The White House said lawmakers should consider reducing their committee’s staff size before proposing cutting the number of National Security Council seats.
“I have also seen that some of those proposals suggest that the National Security Council staff should be capped at 50 people,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Tuesday. “I might note that the staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee is larger than that. That seems like a rather curious apportionment of resources when you consider the important work that is done at the National Security Council every day.”
In noting that House Armed Services Chairman Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, also suggested that future NSC directors should be subject to congressional confirmation and that any legislation wouldn’t take effect, if passed, until President Obama has left office, Earnest remarked that congressional Republicans aren’t optimistic about their party’s presidential chances in November.
“Well, it certainly makes me think that Republicans in Congress aren’t too bullish about the prospects of a Republican succeeding President Obama,” Earnest quipped.
Earnest also pointed out that National Security Adviser Susan Rice has already shrunk the council’s membership.
The council is 10 percent smaller now after Rice’s “own initiative to streamline the National Security Council and make its actions even more efficient than it already is,” Earnest said.
Besides Thornberry, Senate Armed Services Chairman Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., also said he would consider capping the NSC.
Earnest also mocked lawmakers for wanting more say in military policy when Congress hasn’t voted on a new authorization for use of military force despite the administration’s request it do so. Some lawmakers oppose another round of base closures, which prevents the Pentagon from maximizing efficiency, he said.
“I think all of that makes clear that there are too many members of Congress that don’t take very seriously their responsibility to engage in a legitimate debate about policies that are critical to our national security,” Earnest charged. “That is why I’m surprised to hear that some of them are seeking more authority over those decisions that they have, thus far, refused to make.”
