Tillerson’s plane touched down at Joint Base Andrews right on time, around 4:00 a.m. Tuesday, and his driver spirited the secretary home so that he could get some shut-eye. Then, after Tillerson arose to get dressed and ready for his day, Trump’s tweet landed with a thud. It was 8:44 a.m.
“Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA, will become our new Secretary of State,” Trump wrote. “He will do a fantastic job! Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service! Gina Haspel will become the new Director of the CIA, and the first woman so chosen. Congratulations to all!”
Alerted to the tweet by a phone call from his chief of staff, Margaret Peterlin, Tillerson felt it was important to say something quickly to calm folks down at the State Department. He told Peterlin what he wanted to convey and asked her to have Steve Goldstein, the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, issue a statement on his behalf.
Goldstein had gotten up around 3:00 a.m., just in case he was needed when the secretary arrived at Andrews, but had no idea about the drama over the weekend. At about 8:45 a.m., he was conducting a Skype session with some employees in U.S. embassies of African nations when two aides showed up and gestured with a cutting motion across their throats. You have to go, one finally told Goldstein. He abruptly ended the session. For a moment, he thought that something might have happened to his spouse.
“The secretary has been fired on Twitter,” one staffer told him.
“What?” Goldstein said.
They showed him the tweet. Goldstein gulped.
“Let’s take the back elevator to my office,” he said.
Goldstein glanced down at his phone. He had dozens of phone messages and texts, most of them from reporters.
When he got to his office, TV screens were blaring the news that Trump had booted Tillerson and that Kelly had told him he was out. Goldstein reached Peterlin on her cell phone. She had just gotten off the phone with Tillerson and gave Goldstein the statement he could issue. It conveyed the truth but left out some of the unpleasant details.
“The Secretary did not speak to the President this morning and is unaware of the reason, but he is grateful for the opportunity to serve, and still believes strongly that public service is a noble calling and not to be regretted,” Goldstein said in the statement.
Within minutes, Twitter and cable news lit up, emphasizing the differences between the White House’s version of events and the State Department’s, and citing Goldstein’s statement. Watching the coverage on television, Trump seethed. One of Goldstein’s aides rushed into his office to say that Steve Doocy was on the phone. Goldstein didn’t immediately recognize the name, puzzled over it a minute, and thought it sounded familiar.
“Steve Doocy? From Fox News?” Goldstein said. “I don’t know him. I’m not talking to anybody I don’t know.”
Then the aide came back and said, no, it’s Sean Doocey.
Goldstein asked him to please find out who that was. The answer: Doocey worked at the White House, in the presidential personnel office. Goldstein called him back.
“The president has relieved you of your duties,” Doocey told him.
Goldstein let that sink in.
Into the silence, Doocey’s voice came back.
“Do you want something in writing to this effect?” Doocey asked.
Goldstein remained calm and said, “Yes, please.”
Once Tillerson got into the office and learned of Goldstein’s firing, he was upset.
“This is not right,” Tillerson told his public affairs chief. “You just issued my statement.”
Tillerson said he would call Kelly to say his staffer shouldn’t be faulted for issuing his statement, but Goldstein told him there was no need to try to reverse the decision. He said he was mostly sad about the country losing a stand-up public servant like Tillerson. He didn’t care about his own job.
Not long after, Trump called Tillerson from Air Force One as he was flying to California for a fund-raiser. He spoke as if they were friends catching up on their respective days.
“Hi, Rex,” the president said. “I hope you saw all the good things I said about you on TV.”
Tillerson had not had time to turn on a television, much less to sit and watch one. He had no idea what Trump was talking about, but the president had complimented Tillerson to reporters earlier. “I actually got along well with Rex,” Trump told them, “but really it was a different mind-set, a different thinking.”
“You should be very happy,” Trump told Tillerson. “You never really wanted to do this job. Now you can retire and go back to your ranch and relax.”
Tillerson found this summary surreal. He responded without emotion.
“Yes, Mr. President,” he said.
“This will be great,” Trump said.
“Yes, Mr. President,” Tillerson replied, robotically.
“Okay, so I’m back Friday,” Trump said. “Come by the Oval and we’ll take a picture and I’ll sign it.”
“Yes,” Tillerson said. “Sure, Mr. President.”
They hung up.
Trump acted as if he and Tillerson would be buddies, never actually mentioning the firing or offering a rationale for it. At the same time, some of Trump’s top aides were privately trashing Tillerson to reporters. They argued that Tillerson had been a poor manager at the State Department, isolating himself from thousands of career diplomats and getting bogged down in a bureaucratic restructuring plan. They said Trump had soured on Tillerson in part because of how much negative press he received and because the president thought he was too arrogant. And they said Tillerson lacked necessary gravitas abroad because foreign leaders did not believe he spoke for the president. They didn’t mention the real reason for that: Trump had repeatedly contradicted Tillerson publicly.
Kelly felt defeated. He had struggled to protect Tillerson’s job and feared the result of Trump’s grinding through another of his guardrails. Aboard Air Force One en route to California, Kelly uttered an ominous view to a handful of other aides: “The forces of darkness have won today.”
Tillerson decided he wanted to speak for himself, making an on-camera statement from the State Department at 2:00 p.m. He called Kelly to tell him the general outline of the statement he planned to deliver and to make sure it was okay. He didn’t want to create another ricochet of reaction from the White House, as occurred with Goldstein’s statement. Kelly gave a green light to the general outline.
In his remarks, Tillerson did not thank or compliment Trump. Instead, he said he was honored to serve his country, praised Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, thanked career diplomats for serving with “honesty and integrity,” and expressed gratitude to the American people for “acts of kindness.”