Why Trump dumped Tillerson

What should we make of the president's big national security shakeup?

Rex Tillerson.
(Image credit: AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

There's never a dull moment in President Trump's White House.

Trump has dramatically shaken up up his frontline national security team just days after announcing a potentially groundbreaking diplomatic overture to North Korea. On Tuesday morning, the president unceremoniously dumped long-suffering Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (who reportedly learned of his ouster via Trump's tweet), replacing him with loyal CIA Director Mike Pompeo. Trump is also promoting Gina Haspel, the CIA's deputy director, to lead the agency. She would be the first woman to helm the 70-year-old spy agency. Both positions are subject to Senate confirmation, but both Pompeo and Haspel are likely to be confirmed (although Pompeo's hearings might be a little rockier).

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Marc Ambinder

Marc Ambinder is TheWeek.com's editor-at-large. He is the author, with D.B. Grady, of The Command and Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry. Marc is also a contributing editor for The Atlantic and GQ. Formerly, he served as White House correspondent for National Journal, chief political consultant for CBS News, and politics editor at The Atlantic. Marc is a 2001 graduate of Harvard. He is married to Michael Park, a corporate strategy consultant, and lives in Los Angeles.