“Sure. There’s also a realistic scenario that pigs fly.”
— Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), quoted by the Houston Chronicle, when asked if he would support Rex Tillerson’s nomination to be Secretary of State.
“Sure. There’s also a realistic scenario that pigs fly.”
— Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), quoted by the Houston Chronicle, when asked if he would support Rex Tillerson’s nomination to be Secretary of State.
Exxon Mobil has awarded former CEO Rex Tillerson “a $180 million retirement package as the company moves to break financial ties with President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of state,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“If Mr. Tillerson is confirmed, Exxon will transfer the equivalent value of two million unvested shares that he was set to receive at his previously expected retirement in March into a trust.”
Leaked documents show that Rex Tillerson, the businessman nominated by Donald Trump to be the next secretary of state, is the long-time director of a US-Russian oil firm based in the tax haven of the Bahamas, The Guardian reports.
“The leaked 2001 document comes from the corporate registry in the Bahamas. It was one of 1.3m files given to the Germany newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung by an anonymous source. The registry is public but details of individual directors are typically incomplete or missing entirely.”
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“Donald Trump’s selection of Rex Tillerson for secretary of state on Tuesday amounted to a dare to Senate Republicans to reject the ExxonMobil chief over his close ties to Russia. Early signs suggest the GOP won’t defy the president-elect,” Politico reports.
“Barring new revelations about Tillerson’s past and connections with Russia, there are early indications that he will be confirmed… Still, Trump and Tillerson will have little margin for error. GOP Sens. John McCain of Arizona, Marco Rubio of Florida and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina have all reacted critically to Tillerson’s business ties to Russia. It would take only three Republicans to sink him, if all Democrats vote no.”
Playbook: “For an outsider who often gets dumped on by the Washington establishment, Trump did a masterful job playing politics with the Tillerson nomination. By including Mitt Romney in the process, he basically neutered his biggest political rival. Trump’s decision to throw Sen. Bob Corker’s name into the mix also gave him buy-in from the chairman of the committee he needs to support Tillerson’s appointment. And, he got Rudy Giuliani, perhaps the biggest potential political wildcard, to step aside on his own terms.”
First Read: “This morning, Donald Trump officially announced ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson to be his secretary of state pick. And that move has triggered a fight that could define Trump’s first few months in office — between Team Trump and Senate Republican hawks (John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio) over the issue of Russia.”
“Indeed, by tapping Tillerson (who was awarded Russia’s “Order of the Friendship” honor in 2013, and who opposed the U.S.-led sanctions against Russia for its intervention in Crimea), Trump has made this confirmation fight a referendum on this very issue. Tillerson’s confirmation probably wouldn’t be a problem under any other incoming president, or if Russia’s intervention in the 2016 election (and Trump’s denial of it) wasn’t the story it has become.”
“But here we are, and the result is Trump picking a fight with a key part of his own party — something that we never saw Barack Obama do at this same point in time. And when you pick a high-profile fight like this, you better win.”
ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson “is still the leading contender to become President-elect Donald Trump’s secretary of state despite pushback from prominent senators wary of Tillerson’s ties to Russia,” Politico reports.
“One of the sources said Tillerson could be named as the nation’s chief diplomat in the coming days — ‘unless something massive explodes’ in the next 24 hours.”
Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, “the top choice for secretary of state in a Trump administration, faces bipartisan resistance in Congress over his ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Republican hesitation over Mr. Tillerson marked the first sign of division between congressional GOP and the Trump team over its likely cabinet picks. All of President-elect Donald Trump’s other nominees so far appear likely to be confirmed by the Senate.”
“Mr. Tillerson, a seasoned deal-maker whose company has a long history of doing business in Russia, is drawing unease from senators on both sides of the aisle. Republicans can likely afford to lose only two GOP votes next year in the new Congress when it meets to consider Mr. Trump’s nominees.”
Steve Coll: “The news that President-elect Donald Trump is expected to nominate Rex Tillerson, the chairman and chief executive of ExxonMobil, as his Secretary of State is astonishing on many levels. As an exercise of public diplomacy, it will certainly confirm the assumption of many people around the world that American power is best understood as a raw, neocolonial exercise in securing resources.”
“The goal of ExxonMobil’s independent foreign policy has been to promote a world that is good for oil and gas production. Because oil projects require huge amounts of capital and only pay off fully over decades, Tillerson has favored doing business in countries that offer political stability, even if this stability was achieved through authoritarian rule.”
“I don’t know what Mr. Tillerson’s relationship with Vladimir Putin was, but I’ll tell you it is a matter of concern to me. You want to give the president of the United States the benefit of the doubt because the people have spoken. But Vladimir Putin is a thug, a bully and a murderer, and anybody else who describes him as anything else is lying.”
— Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), quoted by Politico, on the expected nomination of Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State.
ExxonMobil chief executive Rex Tillerson has emerged as the top candidate for secretary of state, the Washington Post reports.
“Tillerson and former Massachusetts governor and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney were two of the finalists… Both Tillerson and Romney are business executives with international experience in the for-profit world. But Tillerson would come into the job with a clean slate politically, while Romney’s candidacy had come under fire from some Trump aides who think the former governor went too far in his opposition to Trump during the campaign.”
President-elect Donald Trump “is widening the circle of candidates for secretary of state and will interview more prospects this week, transition officials said, a sign that after multiple meetings with high-profile hopefuls he still isn’t sold on whom he wants as the nation’s top diplomat,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Though Mr. Trump’s transition team said last week that the search had narrowed to four finalists, new candidates have emerged, including Rex Tillerson, chairman and chief executive of Exxon Mobil Corp., one transition adviser said.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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