When it comes to high-profile and powerful federal officials, Marco Rubio is simultaneously wearing more hats than anyone in modern American history. The Florida Republican is, of course, the secretary of state, but thanks to Donald Trump and the president’s lack of personnel creativity, that’s just the start.
Trump has tasked Rubio with serving as the acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), as well as the acting archivist for the National Archives. A couple of weeks ago, the president went one step further, announcing that Rubio would also serve as the interim White House national security adviser, putting the nation’s chief diplomat atop the National Security Council.
Noting his many titles, The New York Times recently described Rubio as the “Secretary of Everything.”
But as it turns out, Rubio isn’t just treading water in his latest office, waiting for a permanent successor to come along. As NBC News reported, he’s making rather dramatic changes:
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in his new add-on role of national security adviser, is expected to significantly scale down the size of the National Security Council and make a drastic change to how it works, four people with direct knowledge of the plans told NBC News. … The NSC, which is run out of the White House, is the core hub for coordinating a policy process across government agencies to help the president make decisions on foreign policy and national security matters.
As NBC News’ report noted, when Trump returned to power, the National Security Council had roughly 300 staffers. Soon after, that total was cut to 150. Rubio’s vision is to keep going, shrinking the NSC to a staff as small as 50 — which would be roughly one-sixth its size from the start of the year.
These developments aren’t coming out of nowhere. In early May, Politico reported on the growing irrelevance of the National Security Council in Trump’s second term. The same day, as former White House national security adviser Mike Waltz was removed from his post, The Washington Post reported, “Some officials question whether Trump truly needs a traditional National Security Council.”
A week earlier, The Atlantic reported that Trump-imposed “disorder” and “dysfunction” at the NSC had “destabilized” the entire institution.
When looking for motivations for such moves, the fact that National Security Council officials played a direct and prominent role in the president’s first impeachment is almost certainly a relevant detail. What’s more, it’s been well established that Trump sees himself as his own adviser on matters of national security. As far back as September 2019, The New York Times quoted Martin Indyk, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who served as a diplomat and National Security Council official during the Clinton administration, noting that in the wake of John Bolton’s exit from the White House, Trump “is going to be his own foreign policy adviser.” Days later, the president told reporters that he saw the national security adviser job as “fun” and “easy,” adding, “You know why it’s easy? Because I make all the decisions.” Nearly seven years later, Trump and his team aren’t just shrinking what remains of the NSC, they’re also putting the council’s future in doubt.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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