Tillerson: Trump would ask me to do things I couldn't legally do

[Mrs. Overall]

Source: The Hill

Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says he often had to push back on President Trump, telling him that some of his requests would violate the law.

“So often, the president would say here's what I want to do and here's how I want to do it and I would have to say to him, 'Mr. President I understand what you want to do but you can't do it that way. It violates the law,' ” Tillerson said in rare public remarks in Thursday night in Houston at a fundraiser for the MD Anderson Cancer Center.

“I'd say here's what we can do. We can go back to Congress and get this law changed. And if that's what you want to do, there's nothing wrong with that. I told him I'm ready to go up there and fight the fight, if that's what you want to do,” he added.

Tillerson said Trump would show frustration during those conversations. Trump and Tillerson, a former Exxon Mobil CEO, were known to have a contentious relationship. Tillerson was dismissed from his post in March and replaced by then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo.

Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/420221-tillerson-trump-would-ask-me-to-do-things-that-i-couldnt-legally-do?__twitter_impression=true

[louis c]

1. Tillerson: "You can't do it that way, Mr. President, it's against the law..."

Rex, phone call on line 3 from a Mr. Mueller.

[orleans]

19. LOL n/t

[dalton99a]

2. Mafia bosses have a tendency to do that

[watoos]

3. Mafia boss wannabe.

[DBoon]

5. So do toddlers

and those with the emotional development of a 2 year old

[SummerSnow]

4. And this is why you were fired. Count yourself lucky. My question is

why did you stay around so long?

[Renew Deal]

7. They will tell you that they were around to protect the country.

From the true believers like Miller.

[Renew Deal]

6. It had to be weird for Tillerson

Was Tillerson known as an ethical guy at Exxon?

[SWBTATTReg]

9. It must have been...after all, he did call rump a 'moron'...nt

[Ponietz]

12. Is it ethical for alias Wayne Tracker to deny climate change and thwart efforts to stop it?

[link:https://money.cnn.com/2017/03/14/news/rex-tillerson-exxon-climate-change-email/index.html|

[pangaia]

20. Exxon.. Ethical...? In the same sentence?

I ...don't..... THINK.... so.....

[Renew Deal]

21. I know

I meant him, but I think someone answered that.

[JohnnyRingo]

8. Tillerson sums it up nicely here:

Deep down, we all know this

The former secretary of state also said he believed Trump was able to win the presidency because the public is disengaged on many important issues.

“I will be honest with you, it troubles me that the American people seem to want to know so little about issues, that they are satisfied with a 128 characters,” Tillerson said.

“I don't want that to come across as a criticism of him,” he added. “It's really a concern that I have about us as Americans and us as a society and us as citizens.”

Thanx for posting.

[yardwork]

22. That certainly is the problem. Exxon contributes to it, though.

Decades of anti-science and pseudoscience deployed to protect Exxon from having to deal with the environmental problems their company creates have helped confuse and stupefy the public.

[duforsure]

10. Just more examples of

How corrupt and treasonous, and criminal this illegitimate person in the oval office is. I'd bet there's many others in this administration that could say the same thing he's tried with them.

[Ponietz]

11. How many Criminal Soliciation counts does that make it? N/T

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

13. Getting fired was probably the best outcome for him.

He was considered to be a very competent CEO when at Exxon. Trump probably hired him because he assumed the CEO of a multinational oil company would be a perfect SoS (because, of course, government is just like business, at least to GOPers), and of course to Trump the oil connection meant there was money to be made. But Tillerson, having never been in government, tried to run the State Department like he ran Exxon and it didn't work.

His push to slash “inefficiencies” in the State Department and seeming disinterest in working closely with longtime staff were even more damaging. Under Tillerson’s watch, 60 percent of State’s top-ranking career diplomats resigned and new applications to join the foreign service fell by half, according to a November count by the American Foreign Service Association.

This hollowing-out of the foreign service, combined with Tillerson’s inability to appoint people to vital positions like ambassador to South Korea, delayed American responses to major crises and weakened the State Department for a “generation,” according to George Washington University’s Elizabeth Saunders.

https://www.vox.com/world/2018/3/13/16029526/rex-tillerson-fired-state-department

I think he took the job seriously, but he was a fish out of water and had no idea what he was doing. But the mess at the State Department wasn't entirely his fault because it was impossible to deal with Trump. He sucked as SoS but not getting along with Trump, which is what got him fired, probably saved what was left of his reputation.

[Maxheader]

14. Dementia boy in full bloom with the disease

confusing it...cartoon characters running around in its mind
yelling "YOUR THE KING!!"....

[riversedge]

15. Working for a self-centered bigot such as Trump has to be difficult for most!

[Grammy23]

16. Oh, the stories we will hear from those who interacted with tRump.

This long national nightmare hopefully will come to an end sooner rather than later. Then the tell all books will come tumbling out. As if we don’t know plenty already about tRump, we will probably get more information than we really want to know about tRump and his twisted, criminal mind. His life and mental issues will be studied for a long time. We also need some serious study on exactly how so many Americans were persuaded he was the guy they wanted to lead us. I am not sure we WANT to know the answers but we NEED to know.

[brooklynite]

17. You buried the other lede.....

“What was challenging for me coming from the disciplined, highly process-oriented Exxon Mobil corporation,” Tillerson said, was “to go to work for a man who is pretty undisciplined, doesn’t like to read, doesn’t read briefing reports, doesn’t like to get into the details of a lot of things, but rather just kind of says, ‘This is what I believe.’ ”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/12/07/rex-tillerson-trump-undisciplined-doesnt-like-read-tries-do-illegal-things/?utm_term=.b9c8c44466d1

[McCamy Taylor]

18. I was wondering when we would hear from Rexxon.