He hurt Trump’s delicate feelings. Now Trump wants him gone!
[I]nsiders say [former reality TV show host Donald] Trump’s relationship with [Secretary of State Rex] Tillerson is broken beyond repair. We’re told Trump was furious that Tillerson didn’t try to blunt the story about him calling the president a “moron,” by just going out and denying it (whether or not it actually occurred).
After what Trump considered a strong trip to Vegas, he seethed when he got back and saw Tillerson’s gaffe dominating cable-news coverage. Everywhere he flipped, there was Tillerson’s face instead of his.
The relationship is so toxic, sources tell Jonathan Swan and me, that few in the White House think it can be rebuilt. There’s zero trust between the West Wing and the State Department.
NBC, which broke the “moron” story, said the chief of staff “abruptly scrapped plans to travel with … Trump on Wednesday so he could try to contain his boss’s fury.”
The same article has this other juicy nugget:
Trump advisers and allies are floating the idea of replacing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson with CIA Director Mike Pompeo, age 53 — someone who’s already around the table in the Situation Room, and could make the switch without chaos. … Sources tell us Trump recognizes that a Cabinet shuffle would bring bad press. White House Chief of Staff John Kelly wants stability, and so is discouraging high-level departures before next year.
Pompeo? There are still big questions about whose side he is actually on. Back in April, Think Progress observed…
During a speech at The Center for Strategic and International Studies on Thursday, CIA Director Mike Pompeo denounced Wikileaks, saying the organization “walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service.”
“It’s time to call out Wikileaks for what it is — a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia,” he said.
…
But during the presidential campaign, Pompeo — then a Republican U.S. representative from Kansas — tweeted out an article about hacked Democratic National Committee emails to attack Democrats.
“Need further proof that the fix was in from Pres. Obama on down? BUSTED: 19,252 Emails from DNC Leaked by Wikileaks,” Pompeo’s since-deleted July 24 tweet read.
Putin thanks you, Comrade Pompeo!
