President Donald Trump of the US has fired his Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, replacing him with CIA Director, Mike Pompeo. Mr. Tillerson, has in turn, announced that he will delegate his official responsibilities to his deputy, though he will technically remain in office through March 31.
Reports said President Trump asked Tillerson to step aside last Friday, when the Foreign Minister, if you will, was still on his first trip to Africa. The White House and State Department later said Mr. Trump wanted to make sure he had a team in place before the recently announced talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, in May.
According to reports, President Trump, who admitted that he and Mr. Tillerson disagreed on things, believes he works well with the CIA boss, Mike Pompeo. He stated that he and Pompeo are “always on the same wavelength” and “we have a very similar thought process.”
In his dealings with Mr. Tillerson, President Trump stated, “We got along quite well but we disagreed on things noting how he and Tillerson felt a bit differently on the Iran nuclear weapons deal. I actually got along well with Rex but really it was a different mindset. It was a different thinking”.
Mr. Tillerson and Trump have had tumultuous points in their relationship in the past one year. One public dispute came to the fore last October after reports said that Tillerson called the president a “moron.”
It was just the week before he left on his first African tour that Tillerson explained why he took the role in the first place. At George Mason University last Tuesday, he recounted his father’s military service and really felt he needed to serve his country in a public capacity.
For sure, Mr. Tillerson was looking forward to having a very, very successful 2018, as evidenced from the gusto he displayed last week when he touched down in Africa. The Secretary of State wanted to convince African nations that even if President Trump had referred to them as shithole countries, he himself does not buy that.
