Have any of Trump’s spokescreatures given a reason for Tillerson’s firing yet? I mean, yes, we know that the reason is because he doesn’t like Putin murdering people, but the spokescreatures can’t exactly come out and say that murdering people is good.
And wasn’t Rick Perry already in the cabinet? Secretary of I’d-like-to-eliminate-this-department?
This is what happens when John Kelly takes a spa day.
Trump himself gave a pretty detailed explanation on why he fired Tillerson this morning. He said that Tillerson and him had very different ideas on how the state department should work, specifically mentioning the Iran agreement.
I think The Texerman’s firing has more to do with his general defiance against Trump’s mercurial view of international relations than his specific recognition of the nerve agent poisoning of Sergei Skripal and daughter, although this may have brought things to a head. Whatever else you think about Tillerson’s efforts as Secretary of State (and I don’t think much of him from the standpoint of effective competence), he did seem to take the role seriously and try to moderate the aggressive if ill-defined statements coming from the Oval Office, and was clearly not playing Patsy to keep Baby Trump entertained. Trump cannot tolerate any sense of dissent, nor does he have sufficient leadership skills or interpersonal ability to hash out disagreements without pouting like an infant, so of course he fires Tillerson remotely and without discussion of continuity. For Tillerson’s part, I have to say he has taken the move with more grace and dignity than anyone else involved in any part of this administration has evidenced to date, and regardless of what I think of the practices in his prior business he seems genuinely concerned for the fate of the nation.
Rick Perry is the current Secretary of Energy, a role he is not only completely unqualified to hold but appears to have no respect or concern for whatsoever. Moving him over to DVA, a department that has already been given short shrift and is also essentially unqualified to run (aside from his 5 year career in the US Air Force in the mid-‘Seventies in a non-combat role as a C-130 pilot he has not been involved in any way in managing military or large health-and-services-based organizations) appears to be just shuffling around shells in an effort to conceal just how badly the entire cabinet has performed and how utterly unqualified and/or conflicted every single one of them is. That Ben Carson is still HHS Secretary after his son has been openly selling influence in HUD contracts alone would be enough to sink a cabinet secretary in any normal adminstration (and had it occurred under the last president would have been ammunition to call for impeachment) and yet, there is so much other shit being stirred on a daily basis that it isn’t even on the radar for more than a few hours before being overtaken by some other ridiculous bullshit that Trump or one of his children is up to.
This is like a game of Fiasco that has really gotten out of control.
Stranger
Maybe he’s just repaying his obligations by getting every donor a White House job mention for their resume. They may even come into the positions with the understanding that it ain’t gonna last, but you’ll still have been ‘Working in the White House”, in the cabinet, whatever.
Anyone know what the severance packages looks like for these positions? As a former president, Trump will continue to get security briefings after leaving office, security detail and a lifelong pension, I think. Do other positions get such perks too?
He’ll last as long as he wants to. Pompeo probably has a Trumpian view of the federal government, that it governs best by governing the least. He’s probably more of a natural at allowing the Department of State to languish. Tillerson was arguably the worst Sec of State in the modern era, but if we can only say one thing positive about his time there, it’s that he at least took his job seriously, even if he had absolutely no idea how to do it.
I find it hard to say that Tillerson took his job seriously when one of our most important allies in a region of the world where diplomacy is especially important still doesn’t have an ambassador.
No no no… do it in the “People’s Court Announcer Guy” voice. It’s better.
I wouldn’t say he did it well, and I suspect the lack of an ambassadorial appointment is just another indication of disagreement between Tillerson and Trump (the President typically blesses such appointments and they’re often given out as rewards for political loyalty), but Tillerson at least seemed to be trying to moderate the chest-thumping and drum-beating tone toward North Korea and Iran, which at least indiciates that he respected the diplomatic approach is the preferred option rather than just acceeding to adminstration pressure to join the war party. I’m not carrying a torch for Tillerson, whom I think was ill-suited and unqualified to be Secretary of State, but unlike the other infantile members of Trump’s cabinet he didn’t seem to be in the job simply and transparently to enrich himself.
Stranger
And for all of Tillerson’s manifold faults, Pompeo is almost certain to be worse. He will reinforce Trump’s worst traits, rather than resist them. I can only hope that a GOP Senator or two can be found to vote against confirming Pompeo as Secretary of State, and forcing Trump to pick someone more normal for the job.
That presumes there’s a normal person left who will want the job.
Well on MSNBC, Rand Paul just came out strongly against both Pompeo and the lady nominated for the CIA job. But then preemptively blamed the Democrats if they get approved.
I don’t like much about Paul’s politics, but at least he opposes torture and unnecessary wars. It’s sad that that makes him stand out, but here we are.
We’ve seen this movie before with Rand Paul. If his vote isn’t necessary, he’ll sometimes play his maverick card. But, if it is needed, he’ll be a Republican and vote for any one that Donald Trump puts before him.
It’s possible that Trump has/will shoot himself in the foot by axing his cabinet. He might be thinking that it means he can pick the people he wants, at last, but he’s forgetting the Senate approval process.
His tariffs bill and his opposition to the NRA have both, likely, started to turn the party against him fairly strongly. The poor showing in Pennsylvania also can’t help to have endeared him to the Republicans in the Senate, since they can reasonably blame him for the loss.
Trump has been acting out and trying to get out from under their thumb. All this does is give them a good chance to put him into an even tighter straightjacket.
The only path I see forward for Trump is to try and rule by Tweet in entirety (which he is basically already getting close to), and that’s pretty quickly going to make it clear that outside of firing people, he has no real power to make them do what he wants once everyone has decided to ignore his Tweet-commands.
The flip side of that is that if the Democrats take over congress in 2018, then Trump’s veto power will be the main bastion of Republican power. Since Trump is not much of a Republican to begin with, there’s a very good chance that he makes deals with the emboldened Democratic majority in an effort to get credit for doing something. That’s something that Republicans would need to think about when thinking of alienating him.
According to Vanity Fair, that looks like what he’s trying to do.
Wanna bet he’ll try to simply ignore it? Just appoint people and dare Congress to do something about it.
Wanna bet Congress rolls over like a whipped dog?
In theory, the Democrats are going to have an astonishing amount of leverage over Trump the instant the House flips over to their side (presuming that it does), since they’ll have full powers to investigate him in all respects - sexual harassment, financial crimes, collusion, obstruction of justice, etc. - or to not investigate him. So they could always blackmail him into pretty much everything they ask for.
But they’re not going to do that. They’re going to start going to town on him like nothing else, and Trump will do everything he can to attack them, because that’s what he does. Granted, he would probably be happy to fold and give them their way, but that only works if what the other person wants is to strike a deal with you. The Dems are just going to want to prove that he’s a crook, so there won’t be anything that he can give them.
How about a confession?