Key senior officials show rifts
Cabinet secretaries distance themselves from the president
President Donald Trump’s senior aides are increasingly airing their private disagreements publicly, exposing a widening rift between the president and key members of his administration over his handling of racial divisions exposed by white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Va.
Trump — who has fumed at the media’s criticism of his response to Charlottesville — is also annoyed at similar criticism coming from within his administration, especially National Economic Council adviser Gary Cohn and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, according to people in regular touch with the White House.
Over the weekend, Tillerson suggested that Trump “speaks for himself ” rather than for the country’s values in his reaction to Charlottesville. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis also counseled U.S. troops to “hold the line until our country gets back to respecting each other” and is able to “get the power of inspiration back.”
And Cohn sharply criticized the president’s handling of the situation in an interview with the Financial Times last week.
Among Trump’s allies, the emerging voices of dissent are being likened to a “mutiny” by disloyal aides. But so far, Trump has not taken any action to dismiss anyone, to the disappointment of those same allies.
“You should not air the dirty laundry with the president in public,” said Roger Stone, a longtime Trump adviser and political ally. “On a personal level, he should feel betrayed because he has been.”
“There’s a lot of frustration,” said one Republican in frequent touch with the White House who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly.
“A lot of Trump’s frustration with his staff is that no matter what he does, if he has a good day, it never lasts for more than 24 hours and it’s always because he does something, but he blames others.”
Tillerson’s assertion on Sunday that Trump does not speak for the country’s values produced particularly deep reverberations, coming from the nation’s top diplomat.
Tillerson told Fox News host Chris Wallace that he does not think Trump’s remarks leave other nations confused about what America stands for.
“We express America’s values from the State Department — our commitment to freedom, our commitment to equal treatment of people the world over,” Tillerson said in the Fox News Sunday interview, “and that message has never changed.”
Trump also is being influenced by some allies who have long been suspicious of aides in his orbit, including Tillerson, Mattis and Cohn.
“They all agreed to serve for a number of different reasons —patriotism was certainly one of the primary motivations,” said Eliot Cohen, a former State Department official in the George W. Bush administration, who has been a vocal critic of Trump.
“Some of them are thinking, ‘This is potentially a very dangerous time for the country. I will go in and do my best, in effect, to save the country,’ ” he added.