Rex Tillerson

“The most challenging task in Washington, these days, is finding somebody who’ll enthusiastically endorse Rex Tillerson. In just nine months, the Secretary of State has managed to alienate nearly every constituency that matters,” Jonathan Swan reports.

Said a former top Bush administration official: “He’s got no support from the left on management and no support from the right on policy.”

“Tillerson alienated his natural constituency — moderates who view him as a restraining influence on Trump — by what he’s done, or failed to do, managerially at the State Department. He’s surrounded himself by a tiny circle and hasn’t sought much advice from outsiders. And he’s got no ideological constituency on the right because he doesn’t embrace the forward-leaning posture on human rights, or the aggressive stance on Russia, that Republicans typically expect of their top diplomats.”

New York Times: “Even skeptics of Mr. Tillerson’s foreign policy credentials thought the State Department, an agency of 75,000 employees, could use some of the management skills he had picked up as the head of a major corporation… Instead, he has failed to nominate anyone to most of the department’s 38 highest-ranking jobs, leaving many critical departments without direction.”

“Almost from the time of his arrival, Mr. Tillerson has said the department needed to be reorganized, and he has embarked on a wholesale rethinking of its structure. … [But] his reorganization effort has contributed to the paralysis. He has not wanted to appoint under secretaries and assistant secretaries until he understands the new structure.”

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson “is resisting the pleas of State Department officials to spend nearly $80 million allocated by Congress for fighting terrorist propaganda and Russian disinformation,” Politico reports.

“It is highly unusual for a Cabinet secretary to turn down money for his department. But more than five months into his tenure, Tillerson has not issued a simple request for the money earmarked for the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, $60 million of which is now parked at the Pentagon.”

Business Insider: “When asked about the discrepancies between Rex Tillerson’s public schedule and his reported movements, and why the department hadn’t updated the press on his whereabouts, Heather Nauert said Tillerson ‘does have the ability to go away for a few days on his own.'”

Said Nauert: “Just taking a little time off. He’s got a lot of work. He just came back from that mega-trip overseas, as you all well know — many of you were over there with the G-20.”

“Asked why she didn’t just say Tillerson was on vacation, Nauert said she didn’t know the standard protocol for listing private days.”

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said he did not mean to criticize the U.S. government but that, on a whole, “it’s largely not a highly disciplined organization.”

Said Tillerson: “Decision-making is fragmented, and sometimes people don’t want to take decisions. Coordination is difficult through the interagency process.”

“I’ve been in motorcades for a couple of years now… I’ve never seen so many people flip the bird at an American motorcade as I saw today.”

— New York Times reporter Gardiner Harris, quoted by Stuff, on Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s visit to New Zealand.

New York Times: “Many have little to do until the Trump administration starts filling the nearly 200 jobs at the department that require Senate confirmation, and their agendas look increasingly as though they will remain empty. Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson has done almost nothing to select leaders for the White House’s consideration, and nominations for assistant secretaries and others who largely run the State Department are unlikely to be made for months.”

“With a Senate confirmation process that takes months, that means the department will remain largely leaderless until well into 2018. And no other department in the federal government is as dependent on political appointees, or as paralyzed when the appointment process freezes.”