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.
