I keep hearing reports that Donald Trump doesn’t actually like to fire people, and maybe he just prefers to make them so miserable that they’ll quit on their own. That certainly seems to be the route he chose with his press secretary Sean Spicer and the one he’s pursuing with Attorney General Jeff Sessions. And it may be how he’s dealing with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, too.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is growing increasingly frustrated with the Trump administration and could quit before the year is through, according to reports.
Two sources familiar with Tillerson’s conversations with friends told CNN over the weekend that he has grown so frustrated with President Donald Trump and his administration that there may soon be a “Rexit.”
The change in Tillerson’s tone followed a stressful week for the secretary of state. He was found to have violated U.S. sanctions against Russia while working as CEO of Exxon Mobil. Also, Trump publicly assailed one of Tillerson’s fellow Cabinet members, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, saying he regretted hiring him.
Tillerson, the sources said, viewed Trump’s comments as unprofessional.
Early Monday, Trump again attacked Sessions on Twitter, calling him “beleaguered” and wondering aloud why he wasn’t investigating Trump’s campaign rival Hillary Clinton.
Before last week, Tillerson had strongly maintained he would see through his task of reorganizing the entire State Department after Trump’s March budget proposal laid out plans to cut $10 billion from its roughly $47 billion in funding. But that resolve seems to have dimmed.
Of course, it’s possible that Trump isn’t intentionally making people want to quit, although that seems especially unlikely in the case of Sessions. In Tillerson’s case, it could just be a clash of personalities and management styles. Yet, it’s notable that the Treasury Department just singled out Tillerson for violating the sanctions against Russia while he was serving as the CEO of ExxonMobil. I mean, you don’t see stuff like this everyday:
Two of President Trump’s most senior cabinet members became embroiled Thursday in an unusual legal battle over whether ExxonMobil under Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s leadership violated U.S. sanctions against Russia.
Treasury officials fined ExxonMobil $2 million Thursday morning for signing eight business agreements in 2014 with Igor Sechin, the chief executive of Rosneft, an energy giant partially owned by the Russian government. The business agreements came less than a month after the United States banned companies from doing business with him.
Hours after the fine was announced, Exxon filed a legal complaint against the Treasury Department — naming Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin as the lead defendant — while calling the actions “unlawful” and “fundamentally unfair.”
You might remember Igor Sechin as the man that Carter Page allegedly met with in Moscow. I wrote about that saga back in January in a piece called: Mnuchin Needs to Explain the 19.5% Sale of Rosneft. Here’s a refresher on what was said about the Rosneft deal in the Steele Dossier.
Why did Mnuchin go after Tillerson? Did he get a sign off on his attack from Trump? Did he freelance? Was he sending a message?
I don’t know the answers to these questions, but it’s all screwed up beyond recognition.
What’s clear is that Tillerson is genuinely unhappy, and he’s been unhappy since long before Sessions became Trump’s punching boy:
Last month, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner was the one calling Tillerson “unprofessional.” The secretary of state reportedly blew up at top Trump administration staffers during a meeting in White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus’s office.
Four people familiar with the details of the meeting described the heated exchange to Politico. During his tirade, Tillerson quarreled with the director of presidential personnel, Johnny DeStefano, and made clear he didn’t want the White House to “have any role in staffing.”
Tillerson has been frustrated after Trump and the White House rejected a number of his hiring decisions.
It sounds like Tillerson has one foot out the door, but it’s hard to say for sure if he’s leaving voluntarily or being pushed out.
Losing his press secretary, Attorney General and Secretary of State in rapid succession would make for an interesting communications challenge. I wonder if Trump’s new communications director Anthony Scaramucci has anything better than beauty tips to offer to Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who will supposedly be back on camera in her new role as Spicer’s permanent replacement.
I make no excuses for anyone who signed onto the Trump Circus. If any of them thought it was going to be a job that had a bright future and easy money, well they deserve to get a healthy dose of reality right upside the head. Trump comes first, regardless, and his kids are next. Anyone else is disposable.
But I will say that just from my own personal experience, working in a toxic environment for people who are essentially narcissistic and vindictive is a soul-shattering experience. Tillerson and some of the others who are in the bullseye may be just as terrible, but they probably never thought it would happen to them.
At any rate, good riddance.
It’s because Trump doesn’t know what their jobs are.
That’s all that’s going on. It’s not interpersonal; it’s not about competence; it’s not about loyalty (except insofar as those issues emerge from the dissonance of this ignorance and confusion on the part of the President). He doesn’t understand what they’re supposed to be doing so he’s routinely baffled and angry by what they do.
It’s not just a “division of labor” issues, as can reasonably happen. To understand the Secretary of State you have to understand that democratic governments have a “State Department” staffed by hires and appointees with expertise in foreign policy who work with the executive and the legislature to develop and pursue that policy. To understand the Attorney General Trump would have to know that there’s a “Justice Department” sworn to uphold the constitution with carry-over between administrations.
Trump understands none of this. Remember during the campaign when he was asked what kind of Supreme Court justice he would appoint and he said one who “would arrest Hillary Clinton”? And the press said, oh, Ho ho ho, he sure is amusing; what a card. But he wasn’t kidding. The classic banana republic model of government is how Trump thinks it actually work; how it should work.
Perhaps. I don’t think he is that ignorant, well maybe a little. I think he has a personality disorder. He doesn’t relate well to situations or people. Over years he has been accustomed to doing things his way no matter what, and getting what he wants. I suppose having everything you want helps make you that way and reinforces it. And he is narcissistic with a very large ego, and he is vindictive, like he just can’t let his hate for Obama or Hillary go. It is natural for him to blame others for problems. That is why he likes twitter so much. He even blames his friends om congress for his troubles with Russia. Heck a thinking person would spend time to learn the nuances of his job and take advice, but he can’t be bothered.
No, I stand by my statement, and I mean it quite literally: he doesn’t know what their jobs are. The evidence is overwhelming, incontrovertible. Look at the Times interview — he thinks Sessions has a “conflict of interest” because of a disloyalty to Trump personally (not the Presidency or the nation or the constitution). He thinks his Apprentice-style firing power means that the entire Executive Branch works for him and can have no other obligations.
This is quite literally what he thinks; he says it over and over. It’s not even Fascism; it’s just stupidity and arrogance.
Consider that you and Jonf are both correct.
So he is an idiot with a personality disorder. What a great combination.
Sounds about right.
I think there’s no question that, while he has an international-dealing businessman’s familiarity with business elites in some countries, he has little foreign affairs understanding at all. Even more so with the federal government. I don’t really understand how he got through grade school civics glass since he clearly came into the job thinking he, as President, was a kind of king and pretty much still thinks that way. I don’t see him learning on the job. Things will continue to degenerate until such time as he forced out in some way. He is a terrible, historical mistake. Pence is not any better policy-wise but also has zero popular support so wouldn’t even be as viable as Gerald Ford.
Although the MSM will try feverishly to prop up Pence as a return to “normalcy”; they’re desperate to get back to their comfy both sides do it/Dems in disarray/GOP sane guardians of American values rut.
Sadly, I suspect that is pretty close to the mark.
Fretting about a potential President Pence is misplaced.
First, he’s got Trump stink all over him. Pence will be politically damaged by the things he said and did as the Vice President and as the leader of the President’s transition team. A lot of shenanigans took place during the transition, and Pence has told some clearly demonstrable lies about a number of things.
Second, we worry that Pence will use his relationships with Congressional Republicans to help run an efficient legislative program. Well, he’s the chief liason between the White House and Congress on ACA repeal/replace, and that effort has been handled poorly.
Finally, re. this:
“…the MSM will try feverishly to prop up Pence as a return to “normalcy”…”,
Look, when Pence was Governor, he grew to be viewed by people and institutions in Indiana as way too radically conservative.
Way too radically conservative for Indiana.
A guy with that record who possesses the charisma of a wet slice of Wonder bread is not someone we should be scared of. Pence’s relative sanity and popularity shouldn’t be a factor in deciding whether Trump should be ousted from the White House.
Oh, I agree with all of this, especially the need to get Trump out of the presidency. But Pence will have a honeymoon phase before all his negatives become too glaring for even the media to overlook or excuse, and during that time he will do damage. Just noting that things will still be crappy, though not as horrific as now.
As I’ve said before: If given the chance, Pence will wreck the country; Trump will wreck the world. It’s a trade-off I’ll grit my teeth and live with to see the last of our god-emperor.
He’s definitely failing his on the job training.
Given that his speech vocabulary hovers around a 5th grade level, not surprising that he appears not to have absorbed any English, science, history, or government lessons above 6th grade. Or maybe none of that was covered at his military academy.
True, but for one thing he also doesn’t have any idea what his own job is either, as you know, and for that reason he enjoys the anger bouncing out of the bafflement, and flying into rages. It makes him feel effective, just like old days in the Trump Organization. It’s what Leaders do.
One of the craziest recent tweets went,
If Sessions is “beleaguered” it’s because Trump is beleaguering him, effectively preventing him from doing any job at all, not to mention that there’s no evidence of Hillary crimes or Russia relations. Trump’s pleased because he’s keeping his underlings in a state of constant panic and immobility. He’s the man!
As far as I am concerned, if Trump is keeping Confederate Jeff so “beleaguered” that he can’t do his job, that’s a good thing since he’s busy trying to bring the entire nation into Selma 1965.
There is that.
He is clearly unable to handle set backs and can never be proven wrong. He sees himself a superman able to handle everything. But he cannot deal with people or situations not of his making. He may not be very smart either, I don’t know. How do we rid ourselves of this unqualified fool?
True, but for one thing he also doesn’t have any idea what his own job is either, as you know, and for that reason he enjoys the anger bouncing out of the bafflement, and flying into rages. It makes him feel effective, just like old days in the Trump Organization. It’s what Leaders do.
One of the craziest recent tweets went,
If Sessions is “beleaguered” it’s because Trump is beleaguering him, effectively preventing him from doing any job at all, not to mention that there’s no evidence of Hillary crimes or Russia relations. But Trump’s pleased because he’s keeping his underlings in a state of constant panic and immobility. He’s the man!
What the discarded officials and hangers-on like Tillerson didn’t realize is that Trump doesn’t share their agenda. He cares nothing about whatever issues they are concerned about. He cares about making billions more $ for himself and his family businesses, and wallowing in his adoring fans. Learning or doing the job isn’t part of his idea of being President, which is why he plays so much golf on his resorts, why he pays no attention to briefings, merely scanning them to see if his name is mentioned, etc.
Trump has abandoned the idea of governing as President. Now it’s all about fighting his war against all his enemies – foreign and domestic, mostly the latter.
His enemies include the news media, Congress (both parties, except for a few slavish bootlickers), the federal bureaucracy (except ICE where they love him), the Courts, his own Justice Department, and so on.
His only job will be to attack and punish everybody who ever crossed him for any reason, and make sure nobody even holds him or his family accountable for anything.
Frankly, this behaviour is the best we could have hoped for. So far it’s blocked him accomplishing much of what horrors he wants to impose on everybody. No ACA repeal bill because Trump can’t bother to lobby for anything. No border wall because Trump can’t figure out how to pay for it. No tax cuts because Republicans can’t agree among themselves about it. Etc.
His failures are our successes. His incompetence is our salvation. His excesses raise resistance and opposition. His open lust for power and authoritarianism invites dissent. He’s giving Democrats a huge and continuing advantage. It’s simply up to the rest of us to take advantage of it.
Tillerson’s acceptance was always based on what he thought he could do to protect, promote & regain ground worldwide for Exxon. That he assumed it would be a cakewalk based on Trump’s eagerness to make friends with Russia and that there was nothing that really needed attending to worldwide beyond that means he will walk out and leave what’s left of the State Department and any hope of diplomacy in tatters.
Leaving the government in tatters is vastly superior to the alternative, which would be a COMPETENT Trump administration.
What we have to understand and accept is that the alternatives are not between humane and competent government and Trump, but between a depraved lunatic who lashes out at everybody, and therefore is a colossal failure, and someone like Mike Pence, who is thoroughly evil and cruel, but goes about it quietly and dispassionately. Or Paul Ryan who simply shrugs when people point out the horrific consequences of his policies. Unlike Scrooge, he doesn’t come out and say “let them die then and decrease the surplus population.”
He just does it.
Competent direct reports to Trump will inevitably want to know his direction and get in his business for the areas in which they have responsibility. That is part of what makes them competent and why they have the resumes they have; they are good at making the boss look good, but that required knowledge about the boss.
But that sort of knowledge is exactly what Trump and bosses like him don’t want anyone to know. That is why they rapidly run through people. And why nothing finally gets done.
Someone give Jon Huntsman a call. Why would anyone taking a job working for this guy? Huntsman should check in with Tillerson.
Some have illusions they can build a box around Trump and save the business of the country. Huntsman is being sent to deal with Lavrov and Putin.
Yep, sure does look like a fool’s errand.
Trump has Alzheimer’s. It’s why he misses his limo, it’s why he walks out on a signing ceremony , it’s why he can’t speak in coherent sentences . It’s why he can’t concentrate
Everyone around him knows it. It’s why his family is right down the hall, to watch him.
I guarantee his office is bugged, so they can listen in on interviews.
When you are trying to do something important, like SOS, and your boss has Alzheimer’s, you jump ship. Because when things go south, it’s you who will pay. And Trump’s dealings with the ME and Russia will certainly go south.
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An alternative explanation is that Trump not only doesn’t want to fire anybody but doesn’t even want them to leave. What he wants is more drama, tears and recriminations, jealousy and cliquing, people afraid he doesn’t love them like he used to. Reality-show stuff. You know how they sometimes like to goose the drama on those shows by bringing back an old contestant? I wouldn’t be surprised to see Spicer cajoled into doing an encore (though I also think he’s really spooked by the current atmosphere and might turn them down).
Trump’s always getting pissed at people and leaking the rumor that he’s about to sack them. Bannon’s been fired about six times in the newspapers, by this point, and we’ve even heard about rages against Kushner (justified, in the case of Kushner’s advocacy of the Comey firing–of course Trump really wanted to fire Comey, because he’s afraid of him; a little too much reality in that episode).
I think Sessions in particular is confident that it’ll all blow over for him before too long (or has some blackmail material of his own, as the case might be), and I think he’s right.
Tillerson is a different kind of case, because he really doesn’t belong. I read an interview suggesting he has the self-awareness to realize he’s unqualified for the job, which is a very rare quality in that White House as you know, but that his wife convinced him he has to carry on because it’s part of God’s plan. He could stand to live on either side of the contradiction between getting Exxon its $500 billion or punishing the Russians, but being on both sides at once is too hard for him.
Agree. Tillerson’s wife had to persuade him to take the position but I don’t think it was so much he felt unqualified as much as he actually did not trust Trump to be a rational actor, according to what I read at the time. As CEO of ExxonMobil, he was actually more used to predictable transactional businessmen/politician/rulers not freaky ones like Trump. I think he’s only been more convinced he made a mistake since then.
Who knew that DT’s unqualified appointees would demonstrate a shred of independence and wouldn’t do other than bow and scrape before DT and his irrational or dumb demands?
DT will be scraping the bottom of the unqualified barrel for any replacements. (A chance for Palin to get whatever appointment she had her winking eye on?) However, the Senate is unlikely to be as generous in confirming the much inferior second round of appointees. An administration filled with Acting Xs (assume the appointees aren’t career agency employees) will be a field day for SNL, the Daily Show, etc. Mooch will be helpless to stop the leaks that will mushroom. Both will lead DT to become ever more unhinged and getting ever closer to being a quivering mass of protoplasm.
A quivering mass eh?..LOL. He may be closer than we know.
Let’s hope so.
Trump cuts loose in front of massive crowd at Boy Scouts’ Jamboree.
Nobody ever said that Trump doesn’t know how to pick his audiences. Male teens (fortunately mostly too young to vote) are the biggest suckers for fake ‘macho men.’
B.S…..A.
B.S…..A.
B.S…..A.
Nothing sadder since the AARP supported the Grand Bargain in 2010.
And the rot goes on…..
VERY true!
This he is good at. He is able to manipulate most audiences, especially in front of those with an affinity for him. He is a clown playing for the crowd, and he can use that to deliver abuse on his chosen victim. Bully is a strong suit.
The Trump Youth.
Ein volk, ein Reich, ein comb-over!
Built on the back of “more loyalty”.
Until recently, I have worked with State and USAID quite a lot. Because there is no FY18 budget (and who knows if there will be), the drastic cuts to the foreign policy sector haven’t occurred. So Obama programs are still going on for the most part. Tillerson, meanwhile, is trying to reorganize State (and maybe USAID) just as other administrations have done so but his version may be more drastic (but we still don’t know). The larger issue is the Trump policy that there just needs to be fewer people in government whether at senior or junior levels (and the ones chosen would be Trump loyalists, hence, incompetents or just rich white guys. I don’t have much sympathy for Tillerson but we know he didn’t really want the job in the first place and I have long thought he would be the first to go, especially since the Russian sanctions don’t seem to be about to go away.
There is ZERO chance Sessions will quit. He is finally in a position to enact has nativist dreams.