Tillerson may not last long with Trump
The moment was as remarkable as it was unprecedented: A sitting US secretary of state pledged his fealty to the President at a press conference called in response to a report he had called Donald Trump a “moron”.
Rex Tillerson said he would stay as long as Trump wants him to — despite his well-documented unhappiness in the job and the growing presumption in Washington that he is a short-timer.
Tillerson, asked directly whether on July 20 he had called the President a “moron”, did not deny it — instead describing the report as “petty nonsense”.. Shortly afterwards, Tillerson’s spokeswoman felt compelled to publicly deny the NBC News report.
But Tillerson’s move to reassure Trump may well be too little and too late for the long term, according to the accounts of 19 current and former senior administration officials and Capitol Hill aides.
The already tense relationship between the two headstrong men — one a billionaire former real estate developer, the other a former ExxonMobil chief executive — has ruptured into what some White House officials call an irreparable breach that will inevitably lead to Tillerson’s departure, whether immediately or not. Tillerson’s dwindling cohort of allies say he has been given an impossible job and is doing his best.
For months now, Trump has been piqued by rumours of disloyalty that have filtered up to him from the State Department. In private meetings, the President has also been irked by Tillerson’s arguments for a more traditional approach on policies, from Iran to climate change to North Korea, and his visible frustration when overruled. Trump has chafed at what he sees as arrogance on the part of an employee. And as Tillerson has travelled the globe, Trump believes his top diplomat often seems more concerned with what the world thinks of the United States than with tending to the President’s personal image.
Tillerson has struggled to submit to the whims and wishes of a boss who governs by impulse. Deliberative in style, he has been caught off guard by Trump’s fiery and injudicious tweets and repulsed by some flashes of the President’s character, such as when Trump said there were “fine people” among those marching at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville. “The President speaks for himself,” Tillerson said.
“He, from my perspective, is in an incredibly frustrating place,” Senator Bob Corker said of Tillerson yesterday, calling him one of several Administration officials “separating our country from chaos”. Corker added: “He ends up not being supported in a way that I would hope a secretary of state would be supported”.
Yesterday, Tillerson praised the foreign policy model that Trump espouses and that Tillerson has argued against in internal debates. “He puts Americans and America first. He’s smart. He demands results wherever he goes and he holds those around him accountable.” Trump responded: “I was very honoured by his comments.. Total confidence in Rex, I have total confidence.”
The White House and State Department both denied the NBC report that Tillerson had insulted Trump . But West Wing aides said the rumour of such a remark had floated in the halls before the NBC story..