Knives Out at the National Security Council - WSJ Editorial
Americans are trying to absorb President Trump’s tariff assault on world trade, so few may notice this week’s White House firings at the National Security Council. The impetus appears to be fear of disloyalty, but the bigger worry should be the risk that Mr. Trump surrounds himself with yes-men.
The White House this week fired several staff on the NSC, which exists to synthesize security work across government and advise the President. National security adviser Mike Waltz has been under fire since the debacle over the Signal chat on the Houthis. Mr. Waltz’s opponents in the Administration who favor a U.S. retreat from the world sense an opportunity to marginalize him.
Mr. Trump met with online MAGA enforcer Laura Loomer, who has been running a social-media smear campaign against White House officials, particularly deputy national security adviser Alex Wong. Mr. Wong appears not to be among those fired. His former boss GOP Sen. Tom Cotton is right that “America is safer and better off with Alex in the White House.”
You’d think Sen. Cotton would have President Trump’s ear more than Ms. Loomer, and the President played down her role in the firings. But who is going to give the President candid counsel if he could be tossed out at the urging of an online mob? Mr. Trump doesn’t seem to want a complement of competing advisers like those who defined his first term. His son Don Jr. helped box out Mike Pompeo and apparently anyone associated with the first-term Secretary of State.
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The looming, or should we say Loomer, stakes for Mr. Trump’s legacy include a precarious settlement in Ukraine and deterring Xi Jinping from striking Taiwan. Mr. Trump touted in the aftermath of the NSC firings that “I listen to everybody and then I make a decision.” Good to hear, but the purges on display this week will deny him advice he’ll need to hear.
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