NYT Claims President Trump Is Preparing To Oust Secretary Of State Rex Tillerson

This is the last thing I was expecting to hear today.

According to a report from the New York Times (I know, I know), President Trump is working on a plan to oust Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and replace him with CIA director Mike Pompeo. Sen. Tom Cotton would replace Pompeo. 

NYT claims that John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, crafted the plan. It just needs Trump’s final stamp of approval.

Mr. Pompeo would be replaced at the C.I.A. by Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas who has been a key ally of the president on national security matters, according to the White House plan. Mr. Cotton has signaled that he would accept the job if offered, said the officials, who insisted on anonymity to discuss sensitive deliberations before decisions are announced.

It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Trump has given final approval to the plan, but he has been said to have soured on Mr. Tillerson and in general is ready to make a change at the State Department. John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, developed the transition plan and has discussed it with other officials.

This plan could go into action before the end of the year.

Under his plan, the shake-up of the national security team would happen around the end of the year or shortly afterward. But for all of his public combativeness, Mr. Trump is notoriously reluctant to fire people, and it was not known if Mr. Tillerson had agreed to step down by then. Public disclosure of Mr. Kelly’s transition plan may be meant as a signal to the secretary that it is time to go.

Apparently, White House officials are trying to sort out the timing.  They don’t know if they should give everyone the boot at once or trickle them out at a slower pace.

At the same time, there was some concern in the White House about the appearance of a rush to the exits given that other senior officials may also leave in the early part of the new year. White House officials were debating whether it would be better to spread out any departures or just get them over with all at once.

Rumors of Tillerson’s exit really started to swirl after word got out that he called Trump a “moron.”

Mr. Tillerson’s departure has been widely anticipated for months, but associates have said he was intent on finishing out the year to retain whatever dignity he could. Even so, an end-of-year exit would make his time in office the shortest of any secretary of state whose tenure was not ended by a change in presidents in nearly 120 years.

Guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens.