Secretary of State Rex Tillerson clashed with senior White House aide Stephen Miller last week, according to a report published Friday by Politico, in his second reported confrontation with a senior staffer in President Donald Trump’s administration.
Politico reported Friday, citing four unnamed sources familiar with Tillerson’s and Miller’s exchange in the West Wing, that Miller wanted Tillerson to take a tougher tack to immigration and modify State Department-controlled programs.
Two of those sources told Politico the conversation was “tense,” though Tillerson did not shout at Miller, as he reportedly did at Johnny DeStefano, the head of the President’s personnel office.
Tillerson, according to one source cited by Politico, was “quite clear” that he wanted autonomous control over the State Department.
I’m no fan of Tillerson, but it would take every ounce of self control I have not to tell Stephen Miller to go do something anatomically impossible to himself.
Besides, Rex takes orders from Putin, and Putin only. That was the deal.
I have no love for Tillerson, but he has had a ton of real-world experience as CEO of a major corporation, so to be told anything by a mealy, sycophantic twirp like Miller is insulting. You can quit, Rex, we’ll all understand. You’ll be better off for it.
When somebody like Tillerson is the good guy, you know you’re way through the looking glass. I wonder at what point he resigns – on the one hand there’s still lots of graft to be made, and the smug feeling of being the only adult, but on the other there’s the continual humiliation and likely a growing sense of futility, because one random tweet can wreck months of planning.
I have no love for Tillerson, period. He should be confronting Trump, not his minions. Tillerson is unqualified and incompetent, so he’s a perfect fit for the Trump administration.
This is one of those opaque, inside-baseball stories—unlikeable actors doing awful things to each other behind the scenes of depravity and incompetence. So let’s not vote for either side. It’s the Putin Wing vs the Mercer-Bannon Wing…or more correctly, Alien vs Predator.