Meanwhile at the State Department, reports about poor morale have abounded since Tillerson assumed his position in February. The secretary was described as aloof, his plans to reorganize the State Department were criticized, and the Trump administration’s proposal to cut the department’s budget by 30 percent was met with horror. A hiring freeze at the department, combined with the fact that most of the senior positions requiring Senate confirmation are still vacant, have also resulted in multiple news reports about dysfunction. Added to all this is the perception that Trump doesn’t care about the work the State Department is doing. The president has not only appeared to contradict Tillerson publicly on Qatar, NATO, and Iran—besides North Korea—he has also appeared to suggest that his “America First” message is not simpatico with multilateral cooperation with America’s traditional allies. At one point, he thanked Russia for its expulsion of U.S. diplomats in retaliation for a similar step by the Obama administration, as well as its seizure of Russian compounds in the U.S., because, in Trump’s words, “we’re trying to cut down our payroll.”

Another State Department official I spoke to, who was similarly not authorized to speak to the press and so spoke anonymously, said early reports of Tillerson’s positive dynamic with Trump had given people in the department hope that “Trump would learn from Tillerson what diplomats do—build alliances so that America does not have to act alone against countries like North Korea.”

“But,” the official added, “Trump does not seem to care about alliances and therefore does not care about diplomacy. That was obvious from his budget, obvious from his disparaging comments toward diplomats serving in Russia, and obvious from the stiff arm he has given Tillerson on North Korea.”

Eliot Cohen, who was a counselor at the State Department from 2007 to 2009, wrote Monday in The Atlantic that Tillerson should resign following Trump’s tweets. The “humiliation of one more senior staff or cabinet member may not seem like a big deal. But it is,” Cohen wrote, adding: “His boss has publicly and mockingly stripped him of his credibility as the chief diplomat of the United States. As an envoy, he is useless, because he will speak only for himself and the tiny embattled coterie of aides that surround him. Having taken a pickaxe to the department entrusted to his care, his departure would do the battered State Department some good, as well as enabling him to salvage what remains of his dignity.”

Ambassador Laura Kennedy, who served at the State Department for four decades until 2015 under both Republican and Democratic administrations, told me that while she’s critical of Tillerson’s running of the State Department, she gives “Tillerson some real credit for sticking with” his North Korea diplomacy “stoically.” Kennedy said that it’s not unusual for a president to disagree with his secretary of state—she cited the example of Colin Powell’s tenure at the State Department during the administration of President George W. Bush—but said the manner of Trump’s tweets could have long-term implications for U.S. diplomacy.