Bid to replace Tillerson with CIA director eyed
WASHINGTON — After months of clashes on policy and personality, U.S. President Donald Trump is considering ousting Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and replacing him with hard-nosed CIA director Mike Pompeo following less than a year on the job, senior U.S. officials said Thursday as turmoil within Trump’s national security team burst into the open.
The White House plan, which Trump has not yet signed off on, would force a major realignment early in his term, also creating a vacancy atop the CIA that officials said could be filled by Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas. The overhaul could produce a significant shift in both the tone and direction of the president’s foreign policy, removing it from the understated former oil man whose style has never fit well with Trump’s.
It is exceedingly rare for a secretary of state, America’s face on the global stage, to be fired or to serve for a year or less. Nor is it common for presidents to have such a significant cabinet revamp so soon after taking office. Too much churn could fuel the perception of chaos in the Trump White House — perhaps one reason he has yet to pull the trigger.
Tillerson’s likely ouster loomed awkwardly over an Oval Office meeting Thursday between Trump and the visiting Bahraini crown prince. Asked by a reporter whether he wanted Tillerson to stay on the job, Trump was coy, merely pointing out that Tillerson was in fact in the building.
“He’s here. Rex is here,” the president said.
Timing for any move was uncertain. Defence Secretary Jim Mattis, Tillerson’s closest ally in the administration, simply brushed off the report. “There’s nothing to it,” he said when asked.
But White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders didn’t deny it. She did suggest that no move was imminent, saying the president and Tillerson planned to “work together to close out what we’ve seen to be an incredible year.”
Friction between the president and the top U.S. diplomat has grown increasingly public through the year. After a report last month that Tillerson had called the president a “moron,” Tillerson was forced to appear before cameras at the State Department to pledge fealty his boss.
Pompeo, in contrast, has formed a tight relationship with Trump that’s led to a role much broader than many past CIA chiefs. A former businessman and conservative Republican congressman from Kansas, Pompeo is at the White House nearly every day to deliver the daily intelligence briefing, a task often delegated to less senior officials. He sometimes stays longer to accompany Trump to other meetings.