The Brief

Shannen Doherty could narrow her eyes and set her jaw with the best of the legendary divas. She could end a confrontation scene with the line, "I hate you both! Never talk to me again!" and storm off, and it made you want to throw your hands in the air and yell, "YEAH! GET 'EM!" She could also cry over a broken heart, nervously flirt, or defiantly pop off on adults who just didn't understand.

Man, she was so much fun.

Doherty, who died at 53, almost ten years after she was first diagnosed with breast cancer, was a child actor, most notably on Little House on the Prairie. She was in Heathers in 1988, which is a bright spot on any résumé. But she became an icon as Brenda Walsh on Beverly Hills, 90210, one of the biggest hits of the early '90s and the spark for many teen soaps that came later.*

The show debuted in 1990 when Shannen Doherty was 19. Its premise was that Brenda and her twin brother Brandon (Jason Priestley) moved out to Beverly Hills from Minnesota (apparently the most not-California state the writers could think of) to attend high school with the wealthy and beautiful. Brenda was our heroine and did all the heroine things: falling in love with "bad boy" Dylan McKay (Luke Perry), learning to fit in with rich blonde friends Kelly (Jennie Garth) and Donna (Tori Spelling), surviving a robbery, losing her virginity, being scared she was pregnant. The usual.

The show ran for ten seasons, but Brenda only stayed for four. As Doherty and 90210 both became popular, stories circulated about her being difficult on set, and Brenda's own sometimes obnoxious behavior (the creation of writers!) began to curdle. The line between Brenda and Shannen blurred, and a noisy population of people decided to hate them both. In fact, they began to treat the two as one person. By the time Doherty was 22, there was an entire article in the L.A. Times about the anti-fan club for people who hated Doherty/Brenda, and their newsletter, and the telephone tip line they set up to collect any nasty gossip about her that anybody cared to dump out. (Sad that the phrase "touch grass" was not invented early enough for people who set up telephone tip lines about celebrities they disliked.) She had reported feuds on set, the stories escalated, and she left.

Brian Austin Green, Shannen Doherty and Ian Ziering of BH 90210 speak during the Fox segment of the 2019 Summer TCA Press Tour at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on August 7, 2019 in Beverly Hills, California.

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The show, while sometimes fun, was never as good without her. Never. Love you, Val, but no.

A few years later, she was cast in the sister-witches show Charmed, also from Aaron Spelling, the megaproducer behind 90210. (Apparently, whatever people may not have liked about her, they were okay with her helping them make money.) The cycle repeated: she was popular, then there were reports of difficulties on set, then she left. Doherty kept working, but she was never the big deal she had been during those years in the early '90s.

367898 Alyssa Milano, Holly Marie Combs, Shannen Doherty from the tv show "Charmed".

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She announced her breast cancer diagnosis in 2015. And in November of last year, almost four years after she announced that her cancer had reached stage 4, she started a podcast called Let's Be Clear with Shannen Doherty. She talked about cancer. Jason Priestley came on. Tori Spelling came on. Holly Marie Combs from Charmed came on. Kevin Smith -- who directed her in Mallrats -- came on. Less than a month ago, she ran a conversation with Katherine Heigl, who is another famous supposedly "difficult on set" actress, and perhaps one of only a few people who could understand the existence of an "I hate you" club. Doherty just did not quit, did not go away, did not become quiet.

It's hard to talk about her impact because the kind of TV star Shannen Doherty was really doesn't exist anymore. To capitalize on 90210's popularity, Fox ran 22 episodes in the first season, then 28 in the second, 30 in the third, and 32 in the fourth. There was just so much work in those years. Brenda wanted to become an actress. She went to Mexico with Dylan against her parents' wishes. She moved back to Minnesota and then back to Beverly Hills. She got involved in animal rights activism -- which was Doherty's passion as well. She almost got married in Vegas! She won the lead in the college production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof! She pretended to be French! She pretended to be a Brooklyn diner waitress! This is part of how actors become admired and indelible: from the sheer volume of exposure. Imagine a live-action prime-time hour-long drama series in 2024 that has a new episode for more than 60 percent of the weeks in a given year. (They stayed on that 32-episode pace for several seasons after she left.) It was just a different universe.

The line between a firecracker and an arsonist can be razor-thin in the public imagination. Between "outspoken" and "difficult," between "feisty" and other words that haunt practically every woman who's ever said no to anybody about anything in a situation where it really mattered. I don't know what it was like to work with her -- or any of her colleagues, for that matter. Was it worse than lots of other college-aged kids would have been with hundreds of people relying on them week after week after week? I don't know. I just know what it was like to watch her work, and it was very, very good.

There is a very plausible argument that without Shannen Doherty, I would not be in this job. She made 90210 work, 90210 and its recap culture begat Dawson's Creek and its recap culture, and that begat Television Without Pity, where I first wrote for money.

Copyright 2024 NPR

Are you taking a domestic flight soon?

You should know: Starting Feb. 1, if you don’t have a REAL ID driver’s license — or another federally approved document like a passport — you’ll need to pay a $45 fee at the airport to be able to get on your flight.

This new fee was announced by the Transportation Security Administration back in December.

Federal REAL ID requirements were originally introduced for domestic air travelers in May 2025. Until now, anyone who lacked a REAL ID license or other acceptable form of identification was still allowed to go through airport security, albeit with additional screening.

But as of Feb. 1, every person 18 or older attempting to board a domestic flight without a REAL ID will face the $45 fee – or won’t be allowed through TSA screening to board their flight.

While TSA says that “more than 94% of passengers already use their REAL ID or other acceptable forms of identification,” in 2025, the California DMV reported that only about 58% of all driver’s license and ID cardholders in the state were REAL ID-compliant.

So if you’re one of those people who doesn’t have a REAL ID yet, here’s what to know about making sure you’re still able to travel, from how to swiftly apply for a REAL ID driver’s license to how to pay the $45 TSA fee, either the day you travel or before you arrive at the airport.

What kind of REAL ID identification do I need to avoid the new $45 TSA fee?

Remember, if you’ve applied for or renewed your driver’s license in the past few years, there’s a good chance you already have a REAL ID. (Here’s more information on how to tell, but in short: look for the golden bear with a white star in the top right of your license.)

If you don’t have a REAL ID driver’s licence yet, you might have access to several other documents you can show TSA instead of a REAL ID, like:

A side-by-side comparison of a REAL ID driver’s license (left) with a non-REAL ID driver’s license.

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• A U.S. or foreign passport
• A green card (permanent resident card)
• A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) trusted traveler card, like Global Entry
• A military ID
• A Tribal Nation ID

See other federally recognized documents that TSA says are an “acceptable alternative” to a REAL ID.

Why will I now be charged a $45 TSA fee?

Since REAL ID requirements were introduced across U.S. airports for domestic flights in May 2025, passengers who don’t have REAL ID-compliant identification have still been able to fly — but they’ve been asked to undergo extra checks to verify their identity before entering the TSA security line, through a process called TSA ConfirmID.

According to TSA, this entails completing “an identity verification process which includes collecting information such as your name and current address to confirm your identity.”

And while TSA says using TSA ConfirmID is “optional,” they warn that if you choose not to use it “and don’t have an acceptable ID, you may not be allowed through security and may miss your flight.”

What’s changing on Feb. 1: TSA now intends to pass on the costs of those extra checks directly to the passenger, by charging them this $45 fee to receive the TSA ConfirmID identity verification and make their flight.

Be warned, though: TSA says even if you pay the new $45 TSA fee starting Feb. 1, “there is no guarantee” they’ll be able to successfully verify your identity through TSA ConfirmID.

A spokesperson for TSA confirmed to KQED by email that the $45 fee is non-refundable in this instance. But because payments are “valid for a 10-day period after their original first flight date,” travelers who miss their flight because their identity couldn’t be verified can “use the receipt once they are able to rebook their flight within that 10-day period,” the spokesperson says.

Where do I pay the $45 TSA fee?

You can pay at the airport itself, or beforehand, but either way, TSA says you have to pay online at pay.gov, the same federal website that processes payments like Department of Veterans Affairs medical bills and Social Security remittances.

You won’t be able to pay TSA staff directly at the airport.

Passengers walk through Terminal 2 at San Francisco International Airport on Dec. 10, 2025.

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You can create a pay.gov account to make the $45 payment or check out as a guest. TSA says it will accept credit cards, debit cards, bank account details, PayPal and Venmo.

Make sure you enter an email address you have instant access to, as you’ll need to open the pay.gov receipt that will be sent to that inbox and show it to TSA staff at the airport to prove you’ve paid the $45 fee for TSA ConfirmID identity verification.

Will TSA automatically know I’ve paid my $45 fee?

No, TSA says you’ll need to manually show staff in the security line proof of payment by producing the email receipt.

The agency says that your receipt should arrive via email “immediately” after payment. Consider screenshotting the email receipt as soon as you receive it to be sure.

“If a traveler is unable to produce a confirmation email at the checkpoint, you may need to pay again,” TSA says.

If I’m having trouble paying online, can someone else do it for me?

Yes, as long as the name and travel dates match the traveler who needs TSA ConfirmID identity verification, someone else can pay online for you, TSA says. The payment card does not have to match the traveler’s name.

Will I have to pay another $45 TSA fee when I fly home?

TSA says the ConfirmID service is valid for 10 days, so if your trip is 10 days or less, you won’t have to pay again — but “any travel beyond the expiration date will require a new payment.”

However, you’ll need to show your original receipt of payment to pay.gov that arrived in your email when you first paid online, so make sure you don’t delete it on your trip.

How long will all this take?

In general, TSA warns you to expect “increased wait times for passengers who do not provide an acceptable ID.”

For one thing, expect the actual process of verifying your identity through TSA ConfirmID to take a while. Even if you pay the $45 in advance, the actual identity verification will take place at the airport itself.

A person walks to their destination at San Francisco International Airport on Dec. 10, 2025.

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You should also factor in the time required beforehand for paying your $45 online, either before you leave or at the airport itself. And if you don’t have a REAL ID-compliant ID and you haven’t already paid the $45 fee when you arrive for your flight, TSA says that “you must leave the [security] line to pay” and return to the end of the line once you’ve done it.

So, in short, if you don’t have a REAL ID driver’s license or other compatible ID, you should arrive at the airport with a lot of time to spare.

Do the REAL ID requirements and TSA fee apply to children?

TSA says it “does not require children under 18 to provide identification when traveling within the United States” — so the REAL ID requirements, and the TSA fee for those who don’t have them, don’t apply to kids.

However, “unaccompanied minors who are eligible for TSA PreCheck must show an acceptable ID to receive expedited screening,” and the agency suggests you contact the airline you’re flying with about any specific ID requirements they may have for passengers under 18.

OK, how do I get a REAL ID ASAP to avoid this new TSA fee?

Firstly, remember that even if you don’t have a REAL ID driver’s licence yet, you might have access to several other documents you can show TSA instead of a REAL ID — like a U.S. or foreign passport, a green card (permanent resident card) or a Tribal Nation ID — that mean you won’t have to pay the $45 TSA fee starting Feb. 1.

To apply for a REAL ID driver’s license or identification card in California, you’ll need several documents, including one that proves your identity and contains your full name, like a U.S. passport or a permanent resident card (green card).

You’ll need to visit a California DMV office to obtain your REAL ID card, with or without an appointment, but you can upload your documents online in advance to save time in the field office. Check current wait times for your closest California DMV office without an appointment.

According to the REAL ID Act, states must require individuals to prove that they are either U.S. citizens or are in the country “lawfully.”

Non-U.S. citizens who can apply for a REAL ID include permanent residents (green card holders), holders of a valid student or employment visa and recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).

If you don’t have any type of legal status, like the ones above, then you will not be able to request a REAL ID.

This story contains reporting from KQED’s Carlos Cabrera-Lomelí.

From Sallie Reeves’ backyard in Rancho Palos Verdes, you can see Catalina Island on a clear day. You can also spot whales in the Pacific Ocean, neighborhood peacocks and red-tailed hawks.

It’s the type of idyllic retirement the 82-year-old envisioned when she moved into her ranch-style home in the Portuguese Bend area in 1982. But she has had to rethink what her retirement looks like after a 6-foot fissure developed through her property. It’s a predicament dozens of Rancho Palos Verdes residents have had to grapple with as their properties also slowly rip apart.

Reeves lives in an area of the city that sits on an ancient landslide. Movement was minimal for decades. But above average rainfall in 2022 and 2023 set off a rapid increase in land movement, which prompted Southern California Edison and SoCalGas to shut off utilities for hundreds of residents, including Reeves.

Her three-bedroom, two-bath home is now a hollowed out shell, raised from the slab on wooden platforms. The only thing that remains intact are some of the walls, beams and floor to ceiling windows. It’s now red tagged as she awaits a FEMA buyout.

“We got snake bit, that’s all,” she said, adding that the damage to some of her neighbors’ homes is much worse.

Reeves has since had to downsize. She now lives in a converted garage, with a modest bathroom, a bedroom and a living space that also doubles as a dining area and kitchen. Her furniture has been distributed to her nieces and nephews, and most of her belongings are in storage, packed into containers parked on her driveway.

“ I can live here a long time. We've got a full bath, and we don't have cupboards or anything, so it's pretty ugly looking at it, but I'm functioning just fine,” she said about her new home.

When things started going from bad to worse

When Reeves moved into her home in the '80s, land movement wasn’t a concern. She used to be able to walk to the bottom of the canyon behind her home. Now, that’s all washed away and it’s a 30-foot drop.

Storms at the end of 2022 leading into 2023 were the turning point.

 ”We just started noticing thresholds coming apart, cracks here and there,” she said.

And pretty soon it wasn’t just a crack in the bedroom wall.

“One night we had animals come in through the walls,” Reeves said, describing how the bedroom wall separated from the home during a storm, “It was like the fire hose was right on our bed.”

There was no room for a washer in Sallie Reeves' converted garage, so she uses it outside.

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In response to wildlife incursions, they decided to convert the garage. It was a 33-day process.

A reluctant buyout applicant 

In 2024, Rancho Palos Verdes announced a buyout program — with the help of federal funds — for residents whose homes were made inhabitable by land movement.

Reeves was a reluctant applicant.

 ”Tearfully, I went to the city and filled out the application on the very last day, down to the last hour,” she said.

She still doesn’t know if she’ll accept the buyout money: Doing so will mean she has to move and the property will be converted to open space.

It could take years before she has to make that decision, so the two-time breast cancer survivor spends some of her time raising money for the disease and enrolling in 60-mile walks across the country to raise awareness for breast cancer. The rest of the time, she tends to her native plants and spends time with her dogs.

Where Sallie Reeves spends time gardening.

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“ I think half the world thinks that I am bat shit crazy, and you gotta be a little that way. But I've been privileged in the sense that I know how valuable this is to me,” Reeves said.

On the campaign trail, President Donald Trump promised to cut Americans' energy bills in half — cheaper gasoline, cheaper electricity. He also said he'd "unleash" American energy production, often repeating the catchphrase "Drill, baby, drill."

One year in, the price of gasoline is down about 20%. But the U.S. oil industry is definitely not drilling, baby, drilling. The price of oil is just too low to justify more of it — although within the last year, companies have won major lobbying victories that soothe that sting. Meanwhile, electricity costs are rising and expected to rise more.

Cheap gasoline: check 

The U.S. benchmark price for oil is down about 20% from where it was a year ago, and the average retail gasoline price — the price drivers pay at the pump — is down nearly 10%.

Now, presidents — whoever they are — do not get to decide the price of gasoline. The price of crude oil is the biggest factor, and crude prices are set in a complex global marketplace that responds to a number of factors.

In the past year, cheaper crude has been largely driven by a global oversupply of oil, which in turn was largely driven by a series of decisions by the oil cartel OPEC+. The cartel repeatedly put more barrels on the market, depressing global prices but seizing more market share for its members.

However, Dan Pickering, the chief investment officer at Pickering Energy Partners, says the president also put significant pressure on OPEC to bring down global crude prices. As a result, he gives Trump partial credit for today's low prices.

"I think if we look at oil down 20% in 2025, that you have to say that political dynamics drove at least half of that," he says. "And as we go into 2026, I think those dynamics will still be at play."

Moving forward, the president's push to produce more oil from Venezuela could also help keep global crude prices lower for longer — if he persuades companies to invest.

Analysts with the gas prices app GasBuddy found that U.S. households spent, on average, $177 less on gasoline in 2025 than 2024, thanks to lower prices, and they predict that expenditures will continue to fall in 2026, saving Americans a collective $11 billion next year.

Drill, baby, drill? Not so much.

Those lower oil prices are exactly why "Drill, baby, drill" didn't happen.

The number of active drilling rigs in the U.S., the largest oil producer in the world, has dropped by more than 6% year-over-year, at last count. That means fewer new wells are being drilled. And that's true even as the Trump administration has made it easier for companies to start new projects, including by making more federal lands and waters available for leases.

With U.S. oil prices under $60 a barrel and the global market generally oversupplied with crude, it's just not profitable for companies to drill a bunch of new wells right now.

The Trump administration has many close allies in the U.S. oil industry. But this is a perennial point of disagreement between them: The president loves cheap oil, while companies would prefer prices to be higher than they are today.

This disagreement was actually called out by Secretary of Energy Chris Wright — a former fracking executive. Speaking to CBS News' Face the Nation this month, he called President Trump "no helper to the oil and gas industry" because "he's driven down the price of oil."

It's true that many U.S. oil workers wince every time the president talks about $50 crude or pushes for more production from OPEC. But it's not quite fair to call the administration "no helper."

The American Petroleum Institute, or API, is the most powerful lobbying arm of the U.S. oil and gas industry. Before Trump was reelected, the group laid out a dozen different policy priorities — a wish list. Tax policy changes that would help oil companies; more access to drilling in the Gulf; a boost in exports of liquefied natural gas; the repeal of requirements for cleaner and more efficient cars, which would have pushed down oil demand over time; the elimination of a fee for releasing planet-warming methane.

"By our count, every single one of them was completed in 2025, with the exception of legislative permitting reform," Mike Sommers, the president and CEO of API, said on a recent call with reporters. ("Permitting reform" refers to a series of changes to federal laws that would make it easier for companies to build things like pipelines and other large projects that often face local opposition. It's been a hot topic in Congress for years.)

Sommers says U.S. companies can weather low oil prices in the short term and make business decisions with an eye toward the future.

And in the long term, the administration's policy changes support higher oil demand for years to come by doing things like slowing down the shift toward electric vehicles, while also cutting the costs of oil production, including by easing environmental rules.

Electricity costs are rising

Electricity prices have been increasing for years now, and 2025 was more of the same.

"Across most states and in most markets, what we see is that prices have gone up," says Helen Kou, an analyst with BloombergNEF.

Based on trends in wholesale power markets — where your local electric company buys its power, an expense they pass on to you — that's likely to continue. Kou said that in New York and New England, wholesale prices are up more than 60%, and in the mid-Atlantic they're up 45%.

"Almost 1 in 3 households, or over 80 million Americans, are struggling to pay their utility bills," says Charles Hua, who runs Powerlines, a national energy consumer education nonprofit that encourages people to get more involved in their public utility commissions.

Why are costs going up? Hua points to three primary reasons: an aging power grid, the cost of natural disasters, and higher fuel costs, especially natural gas.

Kou says that for 2025, natural gas prices were the clear driver of increases. While oil and gasoline are cheap, natural gas — which is used for home heating and power plants — has gone up more than 50% from last year's annual average. U.S. exports of natural gas have increased (one of API's requests), and sending more natural gas overseas means less is available domestically.

Natural gas prices have been up and down over the past few years. They spiked in 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine. And they were unusually cheap in 2024 before rising again in 2025. While they're far from record highs, the increase has been enough to significantly shift electricity markets.

These causes are complex and date back years before Trump's return to office. But experts say the Trump administration's electricity policy has not focused on lowering natural gas costs, improving the grid or mitigating the effects of natural disasters. Instead, it has aligned with his goal of reversing Biden-era climate policies. The White House has ordered coal-powered power plants to stay open for longer. Those power plants are typically expensive to operate, raising concerns about prices. Kou says keeping them online could hypothetically help meet rising demand, but only if those plants are located where demand is growing.

The administration is also investing in nuclear power — that, too, could potentially help with costs, but only in the long term, Kou says, because nuclear plants take so long to approve and build.

Some of the administration's moves could actually increase electricity bills in the future.

Large solar and wind projects provide more cost-competitive energy than natural gas, nuclear and coal projects, according to financial services firm Lazard. But the Trump administration has ended federal tax credits for solar and wind projects early, and canceled more than $13 billion in funds for green energy projects

Trump has also said he won't permit any new wind projects, and the administration has attempted to stop offshore wind projects that are already under construction, leading to court battles. That's been criticized not just by renewable energy advocates, but by many business groups, because it creates uncertainty and discourages investments in projects that could be supplying more energy into the grid.

"As a general matter, the thing that you can do that most clearly helps reduce prices is to remove barriers to new energy investment," says James Coleman, a nonresident senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. "And the thing that basically just increases prices is increasing uncertainty or barriers to energy."

The administration is also rolling back efficiency standards for appliances. Those standards actually cut consumer bills by reducing energy use, Hua notes.

Meanwhile, some things that could meaningfully cut costs have simply not been prioritized by this administration. "There are solutions that are available today that can be put on the grid that would meaningfully resolve a lot of these solutions," Hua says, pointing to technologies that allow more power to be moved on the existing grid, or better match supply and demand. "It doesn't solve everything, but it provides some immediate relief … and that just has not been as much of a focus" for the Trump administration, he says.

Lately, President Trump has been talking about making sure that AI data centers pay their fair share for electricity costs. Hua says there is a genuine opportunity to cut energy bills for ordinary Americans as data center demand for electricity goes up, depending on how costs are spread out.

But for now, the Trump administration's pledge to cut utility bills remains an unmet promise.
NPR's Michael Copley and Julia Simon contributed to this report. 
Copyright 2026 NPR

There was a celebratory mood in the Oval Office for the November swearing-in of the new ambassador to India, Sergio Gor. One of President Donald Trump's top lieutenants, Gor had been in charge of selecting staff to serve in Trump's second-term White House. Now he was getting a promotion.

Jeanine Pirro, the former Fox News personality-turned-U.S. attorney, offered praise for Gor's loyalty, then turned to Trump.

"There is in this room, a group of people who love you, who believe in you, and who are so proud to be in this Oval Office," she said.

That lovefest reflects a real change from Trump's first term, with its rival power centers and steady flow of staff shakeups and firings by tweet. One year into this second Trump presidency, high level staff and Cabinet turnover is significantly lower than it was during the same period in 2017. That's according to a new analysis from Brookings Institution visiting fellow Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, shared exclusively with NPR.

In 2017, Trump oversaw turnover in two Cabinet positions and 35% of senior staff posts. This time around, there's been no turnover at the Cabinet level, and senior staff turnover is at 29%. To keep consistency across administrations, for the Cabinet Tenpas only counts officials in the presidential line of succession.

"For the other six presidents before President Trump, the average [high level staff] turnover in that first year is typically around 10%, so he's much higher than the average, but I will say it is less than his first term by a good margin," Tenpas said in an interview with NPR.

Tenpas also documents the nature of the departures. In the first term, there were a lot of people unceremoniously shown the door by a president whose TV tagline was "you're fired." This time, it has mostly been promotions, such as Gor becoming an ambassador.

"There are far fewer resignations under pressure in this first year, 2025, than there were in 2017," said Tenpas.

In 2017, high-profile aides including chief of staff Reince Priebus, chief strategist Steve Bannon, White House press secretary Sean Spicer, communications director Michael Dubke and the famously 11-day-serving White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci all exited, often with an announcement by tweet.

The people leaving their jobs this time around aren't household names, says Tenpas, further dialing down the personnel drama.

"You know, I would call these positions influential, but they just weren't public figures, they weren't press secretaries. They weren't chiefs of staff," she said.

People who served in the first Trump administration say this time is different, with Trump learning from his first presidency that he prefers loyalists. He has surrounded himself with aides who more closely align with him personally and with his political agenda.

Gone are the big names he brought on because people suggested he should. Now, loyalty is the coin of the realm.

"I do think that … if you look at what is the core of the stability, it was the emphasis that they put on loyalty in hiring, and that has then subsequently paved the way for less infighting and less drama and a lower rate than in 2017," said Tenpas.

A large share of the departures so far this term were on the National Security Council staff, including national security adviser Mike Waltz, who became U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. He had been responsible for what was known as Signal-gate, the first major scandal of the term, when he inadvertently added a journalist to a group chat where secret plans for airstrikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen were discussed. But he wasn't fired. He was promoted to a position requiring Senate confirmation.

When Waltz left as national security adviser, he was replaced by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who added another job to an already long list of assignments from Trump. It was supposed to be temporary, but it's been more than eight months.

The high-level NSC staff departures Tenpas tracked reflect a much larger shedding of staff assigned to the National Security Council.

A White House official not authorized to speak on the record tells NPR there has been a significant reduction in NSC staffing over the past year to create a more top-down foreign policy process.

The official called it a rightsizing — a strategic choice rather than White House intrigue.

This Brookings data does not capture firings and upheaval among career officials in other areas of the Trump administration, such as at the State Department, Justice Department or the Defense Department, all of which have seen significant turnover.
Copyright 2026 NPR