Steve Mnuchin Is In A ‘Suicide Pact’ With Mattis And Tillerson
Steve Mnuchin Image by Getty Images
By Aiden Pink October 4, 2017
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is unlikely to resign from serving President Trump because of a so-called “suicide pact” he agreed to with fellow cabinet members, BuzzFeed News reported Wednesday.
Tillerson gave an unusual press conference on Wednesday morning in which he denied reports that he had called President Trump a “moron” and had to be talked out of resigning after a frustrating July 20 meeting with Trump and Pentagon officials.
Rumors have swirled in Washington for months that Tillerson was unhappy with his job and had frequently considered quitting. But a U.S. official told BuzzFeed that Tillerson would likely stay because of the pact he had made with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Defense Secretary James Mattis, where all three would leave if the president tried to remove one of them.
Mnuchin was reportedly displeased with Trump’s failure to clearly condemn white supremacists marchers in Charlottesville, Virginia in August, but the events did not spur him to consider resigning. In contrast, White House chief economic advisor Gary Cohn publicly admitted in an interview that he had nearly resigned over the Charlottesville issue, but decided to stay and focus on tax reform.
Contact Aiden Pink at pink@forward.com or on Twitter, @aidenpink
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