Wednesday, October 04, 2017

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson almost quit this summer after calling Trump a "moron." Mike Pence convinced him to stay.

Courtesy of NBC News:  

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was on the verge of resigning this past summer amid mounting policy disputes and clashes with the White House, according to multiple senior administration officials who were aware of the situation at the time. 

The tensions came to a head around the time President Donald Trump delivered a politicized speech in late July to the Boy Scouts of America, an organization Tillerson once led, the officials said. 

Just days earlier, 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, according to three officials familiar with the incident. 

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, and other top administration officials urged him to remain in the job at least until the end of the year, officials said. 

Officials said that the administration, beset then by a series of high-level firings and resignations, would have struggled to manage the fallout from a Cabinet secretary of his stature departing within the first year of Trump’s presidency.

Actually I am not at all convinced that managed the fallout from the large number that have already resigned or been fired.

However losing Tillerson would have only amplified the fact that Trump is in way over his head.

Donald Trump's Defense Minister General James Mattis also seems to engaging in a little mutiny.

Courtesy of the New York Times

Days before President Trump has to make a critical decision on whether to hold up the Iran nuclear deal, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis openly split with him on abandoning the agreement, the second senior member of the president’s national security team to recently contradict him. 

Mr. Mattis told senators on Tuesday that it was in America’s interest to stick with the deal, which Mr. Trump has often dismissed as a “disaster.” 

“Absent indications to the contrary, it is something that the president should consider staying with,” Mr. Mattis told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee after being repeatedly pressed on the issue. 

The comments were the latest example of how Mr. Trump’s instincts on national security — to threaten North Korea with destruction and tear up an Iran accord that most experts and allies say is working — are running headlong into opposition from his own National Security Council.

I would bet my house that there are a whole lot of folks in this Administration, and on the White House staff, calling Trump a moron and much worse behind his back.

Right now he is likely seen as no more than a performing monkey working to keep the public distracted, while aides and cabinet members try to get as many things as possible accomplished before this presidency implodes.

Which, let's face it, could be any day now.

18 comments:

  1. Trump just called this "fake news."

    Hah!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What else would one expect from a fake president?

      Delete
    2. Of course he did. Carol Lee is my first cousin and she was one of those who broke this story and she is NOT backing down. She is reporting the TRUTH. I am so excited to see her in this new role and yeah I am obviously biased but she's not FAKE NEWS. The fake news is whatever our orange oligarch says.

      Delete
  2. Anonymous11:16 AM

    MAGA: Morons are governing America.

    Or trying to.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous11:51 AM

    Monleys on crack.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous12:11 PM

    Lol. San Juan mayor got more cahonies than tilly.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous1:25 PM

      San Juan mayor is actually making an ass out of herself and is obviously playing lefty politics to the extreme. Of course, she would be a hero to the blind here at IM. She will probably end up in jail for corruption before too long much like Nagin did.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous3:32 PM

      Hey 1:25pm

      Was Ray Nagin making an ass out of himself when he got irate at Bush II during Katrina?

      Hello, these people hold positions of power and people count on them and our POTUS is an idiot that waited 10 days to send any help.

      You can't really be so retarded that you can't see that she has a point, right?

      I realize from your prose that you are stupid but I'm just trying to parse whether or not you are actually mentally retarded. Help me out here ;-)

      Delete
    3. Anonymous4:07 PM

      Question: "Was Ray Nagin making an ass out of himself when he got irate at Bush II during Katrina?"

      Answer: Yes, then he went to jail.

      Delete
  5. Fourth in line doesn’t mean squat. I suppose Pence could have promised to make Tillerson his VP when he becomes president.

    Otherwise if Tillerson was about to resign over that, Trump will do something even more outrageous and Tillerson will resign anyway, no matter the carrot to stay.

    North Korea might do it. Maybe Tillerson thinks he’s the only one standing between Trump and nuclear war. If Trump launches those nukes, Tillerson may say screw you and take his family to Europe for a few years.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous3:29 PM

      If Trump launches our nukes at NoKo then it's game over. We in usa will be fine, but unfortunately a few SoKo and Chinese will be obliterated along with all of NoKo.

      Delete
  6. Anonymous12:55 PM

    Tillerson didn’t call Trump a Moron, he called him a fucking Moron. It must be true because after hearing all the women he tried to get into bed with him, Trump would fuck anything and everyone.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous1:01 PM

    The sight of him throwing paper towels to people in the crowd was "terrible and abominable", she added.


    THE PUERTO RICAN PEOPLE IN THAT ROOM ARE GROWN ASS HONORABLE PEOPLE

    BROWN OR NOT, THAT WHITE TURD SHOULD NOT BE THROWING CRAP AT THEM.


    BBC:
    Puerto Rico: Trump paper towel-throwing 'abominable'

    The mayor of Puerto Rico's capital, San Juan, has described Donald Trump's visit to the hurricane-hit island as "insulting" and called him a "miscommunicator-in-chief".

    Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz described his televised meeting with officials as a "PR, 17-minute meeting".

    The sight of him throwing paper towels to people in the crowd was "terrible and abominable", she added.

    Mr Trump tweeted it had been a "great day" in Puerto Rico.

    But he also took another swipe at the reporting of his trip.

    The sight of him throwing paper towels to people in the crowd was "terrible and abominable", she added....

    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41504165

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous1:30 PM

    OT Alaska:
    https://www.adn.com/politics/2017/10/04/interior-department-executive-reassigned-after-linking-climate-change-to-alaska-village-impacts-resigns/

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous1:49 PM

    "Trump was told by former FBI director James Comey that Steele’s report contained salacious material about the businessman-turned-president."In a report published in January four U.S. intelligence agencies said they took the dossier’s allegations seriously."

    https://www.rawstory.com/2017/10/special-counsel-muellers-russia-investigation-now-includes-infamous-trump-dossier-report/

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous3:23 PM

    Whew, you know it's bad when even a single liberal finds an Exxon executive as the Ambassador-in-Chief of America is a good thing.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous3:57 PM

    HAH! Now he's denying it. Well, Tillerson, looks like you're stuck either way. 3-1/2 years dealing with the moron, or resigning and prove yourself a liar. Boo HOO.

    ReplyDelete
  12. WA Skeptic6:55 AM

    In Tillerson's former position, DJT wouldn't have even gotten into his office. Those boys in Big Oil are too used to having the power of life and death over everyone else. I can't imagine what must have been offered to make Tillerson accept this job.

    ReplyDelete

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