Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson doesn’t plan to discourage President-elect Trump from tweeting about foreign policy matters.
“I don’t think I’m going to be telling the boss how he ought to communicate with the American people,” Tillerson said during his Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing. “That’s going to be his choice.”
Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., said he’s worried that Trump’s use of Twitter would lead to unexpected conflicts with standing U.S. policy. “How would you finesse this? How would you ensure that the legs are not cut underneath you as the nation’s chief diplomat?” Young asked.
Tillerson predicted it wouldn’t be a problem while he’s traveling. “It would be my expectation that any way the president might choose to communicate, through whatever method, would be supportive of that policy we’d both agreed on,” he said.
And in cases where Trump goes off message, “I have his cellphone number,” Tillerson said. “And he’s promised me he’ll answer.”
Tillerson found himself explaining one of Trump’s recent tweets shortly after that exchange, when he was asked if the president-elect’s comment on North Korean nuclear weapons testing. “North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the U.S.,” Trump tweeted. “It won’t happen!”
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., asked if that tweet amounted to a “red line” promise not to allow North Korea to obtain that capability, but Tillerson said that was a “pretty far extension” of Trump’s tweet.
“I could interpret that to mean a lot of things,” Tillerson said. “It’s not going to happen because the president views the North Koreans aren’t going to do one, it could be interpreted that way.”
Murphy disputed Tillerson’s ambiguous reading of the tweet, but reinforced Young’s questioning about Trump’s Twitter habits.
“When you conduct foreign policy by 140 characters, it does become a little opaque as to what you mean,” he said.
