Another day, another Trump administration cabinet member who’s gotten on the president’s bad side.
This time it’s Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, whom the Washington Post reports is in danger of being removed from the White House following a number of disagreements with the president’s foreign policy—particularly around the ongoing nuclear disarmament talks with North Korea.
Citing people “familiar with the matter,” the Post claimed Trump has decided that Coats is “not loyal” and “not on the team” after Coats testified before Congress that ISIS had not, as the president has repeatedly insisted, been defeated, and that North Korea was “unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities.”
Coats also raised eyebrows this past summer by turning into a blubbering mess after being informed—before a live audience—that Trump had invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to the White House.
“This has been a tense relationship for a long time,” a former senior intelligence official told the Post. “Most people don’t think it’s happening tomorrow. But, yes, they think it’s just a matter of time.”
When it comes to removing—or not-so-subtly forcing out—cabinet officials, however, Trump has proven fickle in the past, opting to rage against them both publicly and privately, before doing nothing. So we’ll see.