Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Tillerson’s Fury at Trump Required an Intervention From Pence



Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had openly disparaged the president, referring to him as a “moron,” after a July 20 meeting at the Pentagon with members of Trump’s national security team and Cabinet officials, reports NBC News.

It is unclear whether Trump was told of Tillerson’s outburst after the Pentagon meeting or to what extent the president was briefed on Tillerson’s plan to resign earlier in the year.

While it's unclear if he was aware of the incident, Vice President Mike Pence counseled Tillerson, who is fourth in line to the presidency, on ways to ease tensions with Trump, says NBC.



It’s unclear if the latest disagreement between the White House and Tillerson on North Korea spells an end to the late-July reset.

Nicholas Burns, former undersecretary of state for political affairs under President George W. Bush, said Trump “completely undercut Tillerson” with his tweets.

“This was a direct public, I thought, repudiation of what Tillerson said,” Burns said. “It feeds the perception that Tillerson does not have a trusting relationship with the president, and that’s very harmful.”

  -RW

UPDATE


1 comment:

  1. Tillerson publicly DK'd this story in an unscheduled press conference this am. Curious if he was asked to or forced or something in between. Interesting contrast between this scenario and Gary Cohn's consideration of resignation story kerfluffle over Charlottesville.

    ReplyDelete