Tillerson, Trump, and the White House smokescreen of lies

The secretary of state's sudden ouster is yet another example of the Trump administration's sinister subversion of information and truth

Rex Tillerson and President Trump.
(Image credit: AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

It seems that no one thought Rex Tillerson was a good secretary of state — not the career diplomats who have fled from their jobs at the State Department on his watch, not the foreign policy analysts who have pointed to his poor management of the department and clumsy dealings with foreign governments and dignitaries, and not the president himself, who had griped about Tillerson's performance for months and then summarily fired him via a tweet on Tuesday morning.

See more

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Damon Linker

Damon Linker is a senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also a former contributing editor at The New Republic and the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test.