The staff at Camp Runamuck seems to be growing restive, at least if NBC News is to be believed.

The tensions came to a head around the time President Donald Trump delivered a politicized speech in late July to the Boy Scouts of America, an organization Tillerson once led, the officials said.

Just days earlier, Tillerson had openly disparaged the president, referring to him as a “moron,” after a July 20 meeting at the Pentagon with members of Trump’s national security team and Cabinet officials, according to three officials familiar with the incident. While it's unclear if he was aware of the incident, Vice President Mike Pence counseled Tillerson, who is fourth in line to the presidency, on ways to ease tensions with Trump, and other top administration officials urged him to remain in the job at least until the end of the year, officials said.

Part of me wants to gloat. Anybody who watched the campaign for five minutes last year and still took the president*'s shilling deserves whatever they get. But the world is coming apart a bit at the moment. Russia is trying to undermine western democracy. Rightwing lunacy is on the rise in Germany, a development which historically has not been good for those parts of the world that are not Germany, and not very good for Germany, either, now that I think about it. A batshit dictator from a family of batshit dictators is poised to make North Korea, which can't guarantee its people breakfast, a nuclear power. And, lest we forget, Donald Trump is in the Oval Office. It's hard to imagine a worse time for the Secretary of State to be engaging in outright mutiny, even if his perception of the president* as an international leader is right on the button.

The level of uncertainty in this government is not supportable. (And, yes, I know that very little of this government is supportable.) In ordinary circumstances, a Secretary of State who was this unhappy would quietly resign for health reasons and to spend more time with his family. Then, some other gray person would replace the departed secretary and life would go on. But these are not ordinary times, as you may have noticed. Tillerson was greasy with Russian oil money when he took the job. Now, he's tumbled to the fact that the guy who hired him shouldn't be running a gas station, let alone the world's oldest democracy.

But if Tillerson leaves, we'll have another round of bullshit confirmation hearings into whoever is dumb enough to take this job. Obvious conflicts of interest will be waived at. Dangerous previous statements will be wished away and, who the hell knows, we might end up with Omarosa, whom the Senate will confirm, because there are tax cuts to pass. Chaos will carry the day.

UPDATE—Well, we're going to have Secretary Rex around for a while longer. He came out on Wednesday morning and read a statement about how he and the president* remain committed to their goal of Making America Great Again. No, really. He actually said that. He denied that Mike Pence had stepped in to keep him from quitting, but the Secretary of State refused to confirm or deny whether he had called the president a moron, and that is yet another sentence I never thought I'd have to type. I've seen hostage tapes that were more spontaneous.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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