Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

2. Executive Office of the President · Notable

Eliminate NSC directorates not aligned with the President's agenda

Partially done

51 2. Executive Office of the President

“In organizing (by means of Presidential Directive) an NSC staff that is more responsive and aligned with the President's goals and empowered to implement them, the NSA should immediately evaluate and eliminate directorates that are not aligned with the President's agenda and replace them with new directorates as appropriate that can drive implementation of the President's signature national security priorities.”

What has happened

  1. Partially done

    The National Security Advisor did cut directorates, but by shrinking them rather than by replacing them with new ones. The Presidential Directive that reorganized the Council, NSPM-1, gave the Advisor the authority — Policy Coordination Committees are established at his direction and inherited committees "may continue to be operated as PCCs by the NSC staff until renewed or discontinued" — and the cuts came in waves through the spring. On 23 May staff were told at 4.30pm to leave by 5pm; the Middle East section went from ten officers to five, the Western Hemisphere directorate was left with a senior director and almost no working-level staff, and no one was left working on Africa. NPR's sources described the aim as eliminating bureaucracy and duplication, "with most parts of the operation shifting back to their home departments and agencies". What the record does not show is the other half of the Quote: new directorates stood up to drive the President's signature national security priorities.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

No Primary record of which directorates were eliminated exists — the White House published no reorganization chart and did not respond to press enquiries. The Status therefore rests on two independent allowlisted outlets (NPR, Lawfare), which is enough to carry a Status where no Primary record exists, with NSPM-1 supplying the Primary authority under which the changes were made. Washington Post and The Hill carried the same account on 23 May 2025, but neither page could be read, so they are leads: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/05/23/national-security-council-trump-rubio/ and https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5317582-trump-slashing-half-of-national-security-council-staff/.

Action
eliminate
Object
NSC directorates not aligned with the President's agenda
ID
59