Ololade Adeyanju/
President Donald Trump today announced the sack of his secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, on Twitter.
Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Steven Goldstein said in a statement that Trump did not speak to Tillerson about the sack.
“The Secretary did not speak to the President and is unaware of the reason, but he is grateful for the opportunity to serve,” Goldstein added.
Tillerson visited Nigeria on Monday on the last leg of his five-nation visit to Africa and met with President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja.
Trump also announced he would be appointing CIA director, Mike Pompeo, as his replacement.
The president said he would appoint a woman to lead the CIA for the first time in history.
The president told reporters as he left the White House for a trip to California that he and Tillerson had been “talking about this for a long time” but that he “made the decision by myself”.
“We disagreed on things,” Trump said, citing the Obama-era nuclear agreement with Iran.
“I think Rex will be much happier now,” he declared.
“We were not really thinking the same. With Mike, Mike Pompeo, we have a very similar thought process. I think it’s going to go very well.”
He boasted that the future secretary has “tremendous energy, tremendous intellect, we’re always on the same wavelength. The relationship has been very good.”
Trump added: “Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service! Gina Haspel will become the new Director of the CIA, and the first woman so chosen. Congratulations to all!”
Haspel was the CIA’s deputy director, a career officer who was a longtime clandestine officer.
In a statement, Trump said Pompeo “graduated first in his class at West Point, served with distinction in the U.S. Army, and graduated with Honors from Harvard Law School. He went on to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives with a proven record of working across the aisle”.
He called Haspel’s move to the CIA’s reins “a historic milestone.”
Trump also had words of praise for Tillerson: “A great deal has been accomplished over the last 14 months, and I wish him and his family well,” he said.
The president had clashed with Tillerson over and over again in the past year, seeing him as a relic of the Republican establishment at a time when the nation needed more unconventional thinking.