‘You’re fired’: New chaos in Trump reign

Secretary of State Tillerson is sacked Varadkar warns against trade war

DONALD TRUMP unceremoniously dumped Secretary of State Rex Tillerson by tweet – just days after warning him to quit or be fired.

The sacking of America’s top diplomat escalated the chaos in the White House, which has been the scene of a series of departures recently.

Mr Tillerson was ousted barely four hours after he returned from an Africa mission and with no face-toface conversation with the president.

Citing the Iran nuclear deal and other issues, Mr Trump said he and Mr Tillerson were “not really thinking the same”.

“We disagreed on things,” Mr Trump told reporters at the White House – a diplomatic take on a fractious relationship that included reports that Mr Tillerson had privately called the president a “moron”.

In an illustration of the gulf that has long separated Mr Tillerson and Mr Trump, the White House and the State Department vigorously disagreed about whether Mr Tillerson had even been informed of his firing in advance.

One anonymous official said Chief of Staff John Kelly had called Mr Tillerson (inset) on Friday and again on Saturday to warn him that Mr Trump was about to take imminent action if he did not resign. Meanwhile, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said he hoped Ireland would enjoy the same close relationship with Mr Tillerson’s successor, Mike Pompeo. Speaking at the Brooking Institute in Washington, Mr Varadkar continued with the theme of his St Patrick’s Day trade mission and called on the US to make Ireland its bridge into Europe once

DONALD Trump has sacked Rex Tillerson as his secretary of state and will replace him with CIA director Mike Pompeo.

The US president asked Mr Tillerson to step aside after months of speculation that the pair had fallen out.

The move amounts to a major shake-up in Mr Trump’s national security team and comes despite denials in the past from the president that he wanted Mr Tillerson gone.

It triggered a war of words within the US government as the State Department accused the president of not talking to Mr Tillerson before the sacking.

Mr Trump cited the pair’s differences on the Iran nuclear deal, which the president wants to scrap, when asked about the reason for the change.

The announcement came just hours after Mr Tillerson went substantially further than the White House in linking the UK spy poisoning to Russia.

CNN reported that Mr Tillerson found out about his sacking from Mr Trump’s tweet yesterday. He had just returned from diplomatic trip to Africa.

However, there were also reports that John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, informed Mr Tillerson on Friday he would be replaced. Tensions between Mr Trump and Mr Tillerson came to a head when the latter refused to deny reports he called the president a “moron” last year.

The pair have also publicly sparred over the approach to North Korea, with Mr Trump reprimanding Mr Tillerson in tweets for believing talks with the regime could end their nuclear programme.

Mr Tillerson, a former oil executive, will be replaced by Mr Pompeo, who as the head of the CIA is involved in the president’s daily intelligence briefing – providing his appointment is confirmed by Congress.

There were US media reports that Mr Trump asked Mr Pompeo for advice about topics beyond intelligence before Christmas, when it was said the president was considering making the switch.

Mr Trump said in a statement to the ‘Washington Post’: “I am proud to nominate the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Mike Pompeo, to be our new secretary of state.

“Mike graduated first in his class at West Point, served with distinction in the US army, and graduated with honours from Harvard Law School. He went on to serve in the US House of Representatives with a proven record of working across the aisle.” He added: “I want to thank Rex Tillerson for his service. A great deal has been accomplished over the last 14 months, and I wish him and his family well.”

Mr Trump later said that the pair “were not really thinking the same” on the Iran nuclear deal, which the president called “terrible”. Mr Trump praised the strength of his relationship with Mr Pompeo, saying they had “chemistry”.

But Steve Goldstein, the under secretary of state, issued a statement yesterday morning saying Mr Trump did not talk to Mr Tillerson over the sacking. “The secretary had every intention of staying because of the critical progress made in national security,” he said.

“The secretary did not speak to the president and is unaware of the reason, but he is grateful for the opportunity to serve, and still believes that public service is a noble calling. We wish secretary designate Pompeo well.” Mr Goldstein was then fired by the White House yesterday afternoon.

Meanwhile, The first female director of the CIA is a career spymaster who once ran a secret prison in Thailand and was involved in destroying videos of terror suspects being waterboarded.

Gina Haspel, pictured, was in charge of the “black site” where accused terrorists Abu Zubayadah and Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri were waterboarded in 2002. John Brennan, the former CIA director, said: “Gina Haspel has a lot of integrity.

“She has tried to carry out her duties at the CIA to the best of her ability even when the CIA was asked to do some very difficult things in very challenging times.” (© Daily Telegraph, London)