Report: Tillerson, Mnuchin, and Mattis have a 'suicide pact' where if one resigns, they all do

Rex Tillerson.
(Image credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson brushed off reports that he was close to stepping down over the summer, frustrated over President Trump's fast and furious Twitter fingers and insufficient staffing, and one U.S. official believes he knows why Tillerson didn't resign, despite his annoyance.

The official told BuzzFeed News that Tillerson has a "suicide pact" with Defense Secretary James Mattis and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, meaning if any one of the Cabinet secretaries becomes the target of Trump's ire, all three will leave together. One way of getting on Trump's bad side would be by calling him a "moron," which NBC News says Tillerson did following a meeting in July at the Pentagon. When asked by reporters on Wednesday if he did call Trump a moron, Tillerson replied that he doesn't "deal with petty stuff like that."

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.