When does a man become US Secretary of State? When his wife tells him to. At least that\u2019s what Rex Tillerson said in his latest interview. Apparently, he didn\u2019t want the job and only took it because his wife said he was \u201csupposed to.\u201d
\n\u201cI didn\u2019t want this job. I didn\u2019t seek this job,\u201d Tillerson said during a three-nation Asia trip in an interview on his plane with the Independent Journal Review (IJR), a little-known US news and opinion website founded by former Republican party staffers.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy wife told me I\u2019m supposed to do this,\u201d he said, adding that he had not even met Donald Trump before he was summoned to Trump Tower to discuss global affairs and subsequently offered the position as the administration\u2019s top diplomat.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen he asked me at the end of that conversation to be secretary of state, I was stunned,\u201d Tillerson confessed. The former CEO of Exxon Mobil, the world\u2019s largest oil explorer, said he had planned to retire from business in March of this year and \u201cgo to the ranch to be with my grandkids.\u201d Yet, when he got home from that fateful meeting and told his wife Renda St. Clair about the offer, she said, \u201cI told you God\u2019s not through with you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, nearly two months on the job, Tillerson, who will be 65 this upcoming Thursday, says Renda did the right thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy wife convinced me. She was right. I\u2019m supposed to do this,\u201d the secretary of state said.<\/p>\n
The public quickly reacted to Tillerson\u2019s confession, which left people on Twitter either amused or dumbfounded.<\/p>\n
The US Senate approved Trump\u2019s pick for secretary of state on February 1. Tillerson\u2019s candidacy initially met with opposition, with critics pointing out that the oil executive had no government or diplomatic experience. His business ties with Russia, which he established during his time at Exxon Mobil, also raised questions, as did allegations that had tried to hide the effects of climate change while the company\u2019s CEO. A handful of senior US diplomats resigned just as the Senate was expected to confirm Tillerson as secretary of state, while the majority of Senate Democrats voted against him.<\/span><\/p>\n Tillerson still got the job and is now the first US secretary of state with no prior experience in any public office. However, in the interview with IJR, he asserted that his experience as Exxon\u2019s CEO translates perfectly to his duties as state secretary, as he can use it to reform the State Department and make it more effective and efficient. He noted that under his leadership, Exxon\u2019s workforce dropped from 100,000 to 75,000, while the company became bigger and more complex at the same time. Tillerson said he aims to make the State Department more efficient as well and hopes that, one day, \u201cthe people at the State Department will find their jobs much more rewarding.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When does a man become US Secretary of State? When his wife tells him to. At least that\u2019s what Rex Tillerson said in his latest interview. Apparently, he didn\u2019t want the job and only took it because his wife said he was \u201csupposed to.\u201d \u201cI didn\u2019t want this job. I didn\u2019t seek this job,\u201d Tillerson said during a three-nation Asia… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=666"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":667,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666\/revisions\/667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}