Pointing to Trump’s management style, one informal adviser said the president is loath to fire aides outright and instead prefers to publicly humiliate them, hoping they decide to quit on their own. Later, he often tries to repair the relationship — a pattern that played out with several senior advisers, including former chief of staff Reince Priebus and former chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon.
.. Tillerson, 65, has alienated onetime allies at the White House and his underlings at the State Department with what many call a highhanded and tone-deaf manner.
.. Vice President Pence and his staff had also come to believe that Tillerson was ineffective as the chief diplomat and had further undermined his standing by being disrespectful to Trump.
Pence was particularly upset when Tillerson’s spokesman, R.C. Hammond, told NBC that the vice president raised questions about the role of U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley in the administration — a claim Hammond later recanted.
.. Tillerson’s likely successor for a time appeared to be Haley, a Republican former governor from South Carolina who has clashed with Tillerson. Over the past several weeks, however, Haley and White House officials had signaled that she was not likely to be chosen, in part because she is seen as not yet seasoned enough. Haley insisted last month that she does not want the job and would reject it if offered.
.. Tillerson’s main project, a downsizing and streamlining of the State Department bureaucracy, has drawn widespread criticism on Capitol Hill, from leading congressional Republicans and from Democrats. Tillerson has been frustrated by the slow pace and inefficiency of government, as well as what he has complained to friends is a culture of backstabbing and self-aggrandizement.