Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson denied former United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley’s accusations that he sought to undermine President Trump and that he sought Haley’s help to do so.
Haley published the claims in a new memoir of her time in the Trump administration. Haley said that Tillerson, along with former White House chief of staff John Kelly, asked Haley to help “save the country” from the president.
“During my service to our country as the Secretary of State, at no time did I, nor to my direct knowledge did anyone else serving along with me, take any actions to undermine the President,” Tillerson said in a statement to the Washington Post. “My conversations with the President in the privacy of the Oval Office were always candid, frank, and my recommendations straightforward. Once the President made a decision, we at the State Department undertook our best efforts to implement that decision.”
“Ambassador Haley was rarely a participant in my many meetings and is not in a position to know what I may or may not have said to the President. I continue to be proud of my service as our country’s 69th Secretary of State,” Tillerson said.
Haley said that Tillerson and Kelly sought to “undermine” Trump’s foreign policy goals rather than confront the president about disagreements in person.
“Instead of saying that to me, they should have been saying that to the president, not asking me to join them on their sidebar plan. It should have been, go tell the president what your differences are and quit if you don’t like what he’s doing,” Haley said in a Sunday interview on CBS. “To undermine the president is really a very dangerous thing.”
