The State Department

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Rubio unveils first stage of major State Department overhaul

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday rolled out the first stage of a major plan to reorganize the US State Department with changes that will eliminate 132 domestic offices, cut around 700 positions in Washington, DC, and close offices focused on war crimes and global conflict, according to a senior State Department official and documents obtained by CNN.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/22/politics/rubio-state-department-cuts/index.html?

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State Department

A reorganization of the State Department will eliminate 132 domestic offices and cut around 700 federal workers. Secretary of State Marco Rubio rolled out the first stage of the effort Tuesday, according to a senior State Department official and documents obtained by CNN. The agency says the changes are necessary to maintain its efficacy and relevance, with a senior official calling the current department organization chart “bloated.” The changes are in addition to the Trump administration’s efforts to dissolve the US Agency for International Development. USAID, which has historically functioned as an independent unit with oversight from Congress and the State Department, fought poverty and hunger around the world until Rubio was appointed its new administrator. Now, nearly all foreign aid has been frozen, thousands of USAID employees are out of work and billions of dollars in contracts have been canceled. Fewer than 900 USAID employees remain on staff.

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State Department may require visa applicants to post bond of up to $15,000 to enter the US

WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department is proposing requiring applicants for business and tourist visas to post a bond of up to $15,000 to enter the United States, a move that may make the process unaffordable for many.

https://apnews.com/article/state-department-visa-bond-d532b186abf6e39c621d1bd0995d7509?

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New U.S. Report on Israel’s Human Rights Abuses Is 91 Percent Shorter

The United States published its annual report on Israeli human rights abuses on Tuesday.

https://theintercept.com/2025/08/13/us-report-israel-human-rights-abuses/?

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US will suspend immigrant visa processing from 75 countries over public assistance concerns

WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department said Wednesday it will suspend the processing of immigrant visas for citizens of 75 countries, including Afghanistan, Iran, Russia and Somalia, whose nationals the Trump administration has deemed likely to require public assistance while living in the United States.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-immigration-visas-79909bd01e9e1e3dedde144f865a1b9d?

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✡️ Scoop: State's antisemitism accusation

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

A new State Department report accuses Iran, Russia and China of incorporating antisemitic narratives, threats and attacks into operations in both the physical and cyber domains. Why it matters: The report, which was transmitted to Congress on May 26, is likely to increase pressure on the Trump administration to treat attacks on Jewish communities as part of a broader foreign interference challenge rather than isolated incidents of extremism. "Iran, Russia, China and affiliated non-state actors employed antisemitic symbols, graffiti, threats and online propaganda across physical and cyber domains," the report says. "The deliberate targeting of Jewish institutions, memorial sites and religious symbols is intended to provoke fear and outrage, polarize societies and erode public trust." What they are saying: "We don't comment on congressional reports or correspondence," a State Department spokesperson said. Emails seeking comment from the Chinese and Russian embassies and the Iranian Interests Section in Washington were not returned. Zoom out: Republican and Democratic lawmakers have expanded investigations, hearings and legislation aimed at countering foreign influence operations. With the rise of social media, there is growing concern that Russia, China and Iran are exploiting social divisions to weaken democratic societies from within. The report was required by Congress in the State Department's annual appropriations bill. The intrigue: The report relies largely on public sources to support its claims, citing media reports in its footnotes. But the State Department did not publicly release the report, which some congressional officials expected. Zoom in: The report alleges that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leveraged social media bots to amplify antisemitic narratives. It also details threats in the physical world, including an IRGC plot to assassinate a rabbi in Azerbaijan. On China, the report cites a post by China's consul general in Osaka, Japan, comparing Israel to Nazi Germany.  — Hans Nichols

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🐂 State Department's Satan panic

Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photo: Finn Gomez/Getty Images

The second-most powerful man at the State Department put the brakes on a U.S. international exhibit featuring a bull statue because he worried it might look like Baal, a devil some associate with satanic child sacrifice, Axios' Marc Caputo writes. Why it matters: The anecdote illustrates the quirky interests of Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau, according to department critics, who say he spends too much time on social media focusing on the unimportant. 🔎 Zoom in: The issue revolves around an international exposition next year in Belgrade, Serbia, where the U.S. plans to feature a statue of a bucking bull at an exhibition celebrating the American West. On Aug. 19, at 4:15 p.m., Landau sent an email to staffers about it: "I remain somewhat concerned by the Golden Bull imagery! Did a quick internet search and don't want it to become a distraction. The golden calf from the Bible is often portrayed as a golden bull." Providing hyperlinked footnotes and images of golden bull worship, Landau explored the ancient history of Baal as well as the "Modern Cultural Comparisons." Behind the scenes: The email, which was forwarded to multiple officials, elicited eye rolls and snickers inside the State Department. The bull statue was put on hold as State officials spent the past few weeks debating how to make it both interesting and non-satanic. "It's just totally weird stuff and it's really indicative of the guy," a State Department official said. 💥 Friction point: Landau has had repeated internal dustups within the Trump administration, sources tell Axios. Keep reading.

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State of Disarray (Brendan Smialowski / AFP / Getty)

View in browser Many a heavy-handed metaphor has been constructed on the claim that Washington, D.C., is built on a swamp. This hoary cliché is also, for the most part, untrue—but the neighborhood Foggy Bottom, home to the State Department, really is former marshland. This is perhaps fitting. Stories of decadence, deviousness, and ineptitude within the current Trump administration are a dime a dozen, even at current inflation rates. The Justice Department acts as a private law firm for the president; the Department of Health and Human Services seems dedicated to undermining both; the Hegseth Pentagon is breaking globes, both physically and metaphorically. Yet the State Department has escaped some of the taint that has attached to other departments and agencies. This may be because the exploits elsewhere are so blatant, and because Secretary of State Marco Rubio has a reputation as one of the more serious figures in the administration. Whatever the reasons, the State Department may deserve more opprobrium than it has received. One of the guiding philosophies of the second Trump presidency, imported from Project 2025, is that personnel is policy: The success of an administration depends on who staffs it. State shows how this can go very wrong. Perhaps holding Kimberly Guilfoyle, the ousted ambassador to Greece who was allegedly selling access, against the department would be unfair. After all, she was a political choice, likely selected as a thank-you from the president whose campaign she assisted, and to whose son she was previously engaged. But other appointments cannot be so easily explained away. One example is Darren Beattie, whose title is senior adviser for Western Hemisphere affairs. He has particular interest in policy toward Brazil, where the administration has worked to assist the right-wing movement associated with the Bolsonaro family; he is also president of the U.S. Institute of Peace, on which Trump has scrawled his own name. Beattie’s career shows the difference between the first and second Trump administrations: When his speech to white nationalists was revealed during the first, he was fired. In the second, he was welcomed back and given a plum role. One of his colleagues now is Nate Hochman. Once seen as a rising star of mainstream conservatism, Hochman went from National Review to the 2024 presidential campaign of Ron DeSantis, from which he was fired for sharing a video featuring Nazi imagery. After a pit stop working for Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri, who has regularly made ethnonationalist comments (yes, he’s also the guy with the Jack Smith gaffe), he landed at the State Department, where he is reportedly Rubio’s chief speechwriter. This might explain why the secretary’s recent speech in Athens was so obsessed with supposed threats to the West. The overlapping politics does not appear to be coincidental. Jeremy Carl, who has warned that “white culture” is imperiled, missed out on a chance to join Beattie and Hochman only when his Senate hearing in February completely derailed over offensive old tweets and his inability to explain his own views. The department now has an “Office of Remigration,” using a white-nationalist shibboleth for ethnic cleansing. Some of the State Department’s hires are questionable less for ideological than for personality reasons. Britt McHenry, a former ESPN personality who then deployed culture-war takes to become a mid-tier MAGA figure, joined the State Department last month as a press adviser, but her time there was short: She was resigned this past Friday after throwing a drink at a fan during a Washington Wizards game. Another recent departure is Paolo Zampolli, an old Trump hanger-on most famous for introducing the president and first lady. Zampolli snagged a State Department appointment as special envoy for global partnerships, focused on cultural affairs, but then quickly began meddling in issues that were not in his remit. (Not that he was aware what his remit was: “I didn’t even read the notification” to Congress about his role. “I don’t know about the notification,” he told Politico, saying he took direction from Trump.) Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau’s attempts to control Zampolli produced what Politico described as “a monthslong fight” conducted via “emails that at times included more than a dozen administration officials.” Shortly after that scoop, Zampolli was fired. Zampolli isn’t the only one inattentive to cultural diplomacy. Officials have been rampaging against a painting in the embassy in the Dominican Republic by the artist Kehinde Wiley, who is best known (perhaps not incidentally) for painting President Obama’s official portrait. Trump officials have referred to it as “very woke,” “aesthetically terrifying,” and a lesbian picnic. (The piece is much less titillating than this might suggest: It depicts four people posing over one of Wiley’s trademark floral patterns.) Are any top officials at the State Department above this chaos? Yes, but maybe not for long. My colleague Vivian Salama reported earlier this year on the deserted halls of the department, and The Washington Sun last week reported that leaders are working to promote political loyalists but squeeze out senior foreign-service officers, the most experienced members of the nonpolitical career staff trained in foreign relations. “The State Department is trying to get people to quit,” one officer told the Sun. Sometime soon, we might get a chance to learn what happens when diplomacy is fully in the hands of the least diplomatic people imaginable. Related: The end of diplomacy Marco Rubio’s disappearing Signal chat