed the panel’s affirmation of an intelligence finding that contradicted Trump’s contention that the Venezuelan government controls the Tren de Aragua criminal gang in the United States. The administration had cited that control in seeking to deport gang members without allowing them due process in court.
On the surface, there might seem little connection between Rubio’s plans to revamp the National Security Council’s size and role and Gabbard’s efforts to enhance her agency.
But both fit the pattern of an administration that wants to centralize control of policy and minimize the likelihood that independent voices will challenge the president’s assumptions and his conclusions.
Carl P. Leubsdorf is the former Washington bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News. Readers may write to him via email at [email protected].
