Tom Nichols: ‘The Way that Policy Gets Done in this W.H. Is To Be the Last Guy in the Room Talking to Donald Trump’

EXCERPT:

NICHOLS: “I don’t — I don’t think it means very much at all. You know, it tells you that Waltz wasn’t really able to do his job. The way that policy gets done in this White House, apparently, is to be the last guy in the room talking to Donald Trump on any given day. You know, the thing with Rubio, is a strange reversal of the Kissinger dual hatting that happened in the 1970s. Kissinger was National Security Adviser, and he pushed out the Secretary of State because he was that powerful, because Kissinger had that much juice. This is the other way around. Rubio is just kind of picking up stray jobs because, in Trump’s mind, they don’t matter. Sure, be the National Security Adviser, be the National Archivist, be Secretary of State, whatever. Again, all of the decisions come from one desk, which is going to be a problem for all of the situations that you just laid out. One president cannot possibly keep track and be adequately briefed and informed on all of those things without a decently functioning National Security Council. And right now, Trump doesn’t have one.”