Secretary of State Rex Tillerson out, CIA Director Pompeo to assume role
Rex Tillerson is leaving his role as secretary of state, with CIA Director Mike Pompeo assuming the role, President Donald Trump announced Tuesday morning, citing disagreements on Iran with the former Exxon Mobil CEO.
“Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA, will become our new Secretary of State. He will do a fantastic job! 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!” the president wrote in a tweet.
Prior to his role as the CIA chief, Pompeo served as the Republican representative from the fourth district of Kansas.
“I am deeply grateful to President Trump for permitting me to serve as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and for this opportunity to serve as Secretary of State,” Pompeo said in a statement. “His leadership has made America safer and I look forward to representing him and the American people to the rest of the world to further America’s prosperity.”
Haspel, who has been promoted from her previous post as deputy director of the CIA, and thanked the president for the opportunity to take the helm of the agency.
“[I am] humbled by his confidence in me, to be nominated to be the next Director of the Central Intelligence Agency,” she said in a statement. “If confirmed, I look forward to providing President Trump the outstanding intelligence support he has grown to expect during his first year in office.”
Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday that he and Tillerson had disagreed on certain issues, including the nuclear deal struck between Iran and six other countries – including the U.S. – in 2015.
“When you look at the Iran deal, I think it’s terrible,” the president said. “I guess he thought it was okay. I wanted to either break it or do something and he felt a little bit differently. So we were not really thinking the same. With, Mike Pompeo, we have a very similar thought process. I think it’s going to go very well.”
Pompeo and Haspel will need to be confirmed by the Senate to serve in their new roles. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee expects to hold a hearing regarding Pompeo’s nomination in April.
“As I shared with the president, the committee will consider his nomination as expeditiously as possible,” committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said in a statement Tuesday.
Markets opened more than 100 points higher, indicating investors are taking the news in stride.
The news was first reported by The Washington Post.
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