Secretary of State Tillerson: 'I Didn't Want This Job'

As the old saying goes: Behind every successful man there stands a woman … making him become the United States' secretary of state. At least that's how the adage was apparently interpreted in Rex Tillerson's household, per an interview with Tillerson that appeared Tuesday in the International Journal Review. "I didn't want this job. I didn't seek this job," says the secretary, who IJR notes seems to have a "relative disinterest in the pomp and circumstance" of the job he now holds. In fact, Tillerson reveals that pre-2017, he'd been planning on retiring this month and heading off to hang out with his grandchildren at his Texas ranch. So what changed his mind? A little finger-wagging from his wife, Renda St. Clair.

"My wife told me I'm supposed to do this," Tillerson tells IJR, noting that St. Clair exclaimed, "I told you God's not through with you!" when he came home "stunned" after meeting with Donald Trump post-election and finding out the then-president-elect wanted him to run the State Department. Not that Tillerson, who turns 65 on Thursday, hasn't since come around. "She was right. I'm supposed to do this," he says, adding he'll stick around "at the pleasure of the president." Read the rest of the interview—including his take on how diplomacy mixes with the "America First" concept, and how an aide says he and Defense Secretary James Mattis "get along like gin and vermouth"—at IJR. (He definitely went full throttle last week on how we may handle North Korea.)