Tillerson's aides are leaking to Politico

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President Donald Trump this week abruptly dropped the nation's commitment to a two-state solution for Middle East peace — without reviewing the specifics of his new strategy with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

State Department officials and Tillerson's top aides learned about the president's comments in real time, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation. Tillerson himself was in the air when Trump announced the change in the longstanding U.S. position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At the White House, there was little thought about notifying the nation's top diplomat because, as one senior staffer put it, "everyone knows Jared [Kushner] is running point on the Israel stuff."

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Tillerson, meanwhile, is privately expressing his own dissatisfaction that the administration has reneged on its promise to allow him to pick ambassadors, grievances that are now spilling out into public view ahead of any official announcements.

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The ambassadors were not chosen for their diplomatic or foreign policy experience, this person said. "They are political types and donors, the usual suspects for ambassadors," this person said. "The ambassadors are not ‘drain the swamp’ kind of people."

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“He said, ‘You’ve got to get Rex [Tillerson] over the finish line for me,” one GOP senate staffer recalled, “because Flynn is crazy.”

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