tillerson also to this day has not denied explicitly that he said it. he simply refuses to discuss that issue. this has really come to a head after months and months of tension, months and months of tillerson seeming to be on the outside of the policy making in this administration. remember the president last week agreed to meet with kim jong-un in north korea and tillerson was nowhere near the white house. in the meeting were other senior officials who seemed to be closer to the decision-making process on this key issue. we re seeing the president finally taking steps to move him out and move in someone who he sees as much more compatible with him on policy. abby, stand by. we re getting more information just in. this is fascinating, from our michelle kosinski who receives the state department. she received a stramt attributable to steve goldstein,
when the secretary of defense and secretary of state have such a close relationship. they all most do nothing without checking with one another. it s a very functional relationship inside the administration. at this critical time in north korea, i would be very concerned about that. that s exactly the time to do it, the white house says. our reporting from boris sanchez at the white house is that the president wanted new blood heading into the north korea talks. obviously it s his choice. he s the president and he gets to have the secretary of state he wants. i don t want to begrudge him that. it seems to me because tillerson has been such a part of this pressure campaign, he has been such an integral piece of it in fact, even at their most boisterous and bellicose, they were still pushing diplomacy. it s been mattis and tillerson working in tandem to increase the pressure on north korea. it seems now that they ve gotten to a level of success, this seems to be an unfortunate busi
on how the two of them disagreed on many areas including the iran deal. what was the most striking was the president asserting that he left rex tillerson out of those diplomatic talks last week with north korea and his decision to meet with the north korean dictator kim jong-un. the president said he made that decision on his own and largely left the secretary of state out of those talks. that is why we saw tillerson last week saying comments like, we re a long ways off from negotiations with north korea. kaitlan, we understand there was another departure from the white house. reporter: rex tillerson was not so surprising. we saw that coming for months. we re now learning the president s personal aide, johnny mcintee has been fired and escorted from the white house grounds yesterday. there s not a lot of clarity on what exactly transpired, but we do know it had something to do with his background check that happened that led to him being fired and escorted out of the
he found out about it. i m joined now by our state department reporter alice l labott. elise, he read it on twitter? as shocking for me to say as it is for me to hear it. undersecretary for public diplomacy, steve goldstein, the conduit between secretary tillerson s office and the press says he was not notified by anyone on the president s staff, learned this morning by a presidential tweet about mike pompeo. listen, it is possible that secretary tillerson did get a call from someone kind of giving him a heads up. he might have had an inkling that something was going on, but he was not officially notified by anyone in the administration and learned this morning of his firing. now, we know secretary tillerson came back about a half a day early from a week-long trip to
speaking? apolitical. she s not a neocon, not to the right. she s a professional. it s a good choice. all right. as we speak right now, we are reracking the video tape of the president as he spoke on the south lawn getting ready to depart on marine one to head to california right now. he did speak about rex tillerson and mike pompeo. he also spoke about the house intelligence committee, saying there is no evidence of collusi collusion. let s play this right now. mr. president i ve worked with mike pompeo now for quite some time. tremendous energy, tremendous intellect. we re always on the same wave leng length. the relationship has always been very good. that s what i need as secretary of state. i wish rex tillerson well.