WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump on Friday denied that he wants to oust Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, calling reports to that effect "fake news," while his top diplomat brushed off speculation that he has lost the confidence of the White House.
As Tillerson went about his normal schedule of diplomatic activities, including two meetings with Trump, the president said his secretary of state is "not leaving."
"The media has been speculating that I fired Rex Tillerson or that he would be leaving soon -- FAKE NEWS!" Trump tweeted. "He's not leaving and while we disagree on certain subjects, (I call the final shots) we work well together and America is highly respected again!"
The tweet was Trump's strongest endorsement of his top diplomat since senior White House officials began telling reporters Thursday that a plan had been devised to push Tillerson out and replace him with CIA chief Mike Pompeo. Immediately after reports of the plan emerged, Trump offered only tepid support for Tillerson, noting only that he was at the White House for a previously scheduled meeting.
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That halfhearted backing amid the swirl of speculation over Tillerson's imminent departure was feared to threaten Tillerson's effectiveness, particularly as he prepares for a four-day trip to Brussels, Vienna and Paris to meet with NATO allies, as well as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
On Friday, Tillerson attended two meetings at the White House with Trump -- one with Libya's visiting prime minister, and then a lunch with the president and Defense Secretary James Mattis. Before those meetings, Tillerson told reporters at the State Department that speculation that he was on his way out was "laughable."
Tillerson aides had said the secretary was sanguine and remained comfortable in his role despite the turmoil in Trump's national security team centering on him. Aides said Tillerson would continue to serve until the president asks him not to, and stressed that such a request had not been made.
The officials were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Although Tillerson looks safe for now, he will be losing a senior aide and conduit to the public in coming weeks.
R.C. Hammond, who has run State Department strategic communications since Tillerson took office, will leave his post in mid-December, officials said.
The departure of Hammond, one of the few senior Tillerson aides who was accessible to journalists, may hurt the department's efforts to defend the secretary against a slew of negative reports about his leadership, particularly after senior White House officials amplified them Thursday.
According to senior White House officials, the plan centered on replacing Tillerson with Pompeo, which would have led to a major realignment early in Trump's term. It would create a vacancy atop the CIA that officials said could be filled by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.
It is exceedingly rare for a secretary of state, America's face on the global stage, to be fired or to serve for a year or less. Nor is it common for presidents to have such a significant Cabinet revamp so soon after taking office.
"There's no question this is incredibly damaging to whatever credibility the secretary had left," said Derek Chollet, a former State Department, Pentagon and National Security Council official in President Barack Obama's administration.
Thomas Wright, director of the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution, described Thursday's reports as a "death blow" to Tillerson's credibility.
Trump has lost, or ousted, chief strategist Steve Bannon, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, national security adviser Michael Flynn, press secretary Sean Spicer, communications director Anthony Scaramucci and others in his term's first 11 months.
Friction between the president and the nation's top diplomat has grown increasingly public throughout the year. Allies of Tillerson have said he'd like to make it at least one year in the post.
After a report in October that Tillerson had called the president a "moron," Tillerson appeared before cameras to express allegiance to his boss. Soon after, Trump publicly challenged his secretary to an IQ match.
Divisions on key foreign policy issues emerged quickly after Tillerson, who left his job as Exxon Mobil's chief executive officer, took on the diplomat role, and Trump has repeatedly undermined Tillerson by voicing positions at odds with his.
Among notable policy agreements between the president and his top diplomat: whether to stay in the Paris climate change accord, whether to side with Saudi Arabia in its dispute with Qatar and how hard to seek a diplomatic solution over North Korea's nuclear program.
After Tillerson told reporters in China in October that the U.S. was talking with North Korean officials through diplomatic back channels, the president undercut him, saying on Twitter that he told his "wonderful" secretary of state that "he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man," referring to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Information for this article was contributed by Matthew Lee and Josh Lederman of The Associated Press; by Josh Dawsey of The Washington Post; and by Bill Faries and Nick Wadhams of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 12/02/2017