President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are spearheading plans to overhaul the National Security Council and shift its main functions to other agencies like the State and Defense departments. 

The move is the latest effort to slim down a federal agency and comes weeks after Trump announced former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz would depart his post at the White House overseeing the agency. 

Trump announced the same day that Waltz was nominated to serve as United Nations ambassador. 

HEGSETH, SIGNAL QUESTIONS DOG WALTZ AS POTENTIALLY PERILOUS UN AMBASSADOR CONFIRMATION HEARINGS LOOM

The plans to upend the agency would include whittling down the size of the National Security Council, which the Trump White House believes is full of long-term, bureaucratic staffers who don’t align with Trump’s agenda. 

Additionally, the restructuring will move Andy Barker, national security advisor to Vice President JD Vance, and Robert Gabriel, assistant to the president for policy, into roles serving as deputy national security advisors. 

Axios was the first to report the Trump administration’s restructuring plans. A White House official confirmed Axios’ reporting to Fox News Digital. 

A White House official involved in the planning said Trump and Rubio are driving the change in an attempt to target Washington’s so-called “Deep State.” 

“The NSC is the ultimate Deep State. It’s Marco vs. the Deep State. We’re gutting the Deep State,” a White House official told Axios. 

NEXT US NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR? HERE’S WHOM TRUMP MIGHT PICK TO REPLACE WALTZ 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks as President Donald Trump, right, looks on during a Cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., April 30, 2025.  (Getty Images)

The National Security Council is located within the the White House and provides the president guidance on national security, military and foreign affairs matters. 

Waltz’s departure from the agency followed his involvement with other administration officials, like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in the Signal chat controversy over strike plans against the Houthis in March.

MIKE WALTZ, OTHER NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL STAFFERS OUT IN LATEST TRUMP PURGE FOLLOWING SIGNAL CHAT LEAK

National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth stand as President Donald Trump (not pictured) meets French President Emmanuel Macron at the White House in Washington, D.C., Feb. 24, 2025. (Reuters/Brian Snyder)

Since Waltz’s departure earlier this month, Rubio has taken on the role of national security advisor. That’s in addition to leading the State Department and serving as acting archivist and acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which the administration is aiming to dismantle this year. 

Fox News Digital was the first to report that the State Department planned to absorb the remaining operations and programs USAID runs so it would no longer function as an independent agency. The move requires cutting thousands of staff members in an attempt to bolster the efficiency of the existing, “life-saving” foreign assistance programs, according to a State Department memo Fox News Digital obtained. 

Fox News’ Emma Colton contributed to this report. 

WASHINGTON — A multifront assault by the Trump administration against the nation’s oldest university intensified on Friday when Harvard sued to block the government from barring international student enrollment, and a judge issued an immediate order to halt the ban.

The rapid-fire legal action is the latest in Trump administration attacks against the university as it claims Harvard failed to adhere to its demands to combat antisemitism.

But the whiplash felt by Harvard international students is reverberating far beyond Cambridge, Mass., as university leaders and foreign students across the United States and California watch with growing alarm over how federal actions will affect the nation’s 1.1-million foreign student population — 6% of American higher education enrollment.

Campuses have been on alert since last month, when the Homeland Security and State departments canceled thousands of enrollment certifications and visas at dozens of U.S. colleges, including UCLA, for individuals who often had minor infractions such as traffic tickets. The government, seeing losses in court, later reversed those cancellations and was further blocked from undertaking them when an Oakland-based federal judge issued an injunction Thursday.

“The current mindset of the international community is uncertainty,” said Syed Tamim Ahmad, a junior at UCLA who is from India and recently completed his term as the student government’s international student representative.

Ahmad, who recently took the MCAT and plans to apply to medical school, said he was reconsidering whether continuing his studies in the United States is a safe option.

“We do not know what to expect or what to come next,” he said. “Every student saw what happened at Harvard and was absolutely shocked. We wonder, what if it happens at UCLA or any other university?”

UCLA senior Adam Tfayli, a dual U.S.-Lebanese citizen who grew up in Beirut, had a different view. “My friends at Harvard are very concerned right now,” said Tfayli, who finished his term this week as the Undergraduate Student Assn. Council President. “At UCLA, it’s tense just because it has been on college campuses for months under this administration, but doesn’t feel as bad as it did when people’s visas were being revoked last month.”

In a statement, UCLA Vice Chancellor of Strategic Communications Mary Osako said that “international Bruins are an essential part of our community.”

“We recognize that recent developments at other universities have created a great deal of uncertainty and anxiety, and we remain committed to supporting all Bruins’ ability to work, learn, teach and thrive here at UCLA,” Osako said.

USC, home to 17,000 international students — the most of any California school — declined to respond to events at Harvard, and pointed The Times to statements on its Office of International Services website about foreign students. “New restrictions could be implemented with little notice. The decision to travel internationally should be made carefully,” said a letter this month.

Like at Harvard, government officials have also scrutinized USC for its enrollment of Chinese students, who they have suggested may be a security threat — an accusation that also arose at California colleges during the first Trump administration. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who has accused Harvard of failing to protect Jewish students amid pro-Palestinian protests, accused the university on Thursday of “coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus.”

In March, a House commitee wrote to USC to request data on Chinese nationals and their “involvement in federally funded research and the security of sensitive technologies developed on campus.”

USC said in a statement Friday that it is “cooperating with the select committee’s inquiries and are following all applicable privacy laws and other legal protections.”

Speaking on Fox News on Thursday, Noem said the actions against Harvard were a “warning” to universities nationwide.

“This should be a warning to every other university to get your act together,” she said. “Get your act together.”

The case amplifies an increasingly existential fight for Harvard, one of the nation’s most prestigious institutions of higher education. The Trump administration has launched multiple investigations into the university, moved to freeze nearly $3 billion in federal funding and pushed to end its tax-exempt status. Taken together, the federal actions raise fundamental questions over Harvard’s ability to sustain its international standards.

Harvard alleged in its suit Friday that the Trump administration’s moves mark “the latest act by the government in clear retaliation for Harvard exercising its First Amendment rights to reject the government’s demands to control Harvard’s governance, curriculum, and the ‘ideology’ of its faculty and students.”

The administration’s “pernicious” actions, Harvard alleged, would prevent some of the world’s greatest minds from pursuing research and degrees at the university. Already, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology has offered “unconditional” acceptance of international students forced to depart the Boston area due to Trump’s policies.

U.S. District Court Judge Allison D. Burroughs, appointed by former President Obama, granted an immediate restraining order, agreeing with Harvard’s argument that the Trump directive would cause “immediate and irreparable harm” to the institution.

In a statement to The Times, Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, dismissed the judicial injunction out of Massachusetts.

“The American people elected President Trump — not random local judges with their own liberal agenda — to run the country,” Jackson said. “These unelected judges have no right to stop the Trump administration from exercising their rightful control over immigration policy and national security policy.”

The Trump administration’s assault on higher education has not focused solely on Harvard, but on much of the Ivy League and other elite campuses, including Columbia University, several UC campuses, USC and Stanford. Columbia and UCLA in particular became a focal point last year when protests against Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza roiled campuses.

A Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism established by Trump sent Harvard a letter last month demanding the university police ideology on campus and expel students it deems are “anti-American.”Harvard has sued over those demands, as well, calling them a violation of free speech.

Discussing the legal fight with reporters in the Oval Office, Trump noted that “billions of dollars have been paid to Harvard.”

“How ridiculous is that?” he asked. “Harvard’s going to have to change its ways.”

The same task force has also similarly singled out UCLA, USC and UC Berkeley. While the campuses have been subject to hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grant cancellations that have affected a wide swath of American academia, they have not seen the targeted federal funding clawbacks that took place at Harvard and Columbia.

Still, the California universities — anticipating less federal support overall — have recently instituted hiring freezes and budget cuts. They’ve also vowed to address campus antisemitism allegations and faced criticism that they have given unequal treatment to allegations of bias against Muslim and Arab American student activists.

Depreciation allowance for qualified production property

Allow immediate deductibility of 100 percent of the cost of certain new factories and improvements

$148 bil.

Business interest deduction

Change calculation of adjusted taxable income

$40 bil.

Depreciation allowance for certain property

Allow immediate expensing of 100 percent of the cost of qualified property acquired from 2025 to 2030

$37 bil.

Expensing of certain depreciable business assets

Increase dollar limitations

$25 bil.

Deduction of domestic research and experimental expenditures

Allow immediate deductibility for expenditures paid or incurred from 2025 to 2030

$23 bil.

Charitable contributions to organizations with scholarships

Provide new tax credit for gifts to organizations that provide scholarships. For calendar years 2026-2029.

$20 bil.

“MAGA accounts”

Create new savings accounts for children, with a government contribution of $1,000 per child born from 2024 to 2028

$17 bil.

Small manufacturing businesses

Change accounting rules

$15 bil.

Low-income housing credit

Modifies credit allocations and bond-financing thresholds, and gives a basis boost to Indian and rural areas

$14 bil.

Reporting threshold for payments

Increase thresholds for reporting payments to independent contractors and other payees

$13 bil.

Employer payments of student loans

Make the exclusion from gross income permanent and index for inflation

$11 bil.

Opportunity zones

Renew and make changes to the existing program

$5.5 bil.

Adoption tax credit

Make credit partially refundable and change rules for tribal governments

$2.3 bil.

Interactions between provisions

$1.8 bil.

Firearm silencers

Eliminate transfer tax

$1.4 bil.

Loans secured by rural or agricultural real estate

Partially exclude interest on certain loans

$1.1 bil.

Certain income earned in the U.S. Virgin Islands

Exempt income for the purposes of a “GILTI” deduction

$0.9 bil.

Employer-provided child care credit

Permanently increase, add a new separate amount for small businesses, index for inflation

$0.7 bil.

Repeal excise tax on indoor tanning

$0.4 bil.

Sound recording productions

Increase ability to expense certain costs of producing sound recordings

$0.2 bil.

529 savings plans

Expand allowed expenses

$0.1 bil.

Disaster-related personal casualty losses

Extend rules

$0.1 bil.

Certain purchases of employee-owned stock

Disregard for purposes of foundation tax on excess business holdings

—

Exclusion of research income from unrelated business taxable income

Limit to publicly available research

—

I.R.S. Direct File program

Replace program with a public-private partnership to offer free tax filing

—

Increase penalties for unauthorized disclosures of taxpayer information

—

Postpone tax deadlines for those wrongfully detained abroad

—

Restrict regulation of contingency fees

—

Terminate tax-exempt status of certain organizations

Organizations that “provided more than a minor amount of material support or resources to a listed terrorist organization”

—

Wagering losses

Permanently extend limit

—

Qualified bicycle commuting reimbursement

Permanently eliminate the exclusion

–$0.2 bil.

American opportunity and lifetime learning credits

Require that students or taxpayers filing on behalf of students include their Social Security Numbers on tax returns

–$0.9 bil.

Sports franchises

Limit amortization deductions for certain sports-related intangibles

–$1.0 bil.

Increase penalties connected to Covid-related employee retention credits

–$1.6 bil.

Unrelated business taxable income of a tax-exempt organization

Increase by amount of certain fringe benefit expenses for which deduction is disallowed

–$2.7 bil.

Name and logo royalties

Treat as unrelated business taxable income

–$3.8 bil.

Tax on excess compensation within tax-exempt organizations

Expand application of tax

–$3.8 bil.

Mortgage, casualty loss and other itemized deductions

Permanently lower the home mortgage interest deduction to the first $750,000 in debt, limit the casualty loss deduction to losses resulting from federally declared disasters and terminate miscellaneous itemized deductions

–$6.2 bil.

Investment income of certain private colleges and universities

Increase excise tax for wealthier institutions

–$6.7 bil.

Excise tax for tobacco products

Limit drawback of taxes paid with respect to substituted merchandise

–$12 bil.

Moving expenses exclusion and deduction

Permanently eliminate both, except for active-duty military

–$14 bil.

Earned income tax credit

Make changes to prevent duplicate claims and create a program integrity task force

–$15 bil.

Compensation paid to certain high-earning employees

Change deduction limitation rules

–$16 bil.

Investment income of tax-exempt private foundations

Increase excise tax rates

–$16 bil.

Charitable contributions made by corporations

Establish a floor of one percent of taxable income on deduction

–$17 bil.

Excise tax on on money sent abroad

Impose new excise tax on remittance transfers by those who are not U.S. citizens or U.S. nationals

–$22 bil.

Limitation on excess business losses by noncorporate taxpayers

Make permanent

–$27 bil.

De minimis entry privilege

Repeal the privilege, which currently allows shipments under $800 to enter the U.S. duty-free

–$39 bil.

New limitation on itemized deductions

Permanently change

–$41 bil.

Raise certain taxes to retaliate against “unfair foreign taxes”

–$116 bil.

State and local tax deduction

Permanently cap itemized deductions for state and local taxes at $30,000 per household. The current cap is set to expire next year, so any cap imposed would save the government money.

–$916 bil.