Prominent voices in the national media are urging Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to resign following a report this week that he privately called President Trump a “moron.”
In the days since, reports and columns have commented on the supposed humiliation Tillerson has endured by Trump and a reported tension between the two men over policy disagreements.
“Some appointees would find such humiliation intolerable, or, like Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, would figure out how to disagree with and steer Mr. Trump without provoking his ire,” the New York Times editorial board said Thursday. “Inexplicably, Mr. Tillerson seems to be ready to hang in …”
On Tillerson’s transition from CEO of Exxon Mobil to working in the Trump administration, well-known Axios reporter Mike Allen tweeted Thursday, “Your life blows,” and in an article published Monday, he wrote, “On top of it all, after a perfect career, your last public act is already an obvious failure — and you have to keep doing it.”
You were Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon. Now you’re Rex Tillerson, Secretary of State to Donald Trump. Your life blows. https://t.co/bOCNu73rrm
— Mike Allen (@mikeallen) October 5, 2017
Matthew Yglesias, a writer at the left-leaning Vox news site, remarked Thursday on Twitter, “I really don’t get how Tillerson has managed to convince himself that he’s somehow indispensable and can’t quit.”
Past reports have suggested acrimony between Trump and Tillerson, such as when Trump on Sunday publicly opposed Tillerson’s attempts at dealing with North Korea diplomatically.
An NBC News article published Wednesday alleged that Tillerson was on the brink of resigning in July, and had referred to the president as a “moron” during a private meeting at the Pentagon. Tillerson held a press conference Wednesday morning to deny that he had considered quitting and to affirm his support for the administration and for Trump.
“This is what I don’t understand about Washington,” he said. “Again, I’m not from this place, but the places I come from, we don’t deal with that kind of petty nonsense. I’m just not going to be part of this effort to divide this administration.”
He did not directly refute the “moron” aspect of the report, though a State Department spokeswoman said it never happened.
Trump put out more tweets calling NBC’s report “fake news,” but reporters responded by saying Tillerson should be looking to leave.
Liberal Washington Post columnist David Ignatius said Tillerson had “kissed the ring of President Trump,” even though he “doesn’t need this job.”
Eliot Cohen, a contributing editor at the Atlantic magazine, directly called on Tillerson to quit.
“Trump has emasculated his secretary of state,” he wrote, “who clearly does not speak for the administration. … Tillerson has to quit,” he wrote. “His boss has publicly and mockingly stripped him of his credibility as the chief diplomat of the United States.”
On CBS, former “Face the Nation” anchor Bob Schieffer said that “the word” is that Tillerson “will be gone by Christmas.”
Tillerson, however, said at the press conference Wednesday that he plans to stay and has “never considered leaving this post.”
