What Firing Rex Tillerson Could Mean For Trump And The World
The Tuesday dismissal of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson made him the third senior official to depart President Trump’s administration in two weeks, along with communications director Hope Hicks and White House chief economic adviser Gary Cohn. Secretary of state is, in theory, a much more powerful job than the posts held by Cohn and Hicks. That’s “in theory” because it was never clear if Tillerson had the influence that his title usually conveys. Even so, it’s a major move — compounded by the fact that his named replacement is CIA Director Mike Pompeo, meaning another Cabinet-level position will also soon have a new person in the role.
To make some sense of all this, let’s look at this departure using our rubric of “Five Questions To Ask Every Time Someone Leaves the Trump Administration.”
1. How long was this person on the job?
Tillerson lasted just over a year. This is unusual: The last six secretaries of state all served four years, a full presidential term. A few recent secretaries of state have served short stints at the end of presidencies, but the last comparable departure was in 1982, when Alexander Haig stepped down after a year and a half, citing policy differences with President Ronald Reagan.
2. Was the departure planned?
Not really. There were rumors back in November that Pompeo would replace Tillerson, and Trump and Tillerson have long had a tense relationship. But his exit was announced suddenly, as opposed to other departures that are due to routine government personnel rotations.
3. Is there a clear reason for the departure?
Trump, in remarks explaining the firing, suggested that he and Tillerson differed on foreign policy issues. Trump specifically named the Iran nuclear deal; Tillerson reportedly favors the United States remaining involved in the deal even as the president has pushed for the U.S. to either change the deal or leave it. Trump suggested that he and Pompeo, in contrast, were more in sync on policy. That seems mostly true.
In fact, it’s worth considering this dismissal in the context of Cohn’s resignation last week. Is the president getting rid of advisers who might hold different views than he does, advisers who are more interested in cultivating the Washington establishment than the president? Tillerson’s appointment, for instance, was championed by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, an influential figure in Republican foreign policy circles.
Pompeo is more hawkish in terms of policy views. (He has long opposed the Iran deal and the Paris climate accord, for example.) Pompeo, while supportive of the intelligence community’s view that Russia interfered in 2016 election, has at times downplayed the Russian role. At Trump’s urging, he met with a man who has suggested that the hacking of Democratic National Committee emails during the 2016 election was a conspiracy carried out by a DNC employee, not Russian figures.
There are rumors that former Reagan administration official and television personality Larry Kudlow will replace Cohn and that former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton will be appointed national security adviser, a post currently held by H.R. McMaster — another official with a tense relationship with the president.
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https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-firing-rex-tillerson-could-mean-for-trump-and-the-world/
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