Secretaurus Rex: A Tragedy in One Act
Tuesday, March 13, 2018
By Reed Galen
Rex Tillerson was an international player. He lorded over a bureaucracy of thousands and outposts across the globe. He regularly held high-level negotiations with world leaders and hopped the globe on fancy private jets.
Then he became Secretary of State.
That Mr. Tillerson was fired by President Donald J. Trump is no surprise. That there is disagreement, intrigue and a general level of immaturity in how the dismissal was carried off is no surprise either. The fact that Tillerson lasted nearly 14 months in the job is nearly a feat of inhuman strength.
President Trump has a fetish for wealthy CEOs, seeing them and military flag officers (generals and admirals) as the only people comparable to himself. Tillerson in that regard should have been the archetype for a senior Trump cabinet member.
There was one problem with this theory: Rex Tillerson is a highly intelligent, accomplished individual who likely didn’t suffer fools as CEO of Exxon and wasn’t able to suffer Donald Trump and his White House of Misfit Toys. The Secretary of State is first among equals in the American Cabinet. I have no doubt Tillerson believed that and expected a level of respect and deference because of it.
Last year, stories abounded about Tillerson’s clashes with, among others, Jared Kushner and Johnny DeStefano over his personnel picks to attempt to flesh out Foggy Bottom’s political ranks. With longtime Foreign Service Officers fleeing for the exits, Tillerson and his immediate staff probably felt both understaffed and unprotected as they attempted to wrestle one of America’s most storied bureaucracies.
As the chief spokesperson, fixer and negotiator for the United States Government, a visit by the American foreign minister is often major news and sets a tone for relations between countries. For most of our history, the president and his national security team set international priorities and senior members of the team took on tasks specific to their roles.
President Trump’s foreign policy is schizophrenic (on a good day) and a U-turn from the last 70 years of American moral, economic and military leadership around the world. Tillerson must have felt, on any given day, he was lashed to the mast of the ship of state as Trump cackled maniacally looking for icebergs to hit at flank speed.
Besides all this, though, Tillerson has really been a dead man walking since last summer. As the report goes, Tillerson and other members of the Trump national security tank were meeting in The Tank at the Pentagon. Sometime during the course of that meeting, Tillerson called Trump a “f%#$ing moron.” Loyalty or not, you can’t talk about your boss, let alone the leader of the free world, like that.
After those remarks, Rex had to be waiting for Michael to kiss him in Havana at midnight. He was disloyal, disrespectful and frustrated enough to let his emotions get the better of him. Then, when asked repeatedly whether he’d insulted the president, Tillerson wouldn’t deny it, relying on a spokeswoman to take up that task sometime later.
Already this morning there are a number of headlines that criticize Donald Trump for expecting loyalty before all else. About this, there is little doubt. Certainly, Tillerson never showed the sort of kowtowing subservience Trump appears to expect from everyone who works from him (generals excepted, of course.) But there also appeared to be significant policy differences in how America’s foreign policy should be conducted: Trump is the president and Tillerson isn’t.
One of Trump’s greatest tricks, which he has perpetrated on the millionaires and billionaires that stock his Cabinet, is that his success will somehow translate to their success. Trump has no interest in allowing anyone, talent or ability notwithstanding, to outshine him or allow it to appear he is not 100% in control. Rex Tillerson violated nearly all of Trump’s rules in this regard. He was rewarded for service by being fired by a tweet. At least Comey got a letter and found out from CNN.
Reed Galen is a national political consultant.
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