Where in the World Is Rex Tillerson?

The Secretary of State fiddles in Texas as the world may, quite literally, burn.

FP_podcast_article_artwork-1-globalthinkers
FP_podcast_article_artwork-1-globalthinkers

Plenty of high-ranking officials have been out front as Kim Jong-Un continues to test ballistic missiles and threaten the destruction of the United States. Rex Tillerson isn’t one of them. Amid a volley of verbal shots between the United States and North Korea’s supreme leader, the Secretary of State quietly slipped out of Washington. And it wasn’t to meet with staff at embassies abroad. This comes as a rash of high-profile staff departures has further depleted the roster of seasoned diplomats, already playing several men down.

Plenty of high-ranking officials have been out front as Kim Jong-Un continues to test ballistic missiles and threaten the destruction of the United States. Rex Tillerson isn’t one of them. Amid a volley of verbal shots between the United States and North Korea’s supreme leader, the Secretary of State quietly slipped out of Washington. And it wasn’t to meet with staff at embassies abroad. This comes as a rash of high-profile staff departures has further depleted the roster of seasoned diplomats, already playing several men down.

On this week’s second episode of The E.R., Foreign Policy’s executive editor for news Sharon Weinberger sits down with Vikram Singh and Robbie Gramer to ask Where’s Rex?

Vikram Singh is the vice president for national security and international policy at the Center for American Progress. Prior to joining CAP in 2014, Singh served at the State Department as the deputy special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan and at the Pentagon as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for South and Southeast Asia. Follow him on Twitter: @VJS_Policy.

Robbie Gramer is a FP staff writer focusing on the State Department. Follow him on Twitter: @RobbieGramer.

Sharon Weinberger is FP’s executive editor for news. She is the author of The Imagineers of War: The Untold Story of DARPA, the Pentagon Agency That Changed the WorldFollow her on Twitter: @weinbergersa.

Tune in, now twice a week, to FP’s The E.R.

Subscribe to The E.R. and Global Thinkers podcasts on iTunes.

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