UPDATE: USA Today
WASHINGTON — After months of disputes with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, President Trump removed him Tuesday and nominated CIA Director Mike Pompeo to head the State Department.
Trump told reporters he made the decision himself, citing disagreements with Tillerson that included North Korea diplomacy, steel and aluminum tariffs, and the Iran nuclear agreement.
Tweet by the President this morning. Word is that Tillerson had no advance warning. Tweet issued just as President Trump was leaving town for California.
Thoughts?
Stella's Place 
My thought……………… 😯
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WTH? Unless Tillerson was guilty of some egregious action, no advance warning is classless.
I didn’t see this coming, and I find it alarming.
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There are reasons to replace Tillerson. If it is true that he had no warning, I wonder why.
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PTrump fired Comey is what looked like a classless way, but he had his reasons and they were good ones.
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I agree on Comey, and as I said, reserve judgment on Tillerson. If there was a strong reason behind the scenes, so be it.
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Sounds like (reading and watching more) Tillerson may have known. First WE heard of it was the tweet. See Trump video and USA Today article.
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See Update.
Seen on Facebook: When The Prez gets a sniff of disloyalty, buh bye. Note Rex suddenly ended trip to Africa.
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Well, it will be interesting what comes out about this in a few days.
You know, I have never paid much attention to these things, so I don’t know if it was very unusual for the S.K delegation to go straight to the President instead of contacting Tillerson. But, I wonder. Maybe Tillerson didn’t think the President should meet with NK and would have interferred.
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Problem is that some 15 months into his Administration this makes Trump’s cabinet – as well as his Administration period – look like a disorganized mess. This is going to come back and bite us in November, along with that endless drumbeat of negativity regarding Trump I posted about months ago, and in 2020.
The negative reporting, true or not, is part of a well organized plan to so make Trump a piece of damaged goods that the middle ground will not vote for him or anyone the media can tar with him. The middle ground may not vote for the Rat alternative but that won’t matter if the Rats and RINOs can mobilize their corrosive base.
If Obama and his CAIR bears can whip up their metastatic Moslem base they can not only push forward their agenda of a less democratic and Judeo-Christian country but go a long way to their joint goal of destroying Israel. There’s a current of anti-Semitism in the US, Europe and the UN that’s starting to rival 1939 and as the US has the 2nd largest Jewish population in the world and is easily Israel’s main supporter the Rats see an opportunity.
Come on Trump, get this Administration focused and back on course.
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President Trump will be criticized no matter what he does, so he might as well do it his way. Yes, that is what I think. Tillerson obviously needed to go back to Exxon, and a guy put in that position who works for the President. Tillerson isn’t a team player.
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As a head of a major business there are a lot of folks who think that he hasn’t been as thorough in picking team players for his Administration as he would be his business.
Let’s see how much this ‘confusion’ effects the Midterms.
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I have seen this explanation several times and it makes sense (see Sharon’s link to the AT article):
<iPresident Trump actually likes turnover and is comfortable with uncertainty and disagreement among his closest staff, aka "chaos." Remember that his life experience is mostly in real estate development, and construction, which is project-based. That means that when a project is completed, many people depart. And when a new project begins, new staff is recruited.
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All I know for sure is it’s wearing on me and from time to ntime I have to drag myself back to the path.
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I now hear that Tillerson was told last Friday during his trip to Africa, which he cut short.
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That would explain the change of schedule in Africa and confirm that Rex knew about it prior to the tweet.
President Trump’s personnel changes over the decades were not observable to those not in the business world. I suppose this is the way he did things over the years and is a fit, in terms of what his take-no-prisoners way of moving.
Because we have been relieved to have a mover and shaker as POTUS, I think there is a tendency to generalize that into the idea that he will not do things we don’t like.
There have been several “Oh, good grief” moments for me since he was inaugurated. This is one more.
At least we got to see Rex do a fine sword dance.
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I agree Sharon. I think it’s one thing to approve overall of the job the President is doing, and another to insist he never makes mistakes. I doubt that Donald Trump got to be where he is without recognition of times he messed up.
I have no opinion yet, if ever, on whether Tillerson should have been fired. Not my job or within rational capability, given that I have no information regarding the process. But I also agree with czar that there is a downside to musical chairs at the Cabinet level.
Like it or not, there are a lot of midterm votes on the line. No, I don’t want another president who only cares about votes, not results. But not everything that President Trump does will work. There are some things I think he needs to look at differently.
I also agree with the article that said Obama never fired anyone, no matter how incompetent. There is still middle ground.
I expect that President Trump’s agenda will move along just fine, and we will continue to see good results. If every voter had a pea brain at least, that would be the determining factor.
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Monica Showalter’s perspective on the situation:
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/03/tillerson_firing_set_to_showcase_just_how_little_the_media_knows.html
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Good analysis. Thanks for posting it!
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This makes sense:
President Trump actually likes turnover and is comfortable with uncertainty and disagreement among his closest staff, aka “chaos.” Remember that his life experience is mostly in real estate development, and construction, which is project-based. That means that when a project is completed, many people depart. And when a new project begins, new staff is recruited. He may well consider the tax reform bill a project. The next economic project – tariffs to protect endangered industries, or maybe elimination of the carried interest provision – requires a somewhat different mix of talent.
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I think she is right. PTrump just doesn’t spend too much time on niceties when he decides to change personnel. He just does it.
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