Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson is still seen as the front-runner to be Donald Trump's pick for secretary of state. | Getty Exxon CEO still leading pick for State despite Senate pushback Tillerson could be named as the nation’s chief diplomat Tuesday 'unless something massive explodes,' one source said.

ExxonMobil chief executive Rex Tillerson is still the leading contender to become President-elect Donald Trump’s secretary of state despite pushback from prominent senators wary of Tillerson’s ties to Russia, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

One of the sources said Tillerson could be named as the nation’s chief diplomat in the coming days — “unless something massive explodes” by late Tuesday.


The source added that Trump’s team is “generally concerned about the Russia angle but willing to have the fight because they think he is that good.”

Trump's formal selection appears imminent, with the president-elect tweeting on Monday night, "I will be making my announcement on the next Secretary of State tomorrow morning."

Tillerson has over the years negotiated business deals with Russia and was awarded the Order of Friendship by President Vladimir Putin in 2012. After he emerged as Trump’s likely pick, senators voiced varying levels of concern about the executive’s warm relationship with the Kremlin.

“Being a ‘friend of Vladimir’ is not an attribute I am hoping for from a #SecretaryofState,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) tweeted Sunday.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Monday also expressed skepticism. “When he gets the friendship award from a butcher, frankly, it’s an issue that I think needs to be examined,” he said on Fox News, while cautioning “that does not mean we should prejudge Mr. Tillerson.”

A source familiar with the matter said Rubio’s tweet shouldn’t be viewed as a “no” vote, and Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway indicated Rubio, McCain and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) would support Trump’s stance to operate “from a position of strength” with Russia and other nations despite their early resistance.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) delved into the issue during his news conference Monday morning, rebuking the Kremlin as he announced support for a congressional probe into its involvement in the U.S. election. His remarks came hours after Trump suggested that the CIA’s assessment that Russia is responsible for a series of hacks to tip the election in his favor “would be called a conspiracy theory” if he lost the election and his team “tried to play the Russia/CIA card.”

McConnell said flatly that “the Russians are not our friends” and maintained that the U.S. should approach foreign policy and national security issues “on the assumption that the Russians do not wish us well.”

Asked specifically about the possibility that Trump would tap Tillerson as secretary of state, the Kentucky Republican didn’t mince words.

“I’m going to save us a lot of time by saying I just addressed how I feel about the Russians, and I hope that those who are gonna be in a position of responsibility in the new administration share my view,” McConnell said.

A Trump transition spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

But Conway defended Tillerson’s ties to Putin in an interview with MSNBC, downplaying their connection as a “business relationship” but also touting it as a plus for the administration.

“It’s not as if they’re intimate friends. It’s not as if they’re godparents to each other’s children,” she said Monday afternoon. “I think this is getting blown way out of proportion. It can be looked upon as an asset, not a liability, because you want somebody as secretary of state … who has experience, who has the facility, who’s not new to the job, and Rex Tillerson is a very Trumpian-inspired pick.”

Outgoing Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) acknowledged that much during an interview with CNN in which he also noted the difficulty Tillerson would face in getting confirmed.

“I don’t know if he can get 50 votes or not,” Reid said. “I think it may be a little hard for him to do that. And I have nothing against Tillerson. I know him. I know nothing about his Russian connections.”

The search for the nation’s next secretary of state has been a weeks-long public process that has exposed divisions within Trump’s transition team.

The president-elect leaned toward one of his fiercest critics, 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, early on in the process. But while Trump was warming to Romney, some of his top allies publicly dissented against rewarding with a top Cabinet position a man who repeatedly savaged the billionaire.

Even so, Trump included Romney in the final four candidates for the secretary of state sweepstakes, which included former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, retired Gen. David Petraeus and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.).

Trump’s team, however, said he would expand the search, and he did, bringing in Tillerson and former Ford CEO Alan Mulally for interviews.

The search took another reality TV-style turn when the showman’s transition team announced last week that Giuliani, a Trump loyalist, had pulled himself out of contention late last month. In a telephone interview shortly after Trump’s transition team released the announcement Friday, Giuliani said Trump’s team initially rejected his withdrawal until just recently — a revelation that came alongside reports that Tillerson is the leading contender to head State.

Another Trump loyalist, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, seemed to confirm that Trump will announce Tillerson as his nominee for secretary of state.

“I am very impressed with the way in which President-elect Trump looked at a number of people,” Gingrich told Fox News on Monday morning. “As you know, we had a little bit of an argument over Mitt Romney, but he looked at a lot of people for three weeks and consulted a lot of people, and I think that he has found somebody who has run a huge organization, who knows how to make deals internationally and who in a very tough-minded way can represent America, and I think that he will be very, very effective. I think Tillerson really is as good a catch as you could get for the Cabinet. A remarkable man.”

Trump’s transition team told reporters on Monday morning that Trump would likely announce his decision “in the next coming days.”

“The president-elect is getting close to making a decision on who will serve as the next secretary of state,” senior communications adviser Sean Spicer said. “We expect that announcement to happen in the next coming days.”

As with a number of people Trump has chosen for his Cabinet, the choice of Tillerson would be controversial. The longtime CEO has deep ties to Putin and could face enough GOP opposition to stall his confirmation.

As an Exxon executive, Tillerson managed ties between the company and the Kremlin, striking a deal in 2011 that allowed the company to access Arctic resources in Russia. However, that deal was blocked by subsequent U.S. sanctions against Russia — sanctions that Tillerson sharply criticized for failing to consider the “broad collateral damage” they caused.

A spokesman for the Kremlin said Monday that Tillerson has met with Putin multiple times to discuss business deals. “They [Putin and Tillerson] have held business meetings. Indeed, the president has met Mr. Tillerson together with his partners in the Russian Federation,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies.

Sources told Politico over the weekend that Graham, who said “we’ll have some questions” for Tillerson and called his Putin ties “a bit unnerving,” is likely to join McCain in mounting aggressive opposition to Tillerson, even as conservatives have been pleasantly surprised overall by Trump’s Cabinet selections.

McConnell on Monday morning praised Trump’s picks so far, telling reporters he’s “been very impressed.”

“We’ll have to wait and see who is nominated for secretary of state, and we’ll obviously treat whoever that is with respect. They’ll go through the regular process and respond to questions and we’ll see where it comes out,” he said.

But, when pressed on whether Tillerson could garner enough support to be confirmed, McConnell opted not to speak too soon.

“Let’s wait until we get nominees,” he said. “I think, of the nominees that we’re already aware of, I think — I’m optimistic that they’ll all be confirmed. But I don’t want to comment on a kind of a phantom nominee today.”

Burgess Everett contributed to this report.