Secretary of State

Kentucky senator reversed his opposition to Trump’s secretary of state pick and helped move him out of committee.

Democrats are largely opposed to Trump’s pick for secretary of state. Do they think they will get someone better?

Kentucky senator Rand Paul said he would oppose the president’s picks for secretary of state and CIA director, criticizing one over what he described as support for regime change and both for their links to torture.

The Senate’s top Iran hawks heaped praise on the president’s nomination of CIA director Mike Pompeo to replace Secretary of State Rex Tillerson Tuesday, and critics of the deal on and off Capitol Hill expressed confidence that Pompeo’s presence would place renewed pressure on negotiations to fix…

This story is developing and will be updated as necessary.

Legislation that attempts to make good on President Donald Trump’s October demand to fix the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran is still facing obstacles, days before Trump is due to decide whether to issue sanctions waivers that would keep the agreement alive—or kill it.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson went into full damage-control mode last week after NBC News reported he had called President Donald Trump a “f—-ing moron,” denying the allegation and insisting the president was “smart.” But Trump never forgets a slight—and sooner or later, he always hits back. In…

President Donald Trump and outgoing senator Bob Corker of Tennessee got into an unexpected and personal Twitter fight Sunday morning, the nastiest public conflict yet between the White House and Senate Republicans.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson Wednesday denied an NBC report that claimed he angrily considered quitting the administration in July before being dissuaded by Vice President Mike Pence.

South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, an early skeptic of President Donald Trump's pick for secretary of state, told THE WEEKLY STANDARD that his concerns over whether the nominee would be cozy with the Kremlin and weak on sanctions against Russia have been allayed.

Florida senator Marco Rubio announced his support for President Donald Trump's pick for secretary of state ahead of a committee vote for the nominee Monday, setting aside reservations over the former oil executive's ties to the Kremlin and evasive answers on human rights violations.

More than two-thirds of registered voters do not want President Obama to pardon Hillary Clinton before he leaves office next month, according to a Fox News poll released Thursday evening.

Donald Trump said on Twitter Monday he would announce on Tuesday his selection for secretary of state. The New York Times reports that Trump has picked ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson. Here's the Times:

Top Republicans are pushing back on the potential appointment of Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson as secretary of state due to the executive's ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin, throwing a potential Senate confirmation into doubt.

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with executive editor Fred Barnes on the Trump transition.

One's of Donald Trump's top aides joined a number of Trump loyalists Sunday in urging the president-elect not to appoint Mitt Romney as secretary of state, questioning Romney's loyalty and experience.

Companies doing business with Iran risk U.S. sanctions unless they take heightened measures to avoid benefiting sanctioned entities like the Iranian military, according to a State Department statement provided to THE WEEKLY STANDARD. The warning contradicts remarks made by Secretary of State John…

Guidelines published last month by the Obama administration protect banks doing business with Iran from U.S. sanctions even if their transactions end up benefiting sanctioned entities, according to Secretary of State John Kerry. That stance, experts and congressional sources tell THE WEEKLY…

The crown prince of Bahrain attempted to arrange a meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2009 by using his connections to the Clinton Foundation. That's according to newly released emails between Clinton's State Department aide Huma Abedin and former Bill Clinton aide Doug Band, who…

Hillary Clinton does not know how to operate a fax machine. That's one of the disclosures from the last email document dump from the State Department.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on the week that was for Hillary in Washington, Ohio, Iowa, and around the world.

Possible Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina lashed into probable Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton last night on Fox News:

We received this email from a 40-year veteran of the federal workforce, who raises serious questions about Hillary Clinton and her emails:

During her press appearance today, Hillary Clinton acknowledged that about 60,000 emails, including sent and received, went through her home email server that she used during her tenure as secretary of state. About half of those, she said, were work related. UPI reports:

Secretary of State John Kerry's speech at the groundbreaking ceremony for the U.S. Diplomacy Center in Washington, D.C. Wednesday included an intriguing aside that appeared to reference the upcoming 2016 presidential election. Kerry spoke after remarks by each of the five former secretaries of…

Secretary of State John Kerry spoke to the U.S. embassy staff in Luanda, Angola on Sunday as he continued his visit to the continent of Africa.  A portion of his remarks seemed to reflect the secretary's awareness of the somewhat precarious position he may be in owing to numerous volatile…

John Kerry's statement that Israel could become an "apartheid state" means the secretary of state should resign from his job, the Emergency Committee for Israel said in a statement:

Secretary of State John Kerry believes that, 

In testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee Thursday, Secretary of State John Kerry made the point that his department is not just concerned with foreign affairs.  The State Department tweeted the following comments of the secretary at the hearing:

It's not often officials from the nation’s largest business lobby and an AFL-CIO-affiliated union speak to one another, let alone work together. But last week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and North America’s Building Trades Unions held a joint press conference on Capitol Hill in support of the…

State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf lamented at the end of today's press conference that no reporter cared to ask about Secretary of State John Kerry's travel:

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior editor Lee Smith on Secretary of State John Kerry's peace tour, Egypt, Syria, and Iran.

In a little noticed mistake last week, John Kerry, the new secretary of state, seems to have made up the country of "Kyrzakhstan":

The United States Senate voted 94 to 3 to confirm one of its own, John Kerry of Massachusetts, for the office of secretary of state. Republicans John Cornyn and Ted Cruz (both of Texas) and James Inhofe of Oklahoma were the only senators to vote against Kerry's nomination to succeed Hillary Clinton…

In a joint interview with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama, Clinton reveals that Obama knew all along that expectations were set too high for him when he first came into office:

U.N. ambassador Susan Rice praises President Obama's selection of John Kerry to be the next secretary of state in a statement to the press:

President Barack Obama sang John Kerry's praise today, as he nominated the former presidential candidate to be the next secretary of state. But after the president spoke, Kerry did not. 

Barack Obama's deputy campaign manager, Stephanie Cutter, blamed Susan Rice for withdrawing her name from consideration to be the next secretary of state, not Obama. She made the comments this morning on national television:

It was believed that Ambassador Susan Rice, the U.S. representative to the United Nations, would either get the nod for secretary of state or, as a consolation prize, national security adviser. Regardless, the conventional wisdom held, Rice would be promoted in Obama's second term

Hillary Clinton reportedly prefers that her replacement be Senator John Kerry, and not Susan Rice, the current ambassador to the United Nations. Both Kerry and Rice have been rumored to be next in line for the secretary of state job. Clinton intends to step down from the post "days" after President…

The Associated Press reports:

Susan Rice, the current U.N. ambassador and a possible nominee for secretary of state, has been under fire recently for her involvement in the Benghazi scandal. Prominent senators have promised to block Rice's nomination over the matter, if President Obama puts her up for secretary of state.

Senator John Kerry, a Democrat from Massachusetts, was coy this morning when asked in the Capitol about his plans for the future. It has been speculated that Kerry might be a leading candidate to take over for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or even for Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.