Pence says he was 'disappointed' in Trump for firing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson via tweet: book

• Pence said he was "disappointed" in Trump for firing Rex Tillerson as secretary of state via tweet.
• In his new memoir, "So Help Me God," the former vice president lauded Tillerson as a "class act."

Former Vice President Mike Pence in his newly-released memoir said he was "disappointed" in former President Donald Trump for firing former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in March 2018 via Twitter, lauding the ex-diplomat as a "class act."

In the book, "So Help Me God," Pence remarked on the uniqueness of Tillerson as Trump's choice to lead the State Department, but was blunt about the differences in the way the former secretary of state conducted himself in the business world compared to the former president.

"Rex had done a yeoman's job carrying out bureaucratic and budget reforms at the State Department, and I believe he tried his best to express the president's opinion abroad. He was well informed and never hesitated to give the president his opinion," Pence wrote of Tillerson's demeanor while at Foggy Bottom.

"The problem was that although he and the president were both businessmen, they came from very different parts of the business world: Trump was the CEO of an entrepreneurial family business, whereas Rex was the CEO of a publicly held multinational corporation," he continued to say. "Trump was a pirate; Rex was a three-piece-suit company man. That difference is why, I believe, the relationship ultimately didn't work. Plus, going from being the head of one of the world's largest companies to being the subordinate of the president of the United States could not have been easy."

Tillerson, who served in the Cabinet from February 2017 until his dismissal a year later, was the chief executive of ExxonMobil from 2006 to 2016 while also serving as the national president of the Boy Scouts of America from 2010 to 2012.

His career at ExxonMobil had spanned over 40 years.

'I was disappointed in the president'

Pence explained that Tillerson was used to things being run a certain way, which diverged sharply from Trump's less conventional leadership style.

"Rex was also often frustrated by the president's confrontational style of running meetings. I have great respect for Rex, his career, and his leadership at the State Department and from time to time made a point to encourage him after a particularly lively meeting," the former vice president wrote.

"But the tension occasionally spilled out in the press, such as with an erroneous report that Rex had referred to the president as a 'moron' after a meeting at the Pentagon in the summer of 2017," he continued to say. "But I don't believe it. Whatever differences he had with the president, the secretary of state was a class act."

Pence then stated that he disagreed with how his then-boss terminated Tillerson from the administration.

"At the end of March, Trump dismissed Tillerson via a tweet. I was disappointed in the president for dismissing him in that manner," he wrote.

"The rumor was that Tillerson, suffering from a stomach ailment, had learned about his firing overseas in the bathroom on the State Department plane. I didn't think it was funny," he added.

During a December 2018 interview on CBS News, Tillerson called Trump "undisciplined," prompting the then-president to respond on Twitter where he described his former Cabinet member as "dumb as a rock."

And in a January 2021 interview with Foreign Policy, Tillerson was sharply critical of Trump's posture on the global front, lambasting the former president over his relationships with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin and stating that "nothing worked out." The ex-secretary of state also said that the US had gone "nowhere" with China with regard to national security.

"His understanding of global events, his understanding of global history, his understanding of US history was really limited. It's really hard to have a conversation with someone who doesn't even understand the concept for why we're talking about this," Tillerson told the publication of Trump. "I used to go into meetings with a list of four to five things I needed to talk to him about, and I quickly learned that if I got to three, it was a home run, and I realized getting two that were meaningful was probably the best objective."

Trump — who on Tuesday announced that he would run for president again in 2024 — replaced Tillerson with Mike Pompeo, a former congressman and ex-CIA director.

Pompeo, who left his role at the conclusion of Trump's term in office, is currently eyeing a 2024 White House bid of his own — along with Pence.