africa. his aide said he s been out two weeks. his father passed away about a week ago and then went on this long trip to africa. with all the news with north korea, we ve been reporting on this crisis of tariffs with allies. the secretary felt he had a full schedule. did most of the things he needed to do in africa and came back early. that launched a lot of suspicion that maybe he knew something was out. several aides i ve talked to this morning insist he was not notified by the white house that he lost his job. not notified. possible he learned about it on twitter, although, as you say, perhaps he got word of it as early as friday that something was up as he was brought home earlier than expected from his overseas trip. elise, thanks very much. let s go to kaitlan collins at the white house. reporter: a lot of stunning comments from the president just there on the south lawn. speaking about rex tillerson and his departure, the president repeatedly said he was a good guy but focu
white house. what s the latest from there? reporter: good morning, john. we re learning a little more about what happened with rex tillerson, and some of this reporting seems to indicate that the president made this decision while tillerson was travel iingn after ka. tillerson arrived back in the united states at 4:00 a.m. this morning. he cut the trip short the state department said because he had meetings in washington. clearly according to our sources the president believed tillerson was not sufficiently loyal to him, especially when it comes to his agenda. they were not seeing eye to eye on policy, especially with the new meetings with north korea on the horizon, to make a transition in that job. you have to remember, john, all the way back, months ago, tillerson reportedly called the president a moron. that issue has never sat well with president trump. he has always resented it and never gotten over that moment of defiance on tillerson s part.
engage more with north korea. now we re seeing the president move forward with that in the coming weeks and months, potentially talking to the leaders of north korea and he wants a fresh start it looks like. he never had a good relationship with this guy. i want to say one more thing. mike pompeo should have a relatively smooth transition and be confirmed as the secretary of state here. he is pretty well liked by republicans on the hill that control majorities of both houses. he s got to be confirmed by the senate, of course. he is a west point graduate, went to harvard law and is pretty well respected on the ill. it should be a smooth transition there. alex burns, we re waiting to hear from the president of the united states. i looked down on my computer, and his taped comments will play back any second right now. in fact, i m getting a readout on some of the things he said. he said he wishes rex tillerson well even though we just learned he never spoke to rex tillerson and calls mi
very talented man. i m also speaking to many others. but i think larry has a very good chance. thank you all. i ll see you at the wall. i ll see you at the wall. there goes the president. headed to marine one, headed to california today. i ll see you at the wall. he s going to tour prototypes for what he wants to be the border wall with mexico, speaking for the first time about his decision to oust secretary of state rex tillerson, a man whom he says he has always gotten along with well, the evidence to the contrary, and talking about mike pompeo, the cia director who will be nominated as secretary of state. a couple of questions the president was not asked, nothing about stormy daniels, the adult film actress suing the president, nor about the pennsylvania special election which could not go well for the president today. we have new developments on this major administration shakeup. stay with us. we ll be right back.
gina who i ve worked with very closely will be the first woman director of the cia. she s an outstanding person who also i have gotten to know very well. i ve gotten to know a lot of people very well over the last year. and i m really at a point where we re getting very close to having and other things that i want. but i think mike pompeo will be a truly great secretary of state. i have total confidence in him. as far as rex tillerson is concerned, i very much appreciate his commitment and his service and i wish him well. he s a good man. [ inaudible question ]. rex and i have been talking about this for a long time. we got along actually quite well but we disagreed on things. when you look at the iran deal. i thought it was terrible. he thought it was okay. i wanted to either break it or