When Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was put before a congressional panel to pitch his budget proposal, lawmakers who were frustrated with the administration asked him why it was taking so long for the State Department to fill in their vacancies. The Secretary said that the hiring process was long and extensive but that they were getting started with it. It was reported that weeks after that panel hearing, it was reported that Tillerson blew up at a White House aide for not allowing him to put in the new hires that he wanted for his department.

Fired for not pledging loyalty

The appropriate assertion here is that the Trump administration does not want a functioning government as it gives more power to the President to make executive decisions. This process has a lot to do with the kind of authoritarianism President Trump is obsessed with where he can have everyone around him do his bidding without breaking away from his agenda, which appears to be very much non-existent. This is especially true because of reports that he demands loyalty from his "subjects".

The subject of loyalty came up during a review of the firing of former FBI director James Comey who explained President Trump's request for loyalty when he was invited to the White House to have dinner.

Comey's response was that he would be honest with him rather than loyal. It was also reported in an interview with former Department of Justice prosecutor Preet Bharara on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos that President Trump had also asked for his loyalty as well.

Trump demands loyalty to him

Bharara believes that when he didn't give it to the President that he was fired the next day.

When confronted with this multiple times, President Trump has come up with excuses saying that he meant loyalty to the country and not loyalty to him. But White House officials revealed in a report by CNN that Trump requires this loyalty. In a report titled: "Tillerson finally takes center state at Putin meeting", it explains how Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has had a more active role in the engagement of foreign leaders starting at the G20 Summit.

But It also described his frustration with how he isn't able to get the new hires he wants in the State Department because of people with less experience blocking his requests. The reason for hiring delays was explained by two officials as a "loyalty test" by the President. They said that there is a message coming from the White House that those people who are hired within Trump's administration must be sufficiently loyal to Trump. They went even further to confirm that in order for those who want to be hired to have positions there, they should have no history of saying anything against him. The article points out that this was one of the reasons why President Trump didn't go with Rex Tillerson's pick, Elliot Adams for Deputy Secretary of State because he found out that Adams had been critical of the President during the 2016 campaign.
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