Trump Dumped Abrams Over His Criticisms During the Campaign

President Donald Trump intervened at the last moment to deny Rex Tillerson his pick to be deputy secretary of state — former deputy national security adviser Elliott Abrams.

The president overruled his secretary of state — following meeting with Tillerson, Abrams and son-in-law Jared Kushner — after reading news reports about their meeting, which included references to Abrams’ criticisms of Trump during last year’s presidential campaign, according to people familiar with the decision. Though his staff was aware of Abrams’ statements, the president was not — until he read news reports about their meeting earlier this week.

“The core point here is that this comes from Trump’s thin-skinnedness,” said a top Republican strategist who supported the Abrams appointment. “He is the problem, this is all he cares about.”

While Abrams didn’t sign any of the so-called “Never Trump” letters that emerged from the Republican foreign policy establishment during the campaign, he said publicly that neither Trump nor his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton was fit to be president.

Tillerson, the former Exxon Mobil CEO, wanted the deep government experience Abrams would have brought to the position.

“It really speaks so poorly of Trump,” said Eric Edelman, a former United States ambassador to Turkey and undersecretary of defense in the George W. Bush administration. “It robs him of somebody who could have helped him enormously because they know the State Department extremely well and would have been respected enormously by the foreign service officers who work with him.”

On the right, Abrams’ supporters had put elbow grease into advancing his cause. Since December, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton had been making the case for Abrams not only with Tillerson, but also with Priebus, Kushner and Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon. In particular, Cotton assuaged their concerns that Abrams, who played a peripheral role in the Iran-Contra scandal, would face a tough Senate confirmation.

Cotton assured them repeatedly that Abrams’ confirmation was a “100 percent certainty,” according to a source familiar with the conversations.

Abrams, known as a right-wing hawk, was also winning bipartisan support both inside and outside of the administration. Key Democrats — including Chris Coons and Tim Kaine of Virginia — said they were inclined to support his nomination.

In foreign policy circles and on Capitol Hill, the president’s decision is sparking concerns that by overruling his secretary of state on a key personnel decision in a semi-public manner, he is weakening the country’s top diplomat out of the gate.

One Republican senator worried that foreign leaders look to a secretary of state to have a strong personal relationship with the president — and this is not the way to show the strength of that relationship.

“Now everybody knows he doesn’t have any juice with Trump,” said the GOP strategist. “He can’t even get his own people in.”

The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Abrams’ name appeared last week as an attendee at Trump’s meeting with Tillerson in standard off-the-record guidance sent to reporters from the White House press office, sparking speculation that Abrams had emerged as a top choice for Tillerson — and, subsequently, as evidence that Trump had overruled his secretary of state.

“It speaks well of Secretary Tillerson that he was looking at Elliott,” Edelman said. “Does this really mean Trump can’t take any criticism? Well, we know the answer to that.”