Trump is unorthodox, but effective!

Weekly Opinion Editorial

DOING IT HIS WAY!

by Steve Fair

     Last week, President Trump fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.  There had been rumors the POTUS and Tillerson had their differences.  Tillerson, who was raised in Wichita Falls and once headed Exxon Mobil, had supposedly called Trump a ‘moron’ eight months ago after a tense meeting at the Pentagon, but that was likely not the reason for the firing.  Tillerson and Trump had clashed over foreign policy for months.  Tillerson is a globalist and  often contradicted Trump, which confused foreign governments as to whether the SOS was actually speaking for the United States.  Tillerson was selected to be the nation’s top diplomat after Trump and he clicked after an interview at Trump Tower.  Tillerson, in his role at Exxon, had interacted with a number of heads of state and was confirmed by the Senate 56-43, the closest vote for SOS in the nation’s history.

     Immediately after announcing Tillerson’s firing, President Trump said he will nominate CIA Director Mike Pompeo to head State.  Pompeo, 54, is a former three-term Kansas Congressman, and a West Point graduate.  Before he got into politics, Pompeo ran an aircraft parts company in Wichita, Kansas.  Pompeo is closely identified with the Tea Party.  He and the president have a close personal relationship.  Pompeo personally delivers the Daily Briefing to Trump in the Oval Office.

     Some believe Trump fired Tillerson because he wanted a more hawkish team to deal with North Korea and Iran.  Clearly Pompeo fits that description.  Appearing on Face the Nation just two days after being nominated to head State, Pompeo said President Trump would get a better deal with North Korea, which already has nuclear weapons than Obama did with Iran, which had yet to acquire nuclear weapons.  “The previous administration was negotiating from a position of weakness. This administration will be negotiating from a position of enormous strength,” Pompeo said.  Pompeo is supposedly taking the lead role in the historic North Korea negotiations, but he will also have to deal with the Obama’s treaty with Iran, which Trump says he will renegotiate.  Couple those challenges with budget cuts and unconfirmed ambassadors and the next State department head faces no picnic.

    Trump was roundly criticized by politicos on both sides of the aisle on how he handled the firing of Tillerson and clearly he could have handled it better, but he appears he jettisoned Tillerson because of ideological differences.  That is not uncommon in any administration.  “It’s no secret the President is not a patient man. Now, he’s really out of patience and will be doing things his way,” an unnamed Republican Congressman said. “The President tried it their way and didn’t like what he was seeing. Now, he’s going to try it his way.” Just like Sinatra, Trump is doing it his way. The mainstream media, liberals, and many conservatives will not concede that Trump’s tactics, while unorthodox, appear to be working.