Trump officials encouraging his most dangerous ideas: ex-NSC official

U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the White House, in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 27, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci

During their years in the White House, former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush sometimes drew criticism from supporters for being overly deferential to their policy advisors — Obama with Wall Street insiders on economic policy, Bush with hawkish neoconservatives on foreign policy. But President Donald Trump, on the other hand, is known for surrounding himself with staunch MAGA loyalists during his second presidency — a pattern that, according to former National Security Council (NSC) and ex-U.S. State Department official Emily Horne, poses a major threat to the United States from a military/foreign policy standpoint.

Appearing on The New Republic's podcast, "The Daily Blast," Horne warned that no one in the Trump White House is going to stand up to the president when he's making a really bad decision.

Horne told host Greg Sargent — a former Washington Post columnist — "Who actually gets the president's ear is always a real issue of power and access in any administration, but especially in this one. We all know that Trump is a president who listens a lot to the last person who he talked to. And so, whoever gets to talk to him, whoever shapes his opinion, is often just the person that he heard from most recently. And so, I have no doubt that the national security workforce — who are civilian, who serve apolitically, who are military, who serve apolitically — are doing what they always do. They're collecting the intelligence, they're preparing the assessments, they're preparing the battlefield scenarios and the plans, and they're bringing them up. The question is, is any of it getting through?"

The former NSC/State Department official continued, "And one of the things that's really clear is that Trump has weeded out anyone who has access to him who is capable of telling him, 'Sir, that's not a good idea.' Or, 'Sir, if you do that, here are the five bad things that could happen because of that.' He does not want to hear it. And to survive in Trump's royal court, you have to be a yes man or a sycophant. There is no one who can speak truth to power left in this White House."

Horne lamented that although the Iran war "is wildly unpopular across the political spectrum," Trump's loyalists in the White House are afraid to challenge or question his policies.

"As costs continue to rise, as diplomacy continues to falter, and as the chaos continues to reign across the Middle East — not just in the Strait of Hormuz — with no end in sight," Horne told Sargent, "this is a war that is entirely of Trump’s making."

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