Why Is Mr. Tillerson in a Perpetual State of Duck and Cover?
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Version 0 of 1. For a guy who has spent his life delivering messages — as a businessman, reality TV star, presidential candidate and now president — President Trump is doing an abysmal job explaining his view of the world and America’s place in it. Normally, that would increase the importance of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. But if Mr. Trump’s messages are confusing, Mr. Tillerson’s are almost nonexistent. Secretary of state has traditionally been seen as the premier cabinet position. But Mr. Tillerson has shown little interest in asserting a public role for himself or his department. Instead, he has been avoiding public accountability on matters of war, peace and pretty much everything else. That includes pressing issues like the administration’s plans for pumping up the fight against the Islamic State. Mr. Tillerson risks diminishing his position, that of his department and possibly the influence of his successors. For instance, after Mr. Trump signed his Muslim ban 2.0 on Monday, Mr. Tillerson and his counterparts at Justice and Homeland Security held a press event and dutifully read out statements about the new order. But they refused to answer questions, making it clear they saw reporters as mere pawns in their P.R. tableau. And at Mr. Tillerson’s photo op with the Ukrainian foreign minister the next day, he ignored Andrea Mitchell, the veteran NBC correspondent, who was firmly ushered out of the room by State Department employees when she tried to question the secretary about China and North Korea. It’s not that previous secretaries didn’t sometimes duck questions. But Mr. Tillerson has been shockingly inaccessible since he was sworn in last month. On top of questionless photo ops, there have been no news conferences and no Sunday talk show appearances. Compounding the problem, Mr. Tillerson silenced the State Department’s institutional voice for six weeks by suspending the press briefing, which had been conducted by a spokesperson on a regular basis (usually daily) for decades. The briefings resumed Tuesday after an internal debate over their value; plans are to hold two public briefings and two conference calls per week. The briefing is not a meaningless convention. It is the only place where the government is regularly forced to defend and explain its foreign policy in public to reporters, many of whom are experts in the field. The process can be time-consuming and contentious. It is also a way to force officials to explain their thinking — and reveal details — about the issues. On Tuesday, topics ranged from Mr. Tillerson’s relationship with Mr. Trump to his plans to pursue a new approach on North Korea when he visits Asia next week. Over the years, reporters have pummeled State Department press officers on why America didn’t act more quickly to defend Muslims in Bosnia, why the Bush administration invaded Iraq, why the war in Afghanistan was going badly and how Israeli-Palestinian peace talks might be revived. You can occasionally glean as much from the briefings the department doesn’t hold as from those it does. Last week, when the annual human rights report was issued, State discussed it in a background conference call with reporters instead of the on-camera briefing with the secretary of years past. The message: This administration is downgrading human rights in its dealings with other countries. It appears that Mr. Tillerson’s retreat from public accountability will continue when he travels. There are no plans to bring a group of reporters on his Air Force plane when he goes to Asia next week; at most, he may permit one, a spokesman said. For years, news organizations have paid for their reporters to accompany the secretary, the only practical way to keep up with his far-flung itinerary and be nearby when crises occurred. Sure, proximity can foster too-cozy relationships, but it hasn’t kept good reporters from pursuing critical stories, and it can reveal how challenging the problems are. Reporters knew how hard James Baker worked to assemble the Persian Gulf war coalition because they flew with him from country to country, as I can attest from covering him and other secretaries of state for decades. They knew the futility of John Kerry’s many Mideast peace efforts because they were on those journeys, too. Officials avoiding journalists surely won’t shut down the reporters’ investigative instincts. This aversion to press contact has perhaps been shaped by Mr. Tillerson’s years as chief executive of Exxon Mobil, where his media interactions were tightly controlled and his focus was on shareholders and the board. State Department sources say he doesn’t see the importance of engaging the press, a view reinforced by Mr. Trump’s attacks on the media. Mr. Tillerson is a “bottom-line guy,” they explain, more concerned with quietly engaging foreign counterparts and cutting deals. Past secretaries of state realized that their ability to speak authoritatively about America’s interests strengthened the boss’s message. Mr. Trump’s ideas, as far as they are known, are deeply problematic. Yet they need to be heard not just by other world leaders, but also the American people. Inevitably, when some crisis boils over, the president and his secretary of state will need to garner public support. Unfortunately, they may find they don’t know how it’s done. |