Cotton to Trump advisers: Execute Trump’s objectives or resign

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said in a new interview that the job of advisers in the Trump administration is to advise the president and carry out his decisions.

And if officials disagree with President Trump’s thinking, Cotton said, they should resign.

“When you’re a cabinet member, when you’re a senior adviser in the White House, and the president is right, you should help him achieve his objectives and run with his thinking,” Cotton told Politico.

“When you think the president is wrong, you have a duty to try to present to him the best facts and the best thinking to help him see it in a different light,” he continued.

“Maybe you can, but if he doesn’t, and he says, ‘No, I want to do it my way,’ then your job is to move out and execute. And if you feel strongly enough, then you have to resign,” he said.

When asked if he sees that happening with anyone in Trump’s White House, Cotton said he doesn’t see it “being imminent.”

“I mean, there are plenty of things in which I can imagine the president making a decision with which I would disagree but don’t rise to the level of a resignation for any of these men and women who serve him,” Cotton said.

The interview comes after reports that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson nearly resigned from office because of tensions with Trump.

Tillerson on Thursday held a news conference to refute reports that he was about to resign. During the news conference, he repeatedly talked-up his relationship with the president.

Tillerson came before the cameras after NBC published a report saying the secretary of State had called Trump a “moron” amid a heated internal debate over the administration’s Afghanistan policy and considered leaving the administration.

On Saturday, Trump told reporters he sometimes wishes Tillerson would “be a little tougher.”