Trump fires Tillerson, appoints Pompeo Secretary of State

In a stunning shake-up, President Donald Trump on Tuesday ousted his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, replacing him by CIA Director Mike Pompeo. He also named CIA’s Deputy Director Gina Haspel as the first woman chief of the country’s top intelligence organisation.

 Trump took to Twitter to make announcement that caught everyone by surprise. Tillerson, who had just returned to Washington from an official visit to Africa, learned about his ouster from the presidential tweet. Sources close to Tillerson were quoted as saying that he was not even notified about it.

“I think Mike Pompeo will be a truly great secretary of state. I have total confidence in him. And as far as Rex Tillerson is concerned, I very much appreciate his commitment and his service and I wish him well. He’s a good man,” Trump told reporters a little later at the White House.

He then went on to say that the two of them “disagreed on things”, pointedly referring to the differences over the Iran nuclear deal, negotiated under the Obama administration. Trump said while he thought the deal was “terrible”, Tillerson “felt a little bit differently” and “thought it was OK”.  

“With Mike, Mike Pompeo, we have a very similar thought process. I think it’s going to go very well,” Trump said. Pompeo, being viewed in liberal circles as a “hawk” as compared to the “moderate” Tillerson, has, like Trump, been a stringent critic of the Iran deal.

Trump lavished praise on Pompeo, calling him a man of “tremendous energy, tremendous intellect”.  “We’re always on the same wavelength. The relationship has been very good and that’s what I need as Secretary of State,” Trump said, adding: “I wish Rex Tillerson well.”

Although the timing of Tillerson’s ouster came as a surprise, the speculation that Trump was likely to get rid of him has been rife for many months, particularly after the Secretary of State reportedly dubbed the President a “moron” after a meeting at the Pentagon last July. Tillerson himself offered only roundabout denials on this score subsequently.

Responding to a question about the announcement that Tillerson did not know was coming, Trump said: “Rex and I have been talking about this for a long time. We got along, actually, quite well but we disagreed on things. When you look at the Iran deal; I think it’s terrible, I guess he thought it was OK. I wanted to either break it or do something and he felt a little bit differently. So we were not really thinking the same.”

At the same time, he called Rex “a very good man”, adding: “I like Rex a lot. I really appreciate his commitment to service and I’ll be speaking to Rex over a long period of time.” At another point, Trump went on to say: “I think he (Rex) is going to be very happy. I think Rex will be much happier now but I really appreciate his service but with Mike we’ve had a very good chemistry right from the beginning.”

When pointedly asked if he fired Tillerson over the ‘moron’ comment, Trump responded: “What?” When asked again, he, amid the roar of Marine One helicopter in the background, said: “Say it again.” He didn’t quite answer that question, but maintained that he got along well with Tillerson as well.

At the State Department, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Steve Goldstein was quoted as saying that Tillerson had no knowledge of his impending ouster as he landed in Washington in the pre-dawn hours. Goldstein said Tillerson had expected to remain in office for the foreseeable future.

North Korea was another matter on which Trump and Tillerson were not on the same page for long. While Tillerson favoured a diplomatic approach all along, Trump once ticked him off on Twitter on this score. But when he finally decided to accept Kim Jong Un’s invitation for a meeting, he did not keep Tillerson in the loop.

Admitting this, Trump told a questioner: “No, I really didn’t discuss it (the North Korean invite) very much with him (Tillerson), honestly. I made that decision by myself. Rex wasn’t, as you know, in this country. I made the North Korea decision with consultation from many people but I made that decision by myself.”

On his decision to elevate Haspel as CIA chief, Trump said: “She will be the CIA’s first-ever female director, a historic milestone. Mike and Gina have worked together for more than a year, and have developed a great mutual respect.”

Pompeo, reacting to the announcement, said: “His (Trump’s) leadership has made America safer and I look forward to representing him and the American people to the rest of the world to further America’s prosperity…If confirmed, I look forward to guiding the world’s finest diplomatic corps in formulating and executing the President’s foreign policy.”