Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan pushed back against reports of deep unhappiness with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in the face of a redesign and looming cuts that could slash the country’s oldest Cabinet agency by as much as 30 percent, CNN reports.
“The notion that’s been out in the press and the media of a hollowed-out State Department that is not effective is counterfactual,” Sullivan told reporters at the State Department.
Sullivan sat down with reporters as Tillerson continued his travels in Asia. The top diplomat’s trip to the Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia is focused on the need to contain North Korea, improve counter terrorism efforts and bolster U.S. economic ties to the region.
Pointing to the secretary’s efforts to rein in North Korea, the passage of a UN Security Council resolution against Pyongyang on Saturday, and other work Tillerson has done, Sullivan said “the fact that the secretary and the department have been able to accomplish what they have is evidence that we are hitting on all cylinders”.
He noted that this was happening despite deep staffing shortfalls.
A series of articles have portrayed dysfunction at the department, which remains understaffed, and deep uneasiness among foreign service officers and career civil servants.
Tillerson has been portrayed in reports as remote, surrounded by a few handpicked staff and isolated from the rest of the building. And the reorganization, which Tillerson says will be “employee-led,” is seen as turning the department into a more rigidly top-down environment that resembles Exxon Mobile, where the former CEO spent his entire career before coming to the State Department.
Those stories, Sullivan said, are “twisted in a way that makes it look as if the secretary is out of touch, mismanaging whatever”.
“The guy is committed to the mission of the department, is engaged with career staff who brief him,” Sullivan said. “I think there is really a misconception of the department and what we are doing in the department and his role in the department.”
Sullivan batted back concerns that Tillerson is alienating career staff, pointing out that acting Assistant Secretary Susan Thornton is with the secretary in Asia and that Deputy Assistant Secretary Tim Lenderking is in the Gulf, along with special envoy, retired General Anthony Zinni, working to resolve a diplomatic dispute between Qatar and its neighbors.
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