WHO’S WHO ON TRUMP’S NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL?

Alexei Bulazel served in the first Trump administration as the NSC director for cyber policy (2020-2021). He was the NYU Tandon School of Engineering’s hacker in residence from 2019 to 2020 and most recently held a nonresident fellowship at the Foundation for American Innovation, where he focused on national security, technology policy, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence.

In the private sector, Alexei worked as a senior security researcher at the cybersecurity firm River Loop Security and led security engineering work at Oracle and Apple. He is the author of several peer-reviewed articles on computer security and frequently contributes to public discussions on issues at the intersection of cyber and international security.

I cannot stress how important that is that the folks who are enabling America’s cyber capabilities are engaged, are being paid for their work, feel a sense of worth feel like they’re contributing to mission.

– Alexei Bulazelin “NSPM-13 and the Future of Cyber Warfare,” Hudson Institute

SELECTED READING:

• Alexei Bulazel, John Catsimatidis, and Rita Cosby, “Possible Cyber Attack Coming from China against US Phone Companies,” Cats & Cosby, WABC Radio, December 26, 2024.
• Alexei Bulazel, JD Work, Joshua Steinman, and Ezra Cohen, “NSPM-13 and the Future of Cyber Warfare,” filmed May 5, 2022. Hudson Institute.
• Alexei Bulazel, Sophia d’Antoine, Perri Adams, and Dave Aitel, “The Risks of Huawei Risk Mitigation,” Lawfare, April 24, 2019.

Andrew Peek is a political scientist who most recently served as the national security adviser to then-Rep. Mike Waltz. During Trump’s first term, Peek served as deputy assistant secretary for Iraq and Iran (2017-2019) before moving into the White House as the senior director for Europe and Eurasia (2019-2020).

Peek is a former Army Reserve intelligence officer and holds a Ph.D. in international relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, where he wrote a dissertation entitled “On the Effective Use of Proxy Warfare” under the direction of Eliot Cohen. He has contributed to Foreign Affairs, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Observer.

And if Putin wants the war to stop — more importantly, if he wants America’s help in stopping the war — the U.S. should make him pay for it. The most critical items are not the tactical laydown of forces and political mechanisms of sovereignty in the East. Probably some Russian forces will remain in Ukraine under any ceasefire. Probably Ukraine will not consent to ceding territory to Russia. Probably Russia will announce an annexation or liberation of some part of the East, regardless. Those are all tactical issues.

– Andrew Peek in “Biden Must Own the Ukraine War’s Endgame,” New York Daily News

SELECTED READING:

• Andrew Peek, “Parliament Diplomacy: A New Kind of Fight with Iran and Its Proxies,” Hoover Institution, March 5, 2024.
• Andrew Peek, “Should History Rethink Paul Bremer’s Role in the Iraq War?” Atlantic Council, May 1, 2023.
• Andrew Peek, “What Would the Middle East Look Like with a Democratic Iran?” New York Sun, April 18, 2023.
• Andrew Peek, “Biden Must Own the Ukraine War’s Endgame,” New York Daily News, June 13, 2022.
• Andrew Peek and Ric Grenell, “U.S. Mistakes Fed Putin’s Ukraine Temptation,” The Wall Street Journal, January 10, 2022.
• Andrew Peek, “On the Effective Use of Proxy Warfare,” Ph.D. diss. Johns Hopkins University, 2021.

Brian Hughes is the NSC spokesperson responsible for shaping the White House’s public affairs strategy on national security. He previously directed the Trump campaign in Florida and served as the spokesperson for President Trump’s transition team. Hughes has been active in Florida politics for much of his career. He was chief of staffchief administrative officer under former Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry and was the first communications director for then-Florida Gov. Rick Scott. In 2012, he worked as a consultant for Gov. Ron DeSantis during his first successful congressional campaign.

Some people feel I’m overly aggressive … [A] motorcycle guy who cusses and gets angry.

– Brian Hughes quoted in A.G. Gancarski, “The Life of Brian,” Influence Magazine, Spring 2017

Brian McCormack was the acting executive associate director at the Office of Management and Budget during Trump’s first term (2019-2021). Prior to that, he worked as chief of staff to Secretary of Energy Rick Perry (2017-2019). A longtime energy consultant, McCormack is the co-founder of United Coalition for Advanced Nuclear (UCAN) Power, an organization that champions nuclear energy for both military and civilian purposes. He also served as vice president of political and external affairs at Edison Electric Institute and in the Bush administration as an aide to Vice President Dick Cheney.

Each White House has formal and informal processes, but also centers of gravity with people or offices that punch above their weight and can have an outsize influence on shaping a policy. Understanding these can help you be successful inside an administration and when trying to accomplish things from the outside.

– Brian McCormack in “Five Questions with Brian McCormack”

Catherine Bellah Keller was the Commerce Department’s deputy general counsel for strategic initiatives (2017-2018) before moving to the White House, where she served as the deputy staff secretary and deputy general counsel (2018-2020). In 2024, Keller was appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott to serve on the Governing Board of the Texas Department of Information Resources.

Keller previously worked at the global law and investment firms Charles & Potomac Capital, Plumaven, Dimensional Fund Advisors, and Latham & Watkins LLP. She holds a J.D. from the University of Texas Law School and clerked for Judge William Garwood on the Fifth Circuit of Appeals.

Eric Trager is a Middle East specialist who served on Republican staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee (2018-2025), as well as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee under then-chairman Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN). He was also the Esther K. Wagner Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (2011-2018), and has been adjunct professor at the University of Michigan since 2015. Trager holds an M.A. in Arabic studies from the American University in Cairo, where he studied while living in Egypt as an Islamic Civilizations Fulbright Fellow, and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.

SELECTED READING:

• Eric Trager, “Washington’s Unfocused Decision on Aid to Egypt,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, August 23, 2017.
• Eric Trager, “The Muslim Brotherhood’s Fatal Mistake,” Foreign Affairs, August 21, 2017.
• Eric Trager, “Stuck with Sisi,” Foreign Affairs, January 24, 2017.
• Eric Trager, Arab Fall: How the Muslim Brotherhood Won and Lost Egypt in 891 Days (Georgetown University Press, 2016).

Ian Bennitt is a former congressional staffer tapped to lead the White House’s new shipbuilding office as its senior director. During his time on the Hill, Ian worked on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee as a senior adviser to the Republican chair, and the House Armed Services Committee as staff lead for the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee. Ian has also lobbied on behalf of the firms Adams & Reese LLP, Ball Janik LLP, and Shipbuilders Council of America.

This new office aims to reform procurement, boost demand and remove barriers to US shipbuilders’ competitiveness — giving them the confidence to invest in the industry’s long-term future.

– Ian Bennitt quoted in Rana Foroohar, “Why Ships Are the New Chips,” Financial Times, March 23, 2025

Ivan Kanapathy served in the first Trump White House as NSC director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia (2018-2019) and deputy senior director for Asian Affairs (2020-2021). Before his return to government, Kanapathy worked at Beacon Global Strategies, where he supported the firm’s Indo-Pacific Practice and led its Taiwan Analysis Center (2021-2025). He was also a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a senior nonresident fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Kanapathy is a former Marine Corps officer who served as a military attaché to the American Institute in Taiwan.

Kanapathy authored two chapters in The Boiling Moat: Urgent Steps to Defend Taiwan (Hoover Institution Press, 2024), which presents a guide for the United States and its allies on countering China’s aggression toward Taiwan.

[T]he Taiwanese military must prioritize denying a [Chinese military] lodgment above all else. Taiwan should be prepared to endure missile and bomb strikes, an enforced embargo, cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, disinformation campaigns, and other associated threats for up to two months while denying a landing operation.

– Ivan Kanapathy in The Boiling Moat: Urgent Steps to Defend Taiwan

SELECTED READING:

• Ivan Kanapathy and Bonny Lin, “Trump’s Indo-Pacific Strategy: A Conversation with Mr. Ivan Kanapathy,” ChinaPower, Center for Strategic and International Studies, November 22, 2024.
• Ivan Kanapathy and Yin Khvat, “What Two Factors Stand in China’s Way of Invading Taiwan?” Taiwan Talks, TaiwanPlus, September 21, 2024.
• Ivan Kanapathy, “Countering China’s Use of Force,” and “Countering China’s Gray-Zone Activities,” in The Boiling Moat: Urgent Steps to Defend Taiwan (Hoover Institution Press, 2024).
• Ivan Kanapathy, DJ Nordquist, and Daniel B. Pickard, “The Economic Power Play: Examining China’s Coercive Tactics,” filmed October 6, 2023. The Federalist Society.
• Ivan Kanapathy and David Sacks, “What It Will Take to Deter China in the Taiwan Strait,” Foreign Affairs, June 15, 2023.
• Ivan Kanapathy, Rosemary Foot, Christopher Preble, and Lily McElwee, “Chinese Perceptions of America’s Indo-Pacific Strategy,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, May 12, 2022.
• Ivan Kanapathy, “Taiwan Doesn’t Need a Formal U.S. Security Guarantee,” Foreign Policy, April 26, 2022.

James Hewitt worked as communications director and deputy chief of staff to then-Rep. Mike Waltz (2021-2025). During Trump’s first term, Hewitt served in the Environmental Protection Agency as associate administrator for public affairs and press secretary, and in the Department of State as a senior adviser in the Bureau of Global Public Affairs (2017-2021). Before that, he was deputy press secretary for the Republican National Committee and was an associate and senior director at the crisis management PR firm Dezenhall Resources.

Kevin Harrington returns as the senior director for strategic planning, a role held in Trump’s first administration and one that is considered one of the most important on the NSC. Harrington is responsible for turning the president’s agenda and priorities into a guiding strategy document. In his previous capacity as senior director, Harrington stressed the importance of close energy ties with Russia and floated a plan to withdraw U.S. forces from the Baltic states.

Prior to his work in government, Kevin studied physics at Stanford and consulted for the university’s Center for International Security and Cooperation on issues concerning national infrastructure and nuclear security. More recently, Kevin was the managing director of Thiel Macro LLC and its predecessor, Clarium Capital.

This very provocative series of missile tests Iran is engaged is are basically a signal that is not taking the JCPOA all that seriously. So we need to take account of that and maybe operate less in the spirit of the agreement as well in response.

– Kevin Harrington quoted in Julian Borger, “Lifting Russia Sanctions Would Not Be ‘Smart’, White House Senior Official Says,” The Guardian, February 6, 2017

I think the President is looking at this somewhat realistically and saying, "Russia is a very large country with 7,000 nuclear weapons, give or take, and 11 million barrels a day of oil production. Do you really want to be herding them to a really close relationship with China or is there a way to make this more constructive?”

– Kevin Harrington quoted in Patrick Tucker, “Will Trump Repeal Sanctions on Russia? A Conversation with an NSC Planner,” Defense One, February 10, 2017

Micah Thomas Ketchel was the chief of staff to then-Rep. Mike Waltz (2019-2025). He previously worked as a counsel and policy director at the Republican State Leadership Committee and served as the counsel to the Republican Attorneys General Association. Ketchel holds a J.D. from Florida State University College of Law and has been a member of the Federalist Society since 2009.

Ricky Gill served in the first Trump administration as a senior adviser at the State Department’s Bureau of Overseas Building Operations (2017-2020) and later at the NSC as director for Russia and European Energy Security (2020). He previously worked as a policy adviser at TC Energy and was a principal and general counsel at Gill Capital Group.

Raised in California’s Central Valley, Gill ran for Congress in 2012, seeking to represent California’s Ninth Congressional District. He holds a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

I would double down on soft power… This is still a country that people want to gravitate to and move to. It’s why my parents moved to the United States, and we should be proud of that.

– Ricky Gill in “Navigating a New Era of Economic Statecraft,” World Trade Center Utah

SELECTED READING:

• Ricky Gill, Liza Tobin, Eric Levesque, and Damien Ma, “Navigating a New Era of Economic Statecraft,” filmed June 9, 2022. World Trade Center Utah.
• Ricky Gill and Sam Buchan, “Reviving the MidCat Natural Gas Pipeline Is Critical to Answering Russian Aggression,” RealClear Energy, February 22, 2022.
• Ricky Gill, “Constructing Resiliency,” State Magazine, October 2019.

Sebastian Gorka is a conservative pundit specializing in counterterrorism. He was appointed as deputy assistant to the president early in Trump’s first term but departed the administration in 2017 when he was unable to receive a security clearance. Prior to becoming a naturalized American citizen, Gorka held government jobs in Hungary’s Department of Defense.

Gorka is a former Fox News contributor. He hosted “AMERICA FIRST” on the Salem Radio Network and “The Gorka Reality Check” on Newsmax TV. From 2014 to 2017, he worked as a national security editor at Breitbart. Gorka holds a Ph.D. in political science from Corvinus University of Budapest.

The only real strategic threat we face is China. The United States and the West have facilitated this threat for more than forty years. Henry Kissinger’s opening to China in the early 1970s and our support for China’s World Trade Organization membership and “Most Favored Nation” status have made a China an economic competitor that not only wishes to be a military competitor, but to displace us as the world’s leading superpower. This isn’t fiction. This is not classified. Any one of you, my dear readers, can go online and look up the phrase “One Belt, One Road.” It is the Chinese government’s plan to displace America and become a global hegemon by the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Revolution in 2049.

– Sebastian Gorka in The War for America’s Soul

SELECTED READING:

• Sebastian Gorka, “Surgical Strength—How President Trump Kept Us Safe and Can Prevent WWIII,” Breitbart, November 4, 2024.
• Sebastian Gorka, “The New MAGA Manifesto,” Breitbart, May 20, 2024.
• Sebastian Gorka, “Biden vs. Trump; War vs. Peace,” Breitbart, October 14, 2023.
• Sebastian Gorka, The War for America’s Soul (Regnery, 2019).
• Sebastian Gorka, Why We Fight: Defeating America’s Enemies — With No Apologies (Regnery, 2018).
• Sebastian Gorka, Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War (Regnery, 2016).

Walker Barrett recently served as a professional staff member on the House Armed Services Committee (2023-2025). Prior to that, he worked in Michael Waltz’s congressional office as the representative’s deputy chief of staff. Barrett has also worked on the Hill as a legislative director for Rep. Jeff Denham (R-CA), an assistant in the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and as a legislative assistant and then director for Rep. Tim Rice (R-SC).