The Slatest

Report: Trump Is “Ready” to Fire Rex Tillerson

Curtains?

Alex Brandon/AFP/Getty Images

Donald Trump is “ready” to fire Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and replace him with CIA Director Mike Pompeo, the New York Times reports:

The White House has developed a plan to force out Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, whose relationship with President Trump has been strained, and replace him with Mike Pompeo, the C.I.A. director, within the next several weeks, senior administration officials said on Thursday.

All you probably need to know about that “strain” is that Tillerson reportedly referred to Trump as a “fucking moron” after the president left a high-level meeting during which Trump had made a sudden and arbitrary demand to build tens of thousands of unnecessary nuclear weapons. Pompeo, meanwhile, made headlines recently for asserting that intelligence services had determined that Russian sabotage of Hillary Clinton’s campaign did not influence the outcome of the 2016 election—an assertion that is incorrect.

The Times meanwhile says Pompeo, a former Kansas congressman, would be replaced at the CIA by Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, who served in the Army in Iraq and Afghanistan. Cotton’s replacement in the Senate would be appointed by Arkansas’ Republican governor.