Tillerson Trashing Going Ahead

Tillerson’s move on Wednesday to reassure Trump of his convictions may well be too little and too late for the long term, according to the accounts of 19 current and former senior administration officials and Capitol Hill aides, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer candid assessments.

  WaPo

General Kelly has really stopped all that leaking, hasn't he?

Tillerson’s dwindling cohort of allies say he has been given an impossible job and is doing his best with it.

[...]

For months now, Trump has been piqued by rumors of disloyalty that have filtered up to him from Foggy Bottom, the home of the State Department. In private meetings, the president has also been irked by Tillerson’s arguments for a more-traditional approach on policies, from Iran to climate change to North Korea, and by Tillerson’s visible frustration when overruled. Trump has chafed at what he sees as arrogance on the part of an employee.

Only the master is allowed to be arrogant. Employee. Secretary of State is now simply an employee of the president.

And as Tillerson has traveled the globe, Trump believes his top diplomat often seems more concerned with what the world thinks of the United States than with tending to the president’s personal image.

Gasp! The ultimate sacrilege.

Meanwhile, Tillerson — who ran one of the world’s largest corporations with near-dictatorial control — has struggled to submit to the whims and wishes of a boss who governs by impulse.

[T]ensions escalated badly over the past few weeks as Tillerson and his small circle of aides clashed with White House officials over matters as big as the direction of U.S. policy in Afghanistan and as small as Tillerson’s habit, according to White House officials, of neglecting to return phone calls.

[...]

Tillerson has repeatedly ended up on the losing side of important policy discussions, and people familiar with White House views say Trump resents him for the debates he has won, including a grudging decision last month to add U.S. forces to the inconclusive 16-year war in Afghanistan. [...]

“The White House thinking is unequivocal that he’s going to be gone soon, but the assumption is that he’s going to quit on his own so Trump can say, ‘Thank you for your year of service,’ ” said a former senior official who has held recent meetings at the White House.

If Nasty Trump can hold out that long.

Tillerson has complained about the fuzzy lines of authority and about being cut out of some decisions involving Kushner, two people familiar with his thinking said. Kushner has told others in the administration that Tillerson is too dismissive of colleagues.

I give him less than a month. Unless he can come up with some more public compliments.

On Wednesday, Tillerson praised the foreign policy model that Trump espouses and against which Tillerson himself has argued in a series of internal debates. Trump’s national security team is united in “doing great things for the United States of America to make America great again,” Tillerson said, echoing Trump’s campaign theme.

“He loves his country,” he said. “He puts Americans and America first. He’s smart. He demands results wherever he goes and he holds those around him accountable.”

Trump responded favorably. “I was very honored by his comments,” he told reporters during a visit to Las Vegas. “Total confidence in Rex, I have total confidence.”

As long as he keeps kissing my big fat ass.

[Tillerson] complained to friends about competing power centers and a culture of backstabbing within the Trump administration that is very different from the top-down corporate culture he left.

And Dolt 45 encourages that backstabbing culture. Thrives on it.

Tillerson’s tenure remains decidedly uncertain, and many in the West Wing and in Congress suggested Wednesday that a “Rexit” was still likely by early 2018.

I think that's a fair bet.

“Tillerson has no help. No team, no natural allies, and he’s not hiring anyone,” one former senior official said. “There’s a kind of death spiral.”

Although he insisted he had never considered resigning, several people close to Mr. Tillerson said he has had to be talked out of drafting a letter of resignation on more than one occasion by his closest allies, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff. And they said he has regularly expressed astonishment at how little Mr. Trump understands the basics of foreign policy.

  NYT

If they're "close to Mr. Tillerson," they must want him to lose that job. Is he going to have to go on TV and denounce this report, too?

At the same time, Mr. Tillerson has alienated lawmakers, foreign policy veterans and the news media while demoralizing the State Department, and critics inside and outside the White House consider his troubles self-inflicted.

[...]

Mr. Trump. Mr. Tillerson has avoided expressing his pique to the president. But aides and Trump associates who have been in the room with them said Mr. Tillerson’s body language, eye rolling and terse expressions left little doubt that he disapproves of Mr. Trump’s approach.

"Eye rolling"!

Mr. Trump, they said, has noticed how Mr. Tillerson slouches in his presence, particularly when he disagrees with a decision. When overruled, Mr. Tillerson often says, “It’s your deal,” to the president’s irritation, according to two former administration officials.

[...]

Mr. Tillerson groused to White House officials about Mr. Trump’s tweets, describing them as counterproductive to his efforts at diplomacy, according to a person with direct knowledge.

I may need to revise my estimate of when he leaves downward from within the month.

Mr. Tillerson felt compelled on Wednesday to address the internal schism after NBC News reported that he had been prepared to step down this summer until he was talked out of it and that after a meeting of national security officials at the Pentagon he had derided Mr. Trump as a “moron.”

"Felt compelled." I bet he was very strongly urged.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 7:30PM:

Strongly urged, indeed.

John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, abruptly scrapped plans to travel with President Donald Trump on Wednesday so he could try to contain his boss’s fury and manage the fallout from new revelations about tensions between the president and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, according to six senior administration officials.

[...]

Trump was furious when he saw the NBC News report, which was published shortly before 6 a.m. Wednesday

For the next two hours the president fumed inside the White House, venting to Kelly, officials said..

He left for Las Vegas shortly after 8 a.m., 20 minutes behind schedule.

[...]

Tillerson scrambled to pull together a statement, while his spokesman publicly apologized for his comments about Pence and Haley, saying he “spoke out of line about conversations I wasn’t privy to.”

  NBC

Yeah, Spokesman R.C. Hammond is probably packing his things right now.

Kelly summoned Tillerson, and their ally Defense Secretary James Mattis, to the White House, where the three of them huddled to discuss a path forward, according to three administration officials. The White House downplayed Kelly's decision to stay in Washington, saying he did so to manage day-to-day operations.

Who do they think they're fooling any more?

Tillerson delivered a statement praising Trump and insisting he never considered resigning, but it’s what he didn’t say that further enraged Trump, officials said.

The secretary’s refusal to deny that he had called the president a “moron” in his opening statement and in his responses to questions from reporters stoked Trump’s anger and widened the rift between the two men, officials said.

Rex isn't far behind Hammond.

And General Kelly may have  to be hospitalized.