what makes this movement this era we live in cities so unique this is really an attack on itself is a lot of misunderstanding a distortion of what free speech is supposed to be about the context it's hugely important little rights to publish if you have a duty to be offensive will provoke it's all about you when i speak with. setting the stage for a serious debate. up front at this time on al-jazeera. al-jazeera . and live from studio fourteen here at al-jazeera headquarters in doha i'm daddy welcome to the news grid where we're focused on one breaking story rex tillerson is

out u.s. president donald trump announces the departure for secretary of state after months of speculation about their relationship tillerson will be replaced by the boss of the cia we'll have all the reaction to the latest departure from the trump administration unsurprisingly social media networks have exploded as the news came out i'm afraid if you want to know what you think throughout the show so connected us using the hash tag a.j. you split. your revenues good or live on air we're streaming online through you tube facebook live and that al-jazeera dot com thanks for joining us so months off to reports emerged of a big falling out between donald trump and rex tillerson the u.s. president has now announced the departure office secretary of state's well this is the biggest shake up of trump's cabinet so far it comes at a crucial time for u.s. diplomacy with the world including got

a historic meeting between trump and. north korean leader kim jong moon tillerson is being replaced by the cia boss my pump a zero who's job goes to intelligence officer gina hospital president trump revealed all on twitter here it is mike pump a.o. director of the cia will become our new secretary of state he will do a fantastic job thank you threats to listen for his service gina hospital will become the new director of the cia and the first woman to be chosen congratulations to all he tweeted while he's since spoken to reporters on the white house lawn and admitted he didn't always see eye to eye with rex tillerson. i've worked with mike now for quite some time. tremendous energy for many years is the lack. always on the same wavelength. the relationship has been very good that's what i do

as secretary of state. i wish rex tillerson well gina by the way who i know very well who i work very closely will be the first woman director of the cia she's an outstanding person who also i have gotten over well so i've gotten to know a lot of people very well over the last year and i'm really at a point where we're getting very close to having the capital and other things that i want but i think mike pump will be a truly great secretary of state i have total confidence in him and as far as rex tillerson is concerned i very much appreciate his commitment that his service and i wish him well i think it's good down. rex and i've been talking about this for a long time we we got a long actually quite well but we disagreed on thing when you look at the iran deal

i think it's terrible i guess it was ok i wanted to see the break it or do something and he felt a little bit differently so we were not really thinking the same with mike my company a we have a very similar sort process i think it's going to go very well rex is a very good man i like rex a lot i really appreciate his commitment to the service and i'll be speaking directly over a long period of time ok so that was the statement that donald trump was making on the white house lawn or white house correspondent kimberly helka joining us now and it's a white house can believe that really likes to flip the script and we certainly saw that today with the developments over the past few hours with a lot of people saying that tillerson didn't speak to the president and is in fact unaware of the reason. right i know you'll be speaking to my colleague ross jordan at the state department probably has some further insights on that but just

very quickly the headline yes well the president there as he was leaving for california on the lawn of the white house they're going to board marine one that's where you hear the whirring of the helicopter in the background he say knowledge that he and rex tillerson had been talking for some time about the departure but in fact that is not what the statement coming out of the state department indicates that in fact it was just the contrary that he did not know the reason why he was leaving but i think what the president is speaking to is sort of the broader discussions that he and rex have had in terms of policy differences i think it's really important to note that what the president acknowledged there is something that we've known for a long time and that is this president makes decisions impulsively he has an impulsive nature he often makes decisions very quickly as we saw with the decision to decide to meet with the north korean leader kim jong un that was something that wasn't even on the schedule in other words this is

a president who also acknowledged there just a moment ago that it's taken him some time to grow into this role in terms of his cabinet who he feels comfortable with this is the second cabinet departure and of course this is also kind of an abrupt firing given the fact that it's very similar and manage what we saw with the firing of the f.b.i. director james comey who found out he was leaving his role on television now the president indicates that he did give some sort of notice to rex tillerson but in the state department press release that is indicated to the contrary look you mentioned the differences these two men had just a moment ago and we know that there were vast differences certainly between them so on the subjects of the meeting with the north korean leader kim jong un that is meant to be taking place in may or before may was that the straw that broke the camel's back. well certainly these men have had differences when it

comes to north korea there's no question about it i mean the president has even ridiculed rexx terrorist tillerson publicly on social media even suggesting that talking to north korea was a waste of time and then what does the president do it turn around and except a meeting with the north korean leader on the invitation of the south korean envoy says they relayed that message on thursday so this just underscores once again what we've always known about this president that he does act impulsively now what we should point out in all of this is who is going to replace rex tillerson it's mike pump a of someone who currently has been heading the cia he will be swiftly confirmed it's expected because he's been confirmed once already for his role in the trumpet ministration and the other question is who will take over the intelligence agency that is a woman who is by the name of gina has fell which you talked about at the start of the show and she also to bring some controversy in her role given the fact that not

only was she makes history potentially being now the first female director of the cia but she did at one time run a cia prison in thailand where terrorist suspects were water boarded of course very controversial in terms of interrogation techniques something that the president has endorsed there are so many layers to the story that we're going to be continuing to unfold but these are at this point are the headlines ok kimberly we'll leave it there for now thank you for that update from right in front of the white house a notorious state department correspondent rolls in jordan so according to a statement rosalind from the state department itself rex tillerson never saw this coming that's right and i'm going to pull up the statement and just walk our viewers through it it's pretty it's pretty remarkable so basically all i pull up the statement this is what the president had to say essentially it's this. and you know what emails are great when you can't pull it right up and then

it's you know right there so i don't know out roles where about me i know i really got it i already got it that is the statement by the yard now i got i had i've got it here we go here we go secretary has every had every intention of staying because of critical progress made in national security he will miss his colleagues at the department of state and the foreign ministers that he's worked with throughout the world the secretary did not speak to the president and is unaware of the reason but he is grateful for the opportunity to serve and believes public service is a noble calling he wishes the secretary designate mike pompei oh well get a little bit of you know trying to find e-mails but seriously the fact that the secretary of state is saying in a public forum that he did not have any conversations with the president donald trump about his future at the department of state is rather remarkable but this

isn't the first time this is happened during donald trump's presidency the f.b.i. director james kelly was fired also on social media and he only found out about it while he was talking to reporters on a trip across the country and that happened early last year just about the same time of year now what makes this significant daryn is the fact that people basically had assumed that rex tillerson was going to be staying on as the secretary of state at least through the rest of two thousand and eighteen he gave one sit down interview with the state department colleague indicating as much at the end of twenty seventeen and this was certainly after a number of controversies about where he and the president stood or didn't do agree on foreign policy and we can just run through a list the iran nuclear deal how to resolve the situation with north korea's nuclear ambitions how to deal with blushes meddling alleged. meddling in the u.s.

presidential election of two thousand and sixteen as well as ongoing concerns about russian meddling in u.s. civic affairs russia's handling of the situation inside syria where the government of bashar al assad has been conducting a rule attack on both civilians and rebel fighters in an effort to maintain political control lots of key differences on big policy issues there was also a rumor the secretary of state wasn't crazy about the president's decision to go ahead with trade tariffs so a lot of areas of disagreement there was also the famous reported comment that tillerson apparently made about the president calling him a moron after meeting on north korea last summer lots and lots of issues but people basically here thought that tillerson had weathered the storm as it were and was going to just go ahead and focus on trying to do his job while trying to stay on

the president's good side obviously that's not the case now and as far as pompei of himself goes. he still has to go through confirmation hearings as well as a vote likely that he'll be confirmed is that fair to say but is there any reason that that is not guaranteed. well it's not guaranteed because this is where the us is form of government three equal branches comes in for you know the president can want whomever he wants and where would she wants to be in the cabinet but the constitution gives congress and in this key particular case the senate the right to advise and provide consent on those nominees any of those senators could say you know what i don't like the guy i don't want to have him be there and do what's known as a hold essentially freeze the nomination not allow it to be considered either by the senate foreign relations committee or by the entire senate that does happen but

usually it affects lower level officials in the government not someone usually at this high a level certainly not since the one nine hundred eighty s. but what is more likely is that there's going to be a delay before mike pompei o if he's confirmed actually comes here to twenty two a one c. street northwest that's because the chairman of the senate foreign relations committee bob corker who himself has not gotten along well with the president says that he's not going to hold hearings on my client pails nomination until at some point in april no further date well april is the month when donald trump is supposed to sit down with kim jong un so who's going to be advising the president when he has this key meeting with the leader of a country that the u.s. does not want to have nuclear weapons that's a big question and it's certainly questionable whether mike palm pale who technically would still be the cia director could actually participate in that

meeting if he is now being nominated for another cabinet post so that's a big logistical question but the more substantial concern is who's going to be there with the president providing advice about what the north koreans have what. north koreans want what the north koreans are willing to do to try to get their way there is no a master from the u.s. to south korea right now that nomination has been up in the air for some time again because potential nominees haven't exactly agreed with the president there is not going to be an envoy for north korea because joseph unit the person who currently holds the job wants to retire and while you can ask someone to stick around for a little while there seems to be no one in the pipeline to replace mr yoon so there are some real questions about what kind of leadership gap there is going to be and

really what kind of impact that's going to have on the u.s. as foreign policy of course at the end of the day diary it really comes down to this if there's anything remarkable about the first year of the trumpet ministration it's that the white house has been running foreign policy dealing with mideast peace for one example trying to now deal with north korea trying to deal with trade policy and relations with countries in the asia pacific region trying to figure out how to deal with europe in the wake of brecht's that all of those questions have been dealt with at the white house not here at state so it may not make a difference but it could have a real impact going forward and roland just briefly let me ask you what all this appeared vogue some may describe it as an uncertainly what it means for the state department itself. well people were shocked when they found out the news and you know i ran into was some people coming in this morning and

they did not see this coming they fully expected that the secretary would be coming back from his africa trip dealing with jet lag but getting red back in on other issues even though he was very much on top of the situation with the attempted v.x. poisoning of the former russian double agent and his daughter looking at the question of this particular summit with the north korean leader kim jong un but they were expecting to see him back in the building working on these and other critical issues throughout the week and so there is a real sense of shock there's also the question of whether mike pompei would continue what rex tillerson had started to considerable uproar which is the effort to cut the headcount of the state department both diplomats and support staff by about thirty percent in an effort to save money seventy thousand people work for the u.s. state department that's versus two and a half million people who work for the defense department but the idea was and what

the president wanted it was to save money wherever it could be saved right in this case look at the state department and try to put some of that money into expanded defense operations will mike pompei will continue with that part of what had been rex tillerson is agenda we have no idea all right thank you for that update now another one of our correspondents political hand compiled this look back at killer sons time in the job take a look. about. rex tillerson was an unusual choice for secretary of state he had no experience as a diplomat instead he spent his career first as an engineer rising through the ranks eventually becoming the c.e.o. for energy giant exxon he was controversial because in that job he was awarded a high honor by russian president vladimir putin and that became an issue as he looked to the senate for confirmation is vladimir putin the war criminal. i would

not use that term. he got more no votes than any other secretary of state in the country's history but he was confirmed and quickly set out to reassure a nervous department i'm the new guy. tillerson is first goal find out how to shrink the state department and foreign aid agency launching a survey to figure out where cuts could be made which departments streamlined he said until it was done most top positions would not be filled in unheard of move in washington and he seemed to embrace a proposed cut of almost thirty percent of the department's budget but it turned out his biggest challenge trying to be on the same page as his boss during the g.c.c. crisis he called for an end to the blockade only to have president donald trump contradict him just about an hour later his first attempt at shuttle diplomacy failed to move the g.c.c. crisis to resolution and when it came to north korea he once again seemed out of

step while tillerson expressed hope that the crisis could be handled diplomatically his boss promised fire and fury they will be met with fire fury and frankly power and the discord continued when tillerson announced the u.s. was speaking directly to north korean officials the president tweeted that tillerson was wasting his time writing save your energy rex will do what has to be done. but the clearest break came after the president seemed to equate white supremacists with the protesters fighting back against their message of bigotry in charlottesville virginia asked about it on a talk show tillerson gave this unprecedented response from a cabinet secretary. i don't believe anyone doubts the american people's values or the commitment of the american government or the government's agencies to advancing those values and defending those values and the president's values the president speaks for himself chris. are you. separating yourself from that search his

relationship with the president became even more tense when tillerson had to speak out after reports emerged he had called trump a moron and that he had to be talked out of quitting which led trump to challenge his own secretary of state to an i.q. test p.j. crowley worked in government for thirty years he says tuitions leaving sends the wrong message to the world if a secretary of state. leaves barely less them a year on the job that that will communicate significant turmoil to the rest of the world and that you know that will add to the concerns that the world house about the direction of american foreign policy a foreign policy that tillerson tried to set even a president trump often got in his way political heat al-jazeera washington well rex tillerson dealt with the very volatile middle east during his time in office grappling with conflict in syria and yemen and the gulf diplomatic crisis recent

e-mails obtained by the b.b.c. revealed the u.a.e. government lobbied to get him fired over his support for qatar after the blockade began tillerson criticized the saudi government for its role in the conflict in yemen and the political situation in lebanon on he also came under attack for skipping israel on his middle east tour last month that's when he visited egypt kuwait jordan lebanon and turkey let's bring in al-jazeera senior political analyst joining us from london before we talk about some of the specifics of the middle east and let me tell you what a senator a democratic senator in the u.s. is saying about this he's saying that the firing of rex tillerson and the chaos in the trumpet ministration raises major concerns about the ability of the u.s. to conduct foreign policy in concerns for and got governments this is according to senator bob menendez you agree. well certainly the

president does not agree it doesn't matter if i do or not there are certainly president trump thinks that the working in chaos and disorder is something that is to his liking and that's what he functions best in chaos as it were yes in terms of the american establishment does not feel comfort with this order if anything a superpower like the united states with so much at stake everywhere within the country and outside it with so many our allies clients dependent's as well as enemies stability sobriety order is something that's. a totally important for the united states to function well and to be you know sort of predictable so is this is certainly not been the case over the last year and if anything if one expects every administration in the first year to put it's at least its major players in orders it's major secretaries and and aides and ambassadors and so on so forth well this administration was not like that most most posts

overseas that remain and and fulfilled or and failed and certainly there's been a lot of firing and hiring in washington and so you know that first she did not contribute to the world allies and others understanding where is this administration heading and who with ace be speaking to next if you look at one of the sort of hot spot issues of the middle east that is the iranian nuclear deal and that is certainly one of the issues that trump and tillerson disagreed on what does this mean for that deal. well there really believe it or not the nuclear deal seems to be connected with all these other deals and at the center of it is saudi arabia and its crown prince mohammed and so man who will be in washington next week so is it a coincidence that the arsonist fired when he disagrees on some of the most important issues touching so would you assume relations or mohammed inside man

trump relations or if i may add some i've been ziad hemet been said man from relations or no there is no it's it is no coincidence and in so many ways rex tillerson seems to be taken the sober view of the issues that the middle east whether it is the question of iran and the nuclear deal stability in the gulf the war in yemen and the arab israeli conflict in the so-called peace process as well so forth conferencing him and opposing him in all of these questions are not simply the president but the president son and you know who apparently according to various american reports in the new york times washington post and here in the b.b.c. this is son in law jerry of course not had apparently been conspiring with the likes of the leaders of the u.a.e. and others in order to fight to get them fired well now they got their wish why

because as the reportedly. jetted questioner told rex tillerson there would be other secretary of state even while he is serving a secular state because jeb bush no except the secretary of state to be loyal to the president not to have his own agenda and that seems to have been the disagreement with the outset while. you know any president with expected to for his orders but when it comes to the input in policy they expect their various lieutenants be it second their defense secretary of state and others to voice their opinions and once the president makes up his mind then everyone follows suit by the way i mean just to be short we've seen that happening under the bush administration for example secretary of state colin powell disagreed with the bush administration policy towards iraq but when the administration took a decision when george w. bush took a decision colin powell went to the united nations and defended it even though he disagreed with it and that's what would have been expected of secretary and yet

jetted question are clearly had the president is here and clearly has been conspiring against rex tillerson and clearly the fighting has to do with the upcoming visits of mohammed been sold out of saudi arabia and how much been cited of the united arab emirates ok we'll leave it there we thank you for speaking to us from london lawrence korb is a former u.s. assistant secretary of defense and he says that tillerson was viewed by many world leaders as a stabilizing force in the trump administration. he and secretary mattis have been able to calm a lot of the people around the world when the president would make these. statements that you did not have a lot of thought behind them or you know did not understand you know the interests of the other countries for example the latest on that charis you would have hoped that journalists and would be over there dealing with the european union to prevent

you know having a trade war or story of our nato allies that the you know the president still supported or are the article five so this is i think you know he and madison basically been calming down a lot of the people around the world. not overreacting to the president's actions whether it's mexico australia the problems that he have so it's going to be very hard because pompei of style is a lot like trump so be very hard for him to you know really act as the diplomat in chief and and their reaction to the president agreeing to meet with the north koreans was probably the last straw for the president because he sees himself as the great deal maker and he thinks he can sit down with the cam and make a deal that you know the history lasts for predecessors you have a cry that republicans have not been able to make and i think jealous and was probably say you know you have to be careful what you do you're not going to solve

this you know right right away i mean i had the privilege of working with president reagan and it took him almost two terms to be able to get the intermediate nuclear forces agreement with gorbachev even though they had several meetings ahead of. well nothing to bruce fein he's a former u.s. associate deputy attorney general joining us from washington d.c. thanks for speaking to us so in terms of the style in which this was done bruce fein it pretty much seems that tillerson was absolutely blindsided. yes typically something like this where there is a conflict between the president and the cabinet head would cause a letter of resignation to be submitted and the president would accept it and there wouldn't be any embarrassment there wouldn't be any denigration whereas this made it appears the president was firing somebody who was on his t.v. show the apprentice i also think that the president's explanation as to why he was

he was firing mr tillerson bodes ill for the attorney general mr sessions because mr sessions says also. mr trump with regard to the special counsel investigating some of the face of warrants the intelligence warrants and openly said that he would not necessarily obey what the president was asking him to do and we've heard the same kind of rumblings about mr sessions as we heard prior to mr taylor since firing namely rumors in the press so that's another place to look at i also would comment that i think there are a couple of places of vulnerability of mr pompei a when he comes for confirmation first there will be hammering on his view of russian involvement in the two thousand and sixteen elections where he's clearly parted company with trump and they'll be an effort to try democrats to make him stake out a position that's at all odds with the white house that could be embarrassing the second thing they'll ask him about is the signature predator drone killings that persist all throughout south asia the middle east are they doing any good is the

cia at all involved with providing intelligence to the saudis to help them in their war crimes against yemeni civilians starving millions so those could be very difficult points for his confirmation and with regard to the new cia nominee you know she'll be asked about her participation in zero called black sites a torture this is things that came out in the recent senate torture report that was compiled in two thousand and sixteen only some of which been highly publicized in the second area of her vulnerability is acquiescing in the destruction of interrogation videotapes and. other information that bore on whether or not there was a violation of law in obstructing the investigation into what kind of interrogation was used against al-qaeda detainee you're absolutely right and just going back to pump a zero for a second because he really has been a very fierce critic of efforts to rein in the cia's torture program and he's also been a champion of keeping guantanamo bay open which is something that trump has also spoken about so what exactly then does he bring to say two states.

well i don't know why i mean i suppose the best thing that he brings to state for mr trump is just a new face and it's this the nature of the way politics works you know you've got a breathing spell when you bring in a new team and say well you've got a little give a little time to gel here and so mr trump is notorious for just kicking the ball down the road i mean that's what he did with firing james komi the problem of the russian collusion obstruction of justice didn't go away and that's all that i can see mr pompei o did not sit on foreign relations committees when he was in the congress he doesn't have any special expertise with regard to diplomacy as opposed to espionage and i think it's a new face and he way will be out in six months or years well washington is natori us with changing their heads in order to provide new faces and give a breathing spell for the president and then he's got to come up for some other distraction and there's a white house official white house excuse me official that saying that trump wanted

a new team in place ahead of talks with north korea and various ongoing trade negotiations and i'm just reading here this is according to reports coming out of the u.s. that might pump a zero will he the senate foreign relations committee excuse me expects to begin confirmation proceedings for my pump aoe in april and that meeting with north korea is meant to take place in may so is there enough time for all of this to happen for a new team to be put in place for diplomacy to take shape and form as it's supposed to. not if it's to be diplomacy out of the white powder of the state department now you may recall it sometimes you know it has succeeded out of the white house the henry kissinger secret meetings with china that enabled president nixon to open you know a window into the people's republic that had been closed for decades did succeed in the state department was frozen out completely but here if you look at it mr

trump's inner circle they're all military people they don't have any background in diplomacy unlike mr kissinger and his national security council staff so that where is he going to provide where is he going to get the information in the the nuances of agreements that would give him confidence if he can strike some understanding with kim jong un you know that any kind of agreement can be enforceable and work to the best interest of the united states and he's got to take into consideration what would be the impact on our relations with japan what it would be the impact on our relations with south korea what would be the impact on the relations of china if a deal was struck so the says so multi-dimensional problem and mr trump doesn't have any deep staff at the state department mr telos and left most of the under secretary and assistant secretary positions on field he doesn't have it at the white house i don't see how there are going to be able to conduct anything like the sophistication required in these deals you know in the certainly in the next couple

of months and the other item of that i think that that's important here with regard to the negotiations themselves mr trump seems to be the one who wants to negotiate directly now in the united states the last time we had a president who tried to go abroad and strike a grand deal was woodrow wilson you went to paris he is going to bring home the league of nations and the treaty of versailles and it turned out to be a complete disaster people counseled against that and i would think that mr trump ed i'm in i'm would not want to be the first one this talking to kim jong un the one be the second or the third after the groundwork has been laid the expectation. they're going to be sky high because the head of state the most powerful nation in the world with kim jong un and the likelihood of crushed expectations of something going awry are very very high ok bruce fein we've kept you busy for the past couple of hours with us here at al-jazeera but we thank you very much for your analysis. thank you well social media as you can imagine lit up as soon as the news broke and

sarah hire us has been monitoring all of that for us sara it's been incredible it's a really nice you can imagine as soon as the news dropped the hash tag rex tillerson it shot right up to the most trending worldwide on twitter and elsewhere and you can see so already got two hundred forty one thousand tweets on not worldwide but i want to show you this heat map because it shows you just before the news broke and then a soon as the news broke for you going absolutely explosions of tweets across the world and the hash tag for that has been rex tillerson than a sin is of course it was made they it was an absolute explosion and that shows how much the traffic is going through but also trending worldwide in the top and it's already moved since this program began is pumped he was on fifth place there with what's trending and now up to fourth place of course is the new u.s. secretary of state but there's been plenty of reaction and let's look at some of the latest on that of course is

a lot of speculation from all sides here at the moment but one of those doing the rounds is why was citizen sacked in the first place in the most talked about speculation online has been summed up in this tweet by american chef anthony bourdain where he says yesterday to listen responded forcefully to the russian of asian attack in the u.k. today to listen is a fine heads but many others have counted the argument pointing to to this is the latest statement where he says he's unaware as to why he's been fired of course that was a very public statement that's been made there and also here's a tweet from a reporter with a news agency a.p. josh levs a man and he says who who he actually got off the plane a few hours ago with to listen and he says there was there oh indication on the flight home that this was imminent but some of the other online comments being made is that trumps activist and of twitter of course this hasn't very been. and that is speculation too and we're still finding out more about what really has been going

on behind the scenes and if and if you were shocked by all surprised by this latest sacking then actually check out this list here that's been shared online and the list of course is growing rex tillerson is at the top there but quite a few known names steve bannon as well as james komi and michael flynn just to name a few that those are the people that been sacked since became president and one more thing i want to show you that's doing the rounds as well as a tweet by comedian trevon noah and he if you have a look here there's a picture it's a mockup of the celebrity apprentice and it says the celebrity a president there right in the middle but there are a few faces that have disappeared and those are the ones the last that one's been doing the rounds online as well and of course another hash tag has been used this is a play on words for breaks it but the one that's being used for this is reg's if you want to be tweeting about that as well will be keeping an eye on the latest developments you can leave your comments live for us on facebook and on twitter

throughout the show you can send it to drain or myself and my details are at. yes we're keeping an eye out on the twitter feed on the facebook feed as well and you can also a what's past so we may put our number up in a second if we don't it's plus one seven four five zero triple one one four nine so keep your comments coming to us here on the newsgroup where we can get more on the middle easterner perspective and speak to romney who he is a senior fellow at the american university of beirut joining us now from beirut sure. your overall assessment of this move and what's happened over the last couple of hours with tillerson being out. i think this is a clear confirmation of what we've seen over the last year and two months of the trump presidency this is not a president that makes decisions based on policy but rather on personalities he doesn't always take into consideration the total national interests of the united states but rather the political interests of his ruling of the republican party and

particularly his base of people in the country maybe that thirty thirty five percent that support his rather right wing super nationalist views and he doesn't particularly care about american values as people call them which are widely respected around the world but he really cares mostly about. his personality prevailing and his style of leadership which is a centrally an entertainment based style of leadership has done this consistently and he's going to keep doing it he doesn't appoint people because they have real expertise or experience but because they get along with him and this is a problem for the united states because a spelling creasing really create stresses in the united states is relations with people all around the world which has been already widely documented and for instance the drop in respect for the united states around the world and when you

look at the middle east specifically is the absence of tillerson a big loss to the u.s. is middle east policies. it's hard to say i my initial reaction would be in not particularly because the united states as middle east policy has not been very effective or very clear or very consistent the loss of tillerson is a loss for those people in the middle east who care for rational decision making and the compliance with international law to the extent that that can be done the people that are happy in the middle east are those few heads of state and various arab countries who are actually trying to be very close to trump who play up to him like the leaders of egypt for instance or so the arabian u.a.e. and other countries and there are people all around the region who love trump but they're really quite a minority because most of the policies of the united states around the middle east

have been damaging to the most part for the majority of people but a small minority of people in the power elites are trying to be close to trump and this is something that probably they would welcome but also they think that trump will help them push back against iran and the real explanation here is that there is no single middle east there is no single arab world so there are a small groups of people who are close to trump and there are large groups of people who are critical of what the united states is doing and who are critical of what their own arab leaders are doing so the polarization that you see in the united states that brought trump to power is perfectly mirrored in the middle east with large numbers of people who are critical of their own leaders and critical of their living conditions and the lack of rights in the arab world and the small minority of people and the power elites often in power who are in line with what

trump is doing whether it's with israel or with iran or in other places what wasn't perhaps a in your opinion what was the biggest disagreement between trump and tell us and we know that there were certainly and number of them that that led to this point. it's hard to tell which of the actual policy issues was the most problematic i would think probably it's either the cutoff situation or the israel situation but i think the reality is that this is more of a emotional personality and style based decision rather than one purely based on policy because if it was purely based on policy those policy differences became clearer six nine months ago and something something that would have been done and it's very hard in retrospect to trump rationally because what most of us continue to not fully grasp and we're constantly surprised by what trump does is

that he isn't he doesn't act like a normal president as we've known presidents people still expect him to change to bring in some people who bring order to the white house will bring order to foreign policy who bring rational national interests and decision making to various dimensions of policy and he brings in people to top positions including secretaries of various government departments who are either totally incompetent as we see for instance in the energy department or the education department then these are these are people who wouldn't get a job teaching in a high school this topic that they're given to run a whole ministry in the united states and other people have competence but half of them don't so the thing about trump is doing things in his way which is with surprises unpredictability personality based whimsically erotically that's how he

operates and therefore we cannot rationally lies in retrospect why did he do this now why didn't he do it a month or two ago he does it because he feels like it and he thinks that this is done of go well with his base and it's going to make him look like a tough guy and that's how his this is. making process seems largely to work and he doesn't particularly care what the american people or the world think about how he operates his government away with it so far but he's getting very close to the point where there's going to be a majority of people in the us who simply won't put up with this and more into them they'll try to figure out how to how to protect the constitutional traditions of the united states ok we'll leave it there we speak thank you for speaking to us and i mean hootie from beirut so let's now take a closer look at who mike pump aoe is so before joining politics pompei a founded and headed up companies in the aerospace and oil sector is he served three terms in congress when trump appointed him to take charge of the cia

considered a republican hardliner pompei was an outspoken critic of the former president obama's landmark nuclear deal with iran he also defended the national security agency's bulk data collection program and described whistleblower edward snowden as a traitor has said that while there was russian meddling it did not affect the outcome of the twenty sixteen election that appears to contradict findings reported by american intelligence agencies evan sink free it is a republican strategist and he joins us now from new york via skype thanks for speaking to us so is there a strategy at all here that perhaps many people are missing that trump is has a real strategy going on or what's going on here. well the president really fell out over the president really do like rex tillerson after the stock over the summer comments where tillerson cult and a moron and he was ready to get rid of him then but many people urged him to keep

him on to keep continuity and to keep up diplomatic relations with other countries because firing somebody because he called you a moron isn't the best way to go and the president also has actually really built a strong and trusting relationship. peo delivered his presidential daily briefings that this normally a cia officer delivers to the president personally so they built this relationship and he has been angling peo and his secretary of state since last october or september i'm pale is a harsh critic of the rand deal and i suspect that you'll see the president move further away and pull out of it because rex tillerson urging the stay and and he also is somebody who along with general mcmaster general kelly secretary maddox gina haskell nikki haley and others on this from foreign policy team they make up a very good foreign policy team in the minds of republicans including myself at the same time the president showed he was very impulsive and not good at firing people

it's being reported that rex tillerson learned he was fired yet twitter by the president's tweet he didn't even have the decency to tell him so however we also saw that happen to james comey james comey learned on c.n.n. that he was fired by president trump and met so the president is having some issues here but at the end of the day i think that this is a positive step forward for both the administration and the country but there are things that they impulsiveness off the president a sustainable because i'm not sure if you heard what my previous guest was saying that i mean what he was saying that the president basically does what he wants and there will come a time in the u.s. where people will start to stand up to this and they will want to uphold the american constitution and i'm just looking at our facebook feed right here on the news grid one of you are saying that he has a support of the president but the way he sacking high ranking officers could bring impeachment into this governance do you agree with that at all. well put it this

way i have a date with jennifer lawrence after this interview because that's about as likely as impeachment because of him being impulsive the president has problems are is his impulsivity absolutely our problems and i've been a harsh critic i think the way in which this was managed was terrible i think the outcome is good but it doesn't send a strong signal to our allies and it sends a signal of weakness to our enemies we are saying we will go and doing things based upon what side of the bed the president wakes up on versus actually going out and doing long term strategic planning be it in terms of shifting a secretary of state out or putting together a north korea remember last week the president accepted kim jong un's invitation and it was he accepted it while the south koreans were still delivering they don't wait for them to finish he didn't consult with his foreign policy team and say ok what can we do to ensure maximum leverage which is great do it and that impulsivity is reckless when you're being president so i think that it's not going to lead to

people standing up and saying we're going to impeach the president has every right to make a decision it's just a method in which he goes about executing our rights ok evan we'll leave it there we thank you very much for speaking to us from thank you very new york let's now cross over to russia to bring in return alan standing by for us in moscow to tell us whether there's been any reaction from the kremlin rory and about the sort of relationship that tillerson had with russia. well i think obviously there's going to be people inside the kremlin who are watching this reasonably closely. there of course was a time when rex tillerson had a very good relationship with russia it was pretty rosy that was back in the days when he was in the oil executive he worked in russia for a fair number of years and then as the c.e.o. of exxon mobil he was actually made kind of audrey well i think the

name of the award is the order of friendship that was given to him by by vladimir putin essentially as a sort of a sign of the warm relations between x. and y. mobile and russia and russian oil and gas companies. but then of course when he became the secretary of state the harsh realities of geopolitics took over basically i mean people were speculating before the trumpet ministration came in that this was going to bring a kind of thawing of the worsening relationship between the united states and russia that taken place over the course of the obama administration they thought that under trump and under tillerson things would get better that's not what happened at all so over the last year or so we have had events like

the increase of u.s. sanctions on russia we've had diplomats expelled in the kind of tit for tat responses and of course we have had the the u.s. cruise missile strikes against syria in a syrian airfield needy year ago which was in response to the gas attack on com shaker and all of these things basically brought the u.s. russia relationship under trump and under to listen to essentially an. new low so all of those beliefs that people had before trump and to listen to over the reins of u.s. foreign policy of things between russia and the united states would get better they never came to pass and in fact they got worse so looking ahead what can we expect for pompei zero and how it here approaches moscow. well that's a difficult one and considering the kind of predictions that people were making as

rex tillerson was coming into the office it would be foolish i think to make too many predictions about what my pompei o is going to bring to the state secretary particularly when it comes to relationships with russia i mean we can go through certain qualities natural buttes and tendencies that my pompei or has he's a hard line republican he has be serving as the director of the cia for for a while now so he basically has access to the most confidential information that the united states possesses when it comes to russia and what russia is doing around the world but then pompei or has said. stances on issues of the day like he is very very against the iran deal the iran nuclear deal which russia and the united states and other countries have worked together painstakingly over the years to build up and put into place so russia will not like it if under

pompei or the united states moves further away from the iran deal pompei as also said things like he believes the edward snowden the u.s. whistleblower who is currently living in russia should be brought back to the united states to face charges to face trial to face due process in the u.s. and he says probably face the death penalty that's something that i don't think will please russia as well so there are various things that pompei o might do as state secretary that i don't think russia will like and of course there's the sort of impact of the he might or might not i'm not have on donald trump as our guest been saying rex tillerson was a kind of moderating influence on trump in a certain way because money. is much more akin to trump much more points. type us now it's a there's a questionnaire about whether. mites reign trump am or actually go to him on

a month ok thank you rory for that update from moscow and that is the question in fact i want to put to my guest juan cole he's a distinguished visiting professor at qatar university with us here in the studio thanks very much for sticking around i know you've been waiting for a while so what do you think is going to do when it comes to trump is he going to be able to sort of rein him in as roy was saying or is he going to take him on oh i think he's going to edge him out on pump ayos out of control he's a huge iran a foe he really has it in free ron and trump said as much he said that he's a point you know in part to break up the iran deal he's a huge islam a phobe he's. accused american muslim leaders of potentially being in cahoots with terrorism so he and he he took on iran last december he said he wrote a letter to salema to possum's the money the head of the iranian special forces

right there and there are guards yes over a potential conflict between iran and the united states in iraq so he's he's a hard liner so this doesn't sound like you seem very optimistic for the sort term at least when it comes to the region oh no i think that the pump aoe is so it illogical and you know he's the one that ran that phony inquisition into hillary clinton over over benghazi. he's so the logical so one sided you know he i think this is bad news for cutter for instance because i was very close to the saudis and he said openly he said that if the saudis and the israelis want to combine against iran this is all to the good and of course cutter is caught in the middle of all that. oh senior white house official just reading this right

now saying that trump thought it was the right time for a transition with a coming north korea talks and various trade negotiations is it the right time when you have such a important unprecedented meeting coming up in that meeting of course is the one with the north korean leader well it's ridiculous on the face of it that that's why this is being done actually i think it's the story of a stormy daniels scandal which is closing in on trump if she can in fact break the silence agreement that she signed there's some question of whether he broke campaign finance laws and having her paid off to be acquired this is the porn star that he was allegedly involved with and that's been dominating the headlines in the past week and so all of a sudden he comes out with the steel tariffs and switching out to loosen i think it's wagging the dog i think he's trying to take attention off of his kindles. you know i got to ask you i mean what is this what does this mean for america's sort of

standing in the world for those that are looking from the outside in and looking at what's happening in the u.s. with this sort of turmoil that's going on in the administration well i think the united states standing in the world has taken a big hit. ever since trump has come into office and this won't help but it's not as though you know brussels were already reassured just because tillerson was there everybody knew that trump calls the shots and so the announcement about the steel tariffs still apparently the europeans have been given no assurances that they won't be on that list and they have threatened reprisals. with regard to the a lot of diplomacy was taken away from tillerson so gerrard cushman has been in charge of of the palestine issue and other issues that are very pressing we'll have to leave it there i beg your pardon runkle we're just coming up to the top of the

hour but i thank you very much for speaking to us so that breaking news story that rex tillerson is alex our teams in london will pick up the story with you in just a couple of minutes with all the latest developments thanks for tuning in and thanks for watching the news media.

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war infrastructure and the pentagon some foreign corporations. now a politician activists are building a homegrown solution. and secure the nation's technological sovereignty. will be the citizens network at this time. is there exists a lot. but not enough to keep him as secretary of state the us president was his top diplomat rex tillerson trump admits the pair had many differences of opinion.