Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s team on Thursday brushed back a White House aide who cast doubt on the validity of Tillerson’s statements about the likelihood of a conflict with North Korea.
“He’s a Cabinet secretary,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said to reporters about Tillerson. “He’s fourth-in-line to the presidency. He carries a big stick.”
The comment arose from President Trump’s threat that North Korean belligerence would be met with “fire and fury,” which senior government officials then described in varying ways. After Tillerson urged Americans to “sleep well” in the belief that war is not imminent, White House adviser Sebastian Gorka suggested he had contradicted the president and spoken out-of-turn.
“You should listen to the president; the idea that Secretary Tillerson is going to discuss military matters is simply nonsensical,” Gorka told the BBC. “It is the job of [Defense Secretary Jim] Mattis, the secretary of defense, to talk about the military options, and he has done so unequivocally … Secretary Tillerson is the chief diplomat of the United States, and it is his portfolio to handle those issues.”
Nauert said she would avoid commenting directly on Gorka’s comment. But her acknowledgment of Tillerson’s rank was paired with a pointed decision not to refer to Gorka by his preferred honorific of “doctor,” even interrupting herself when she started to use the appellation. “I don’t work with Sebastian Gorka,” she said. “I’ve known him from a previous life and a previous career but I have not spoken to him about that.”
Nauert and Gorka have both worked for Fox News.
Nauert noted that Tillerson and Mattis work closely on foreign policy. “As you know, the secretary, the president, Secretary Mattis along with the national security council [adviser] General McMaster — they meet frequently, they meet often to have national security issues,” she said.
