Is Tillerson the next to leave Trump’s White House?
It is not every day that a US secretary of state goes on national television to deny that he is being “castrated” or had called the president “a moron”. So Rex Tillerson’s latest media appearances, and his policy differences with Donald Trump, have increased the buzz in Washington about his departure and possible replacements.
“I checked. I’m fully intact,” Mr Tillerson told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday in response to a leading Republican senator’s comment that Mr Trump “cannot publicly castrate” his secretary of state.
But again, yesterday, reports in US media indicated that Mr Tillerson’s tenure at the state department may be approaching its end.
News website Axios, which was first to report on Mr Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, is reporting that the game of musical chairs inside the Trump administration is centred on replacing Mr Tillerson.
This would entail “sliding CIA director Mike Pompeo over” to be the new secretary of state, and then nominating Republican senator Tom Cotton to be CIA director. Another scenario, according to two sources, would bring in US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley as secretary of state and send deputy national security adviser Dina Habib Powell to the UN.
The appointment of either Mr Pompeo or Ms Haley would bring someone more aligned with White House foreign policy views to the state department.
Mr Trump and Mr Tillerson have had public differences on the US approach to North Korea, the Qatar dispute, the Iran deal, the Paris agreement and trade with Mexico.
Mr Tillerson told CNN that the US was trying to stay in the Iran nuclear deal, while Mr Trump said yesterday that walking away might be “more likely”.
These differences are more acute on North Korea, where the secretary of state floated the idea of a diplomatic channel with Pyongyang only to be chided by Mr Trump on Twitter that he was “wasting his time”.
One source expected Mr Tillerson to leave the position in early 2018 to save face, especially after the NBC report that he threatened to resign last summer.
This would give the administration time to fill another vacancy at the health and human services department, as well as confirm its nominee for the department of homeland security, Kirstjen Nielsen.