Donald Trump insisted on Friday that Rex Tillerson was “not leaving” the US state department, denouncing as “fake news” multiple reports quoting White House officials as saying the secretary of state was about to be ousted.



Earlier in the day, Tillerson also rejected the reports of his “imminent departure” as laughable.

Trump used Twitter to deny the reports, saying that while he and the former oil executive “disagree on certain subjects” it was the president who called the “final shots”.

The tweet came after a lunch with Tillerson and the defense secretary, James Mattis, a close and powerful ally of the Texan secretary of state who also met Tillerson early on Thursday morning, when the reports emerged.

It also came after Trump’s position was weakened by a guilty plea to perjury by his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and reports that Flynn was willing to testify that Trump had directed him to make contact with Russian officials, something the president has repeatedly denied.

“The media has been speculating that I fired Rex Tillerson or that he would be leaving soon - FAKE NEWS! He’s not leaving and while we disagree on certain subjects, (I call the final shots) we work well together and America is highly respected again!” Trump said in his tweet, attaching an Instagram picture of the president swearing in Tillerson into office.

The tweet did not address why so many news organisations had been briefed on Thursday by multiple White House officials that a plan was being prepared by which Tillerson would be forced out and replaced by the CIA director, Mike Pompeo, while Senator Tom Cotton, a diehard Trump loyalist, would take over the CIA.

It was also unclear why Trump had waited more than 24 hours to douse the speculation over Tillerson’s future. When asked directly by reporters on Thursday whether he wanted his secretary of state to stay at his post, the president did not deny the report, simply noting Tillerson was currently visiting the White House.

“He is here,” Trump said then. “Rex is here.”

On Thursday, CNN quoted a “source with direct knowledge of the White House’s thinking” as saying that the leak of the story about Tillerson’s ouster was intended to punish him for his public disagreements with Trump, and “publicly shame” him, in the hope that he would resign of his own accord.

The events of Friday suggested his departure was not imminent.