Well, look who finally got serious about cleaning house. The Trump administration just lobbed a grenade into the bloated underbelly of the State Department—and frankly, it’s about time. After years of watching the bureaucratic machine balloon into a woke-adjacent global babysitting service, someone has the guts to say, “Enough.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio made it official: 132 State Department offices are on the chopping block, and around 700 positions will be cut. The goal? To put Americans and America first. What a radical concept, right?
Let’s break this down. The offices being closed are the ones hyperfocused on “instituting democracy overseas,” “countering extremism,” and “protecting human rights.” Translation? These were the same offices writing endless policy memos on gender studies in Kabul and hosting LGBTQ film screenings in Uganda. All the while, our actual diplomatic priorities—like preventing wars or strengthening alliances with countries that don’t hate us—were buried under layers of buzzwords and virtue signaling.
Under Rubio’s direction, the number of State Department offices will drop by a whopping 17%. That’s not trimming fat—that’s full-on lipo. And it’s long overdue. These departments have ballooned over the past 15 years, growing like mold in a damp basement while providing less and less value to the American taxpayer.
We’ve dumped money into this system expecting diplomacy and stability, and instead we’ve funded feel-good panels and paper-pushers who seem more committed to international sensitivity training than to advancing national interests.
Today is the day. Under @POTUS’ leadership and at my direction, we are reversing decades of bloat and bureaucracy at the State Department.
These sweeping changes will empower our talented diplomats to put America and Americans first. pic.twitter.com/CGWz3JrYwu
— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) April 22, 2025
Cue the pearl-clutching from legacy media. The New York Times wasted no time breathlessly warning that U.S. embassies in Africa might be closed. But Rubio shut that rumor down, calling it exactly what it is: fake news. Because nothing gets the left sweating like the idea that someone might stop using taxpayer dollars to fund their global pet projects. Maybe if those embassies had spent more time promoting trade and less time putting on climate justice exhibits, they’d be safe.
And let’s talk about the personnel cuts. Each undersecretary has 30 days to draft a plan to reduce department staffing by 15%. That’s a tall order, but if anyone can pull it off, it’s the team behind Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative—a.k.a. the most unironically named project in D.C. Elon Musk, acting as senior adviser, is helping apply some much-needed Silicon Valley ruthlessness to the Beltway blob. Think fewer paper-pushers, more mission-oriented diplomacy. Less groupthink, more results.
The cuts aren’t just random slash-and-burn moves, either. Rubio said region-specific functions will be consolidated, redundancies eliminated, and “non-statutory programs misaligned with national interests” will be axed. Translation: if your job was to develop gender-neutral foreign aid strategies for countries that barely have indoor plumbing, it might be time to dust off the resume.
So let’s be clear about what’s happening here. This isn’t chaos. This is accountability. The adults are finally back at the head of the table, looking at decades of unchecked growth and saying, “This doesn’t serve Americans—cut it.” Naturally, the usual suspects will howl about it being heartless or isolationist, but if you ask middle America whether they’d prefer fewer embassy-led dance workshops or lower inflation and a stronger border, we all know how that vote goes.
The State Department, like too many parts of government, became an echo chamber of progressive ideals dressed up as diplomacy. Now, that echo is being silenced. And for once, Washington might finally be able to hear the American people.
