Trump draws several national security officials on loyalty concerns

Washington (AP) – President Donald Trump said Thursday that he had dismissed “one” White House National Security Council Officials, a decision that one day comes after an extreme right activist Laura Loomer has raised concerns directly about him about the loyalty of the staff.

Trump has minimized the influence of Loomer on layoffs. But Loomer during his oval office conversation with Trump urged the president to serve the staff members whom she considered insufficiently faithful to his program “Make America Great Again”, according to several people familiar with the issue. They all talked under the cover of anonymity to discuss the sensitive manner of the staff.

Vice-president JD Vance, chief of staff Susie Wiles, national security advisor Mike Waltz And Sergio Gor, director of the presidential staff office, also participated in the meeting with Loomer, people said.

“Always let go of people,” Trump told journalists on the Air Force One while going to Miami on Thursday afternoon. “The people we don’t like or the people we don’t think about can do the work or people who may have loyalty to someone else.”

Trump layoffs of NSC staff arrive at a tumultuous moment for Waltz, while he is fighting Call for his evidence After using the public accessible to the public Signal Application to discuss the planning of the sensitive military operation of March 15 targeting Houthi activists in Yemen. Trump said he was standing near Waltz, who went to Florida with Trump on Thursday for a dinner before the Liv golf tournament in Miami.

The presidential personnel office has dismissed at least three senior NSC officials and several lower aids from Wednesday’s meeting with a loss, according to people familiar with the situation. NSC spokesperson Brian Hughes refused to comment on the meeting or the layoffs, saying that the White House does not discuss personnel issues.

“Laura Loomer is a very good patriot. He is a very strong person,” said Trump, who described the far -right activist as “constructive”.

Trump acknowledged that Loomer “recommended some people for jobs.”

“Sometimes I listen to these recommendations as I do with everyone,” said Trump. “I listen to everyone to make a decision.”

Loomer, who promoted conspiracy theories of September 11, was a frequent presence on the campaign campaign during Trump’s successful race in 2024. More recently, she spoke on social networks about the members of the Trump national security team that she insists that one cannot trust.

“It was an honor to meet President Trump and present my research results to him,” said Loomer in a publication Thursday on X. “I will continue to work hard to support his agenda, and I will continue to reiterate the importance of and the need for strong verification, to protect the President of the United States of America and our national security.”

NSC licensed officials include Brian Walsh, intelligence director; Thomas Boodry, Senior Director of Legislative Affairs; And David Feith, principal director of technology and national security, according to two people familiar with the issue.

Trump has a long story of elevation and association with people who exchange lies and conspiracy theories, and he regularly amplifies messages on his social media site shared by those like Loomer, who promotes Qanon, an apocalyptic and a theory of the still conspiracy centered on the belief that Trump fights “the deep state”.

Trump’s national security team has gone through a difficult section while officials find it difficult to answer questions about the reasons why they used the signal application to discuss the planning of an operation targeting Houthi activists instead of using much safer means of communication.

The use of the signal for operations planning has been revealed because a journalist, Jeffrey Goldberg, of the Atlantic magazine, was wrongly added to the chain And revealed that Trump’s team had used it to discuss the precise operation calendar, Aircraft had used strikes and more.

Waltz took responsibility for building the text chain, but said he didn’t know how Goldberg ended up being included.

The interim inspector general of the Pentagon announced Thursday that he would examine the use of the defense secretary’s signal, Pete Hegseth, to transmit plans on Houthi operations. The examination will also examine the use of other managers of defense of the encrypted application accessible to the public.

Loomer, during the Wednesday meeting with Trump, complained to the officials of the sympathetic administration that she had been excluded from the process of verifying the NSC while Waltz built her staff, according to a person familiar with the issue. She thinks that Waltz was too dependent on the process on “neocons” – a shortener for the most Bellician neoconservatives within the Republican Party – as well as what she perceived as “not Maga -Eth,” said the person.

Senator Mike Rounds, a Republican who seated the Senate committees, supervising military and national information, said that “raising eyebrows” when there is “there is a dismissal of people to the National Security Council or their staff, in particular people for whom we have the respect, who was part of the Intel community to start in the Senate.”

Waltz, in the first days of Trump’s return to Washington, sent 160 non -political details Assigned to the NSC to their original agencies to ensure that people in the White House have committed to implement the order of the First America First of Trump.

This decision has sidelined non-political experts on subjects that range from anti-terrorism to global climate policy at a time when the United States faces a disparate whole of complex foreign policy issues, including conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.

Last week, Adam Schleifer, assistant American prosecutor in Los Angeles, was dismissed without explanation In a laconic e-mail of the White House staff office shortly after Loomer published on him on social networks, according to a person familiar with the issue.

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This story was corrected to show the family name of the Atlantic journalist is Goldberg, not Rosenberg.

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Lee reported in Brussels. The writer Associated Press, Stephen Groves, contributed the reports.