Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is growing increasingly frustrated with the Trump administration and could quit before the year is through, according to reports. 
 
 Two sources familiar with Tillerson’s conversations with friends told CNN over the weekend that he has grown so frustrated with President Donald Trump and his administration that there may soon be a “Rexit.” 
 
 The change in Tillerson’s tone followed a stressful week for the secretary of state. He was found to have violated U.S. sanctions against Russia while working as CEO of Exxon Mobil. Also, Trump publicly assailed one of Tillerson’s fellow Cabinet members, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, saying he regretted hiring him. 
 
 Joshua Roberts/Reuters 
 
 Tillerson, the sources said, viewed Trump’s comments as unprofessional. 
 
 Early Monday, Trump again attacked Sessions on Twitter, calling him “beleaguered” and wondering aloud why he wasn’t investigating Trump’s campaign rival Hillary Clinton. 
 
 Before last week, Tillerson had strongly maintained he would see through his task of reorganizing the entire State Department after Trump’s March budget proposal laid out plans to cut $10 billion from its roughly $47 billion in funding. But that resolve seems to have dimmed. 
 
 The sources acknowledged that Tillerson could have been venting after a tough week, but his frustration is just the latest in a long list of times he has butted heads with the president and his administration. 
 
 Related: ‘Unprofessional’ Rex Tillerson gives meddling White House staffers an earful 
 
 Last month, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner was the one calling Tillerson “unprofessional.” The secretary of state reportedly blew up at top Trump administration staffers during a meeting in White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus’s office. 
 
 Four people familiar with the details of the meeting described the heated exchange to Politico. During his tirade, Tillerson quarreled with the director of presidential personnel, Johnny DeStefano, and made clear he didn’t want the White House to “have any role in staffing.” 
 
 Tillerson has been frustrated after Trump and the White House rejected a number of his hiring decisions. Early this year, Trump vetoed Tillerson’s plan to hire Elliott Abrams as his second in command because Abrams was critical of Trump and his policy positions during the 2016 campaign. 
 
 Early this year, Tillerson was also left scrambling, along with other Cabinet members, in doing damage control after the administration implemented a ban on foreign travel to the U.S. from six Muslim-majority nations. The Cabinet was not consulted beforehand. The move gathered serious legal pushback and is headed to the U.S. Supreme Court this fall. 
 
 In late June, the White House also failed to coordinate with the State Department when it issued a warning to the Syrian regime about using chemical weapons. Such warnings are usually issued through, or at least coordinated with, the State Department. 
 
 Trump has also contradicted and overruled Tillerson's public statements about whether the U.S. should mediate in a dispute between Qatar and Saudi Arabia. 
 
 Both sources said that Tillerson’s frustrations with these situations, and many other tug-of-wars between the White House and Cabinet members, are increasing noticeably and that he has come to realize things won’t change anytime soon. ||||| Sec. of State Tillerson 'taking a little time off' but not resigning 
 
 CLOSE Amid reports claiming Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is resigning, his office confirms he's just taking a break after a lot of recent traveling. USA TODAY 
 
 Rex Tillerson has no plans to resign as Secretary of State and is "just taking a little time off," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Tuesday amid reports Tillerson was considering stepping down. 
 
 CNN reported over the weekend that a potential "Rexit" at Foggy Bottom was brewing and that Tillerson might resign before the end of the year. The report pointed to the former ExxonMobil CEO's growing frustration with the administration, which was exacerbated by President Trump's public attacks on Attorney General Jeff Sessions. 
 
 "The secretary has been very clear he intends to stay here at the State Department" Nauert told reporters when asked about the resignation rumors, according to The Hill. "We have a lot of work that is left to be done ahead of us. He recognizes that. He is deeply engaged in that work." 
 
 Nauert said Tillerson is "just taking a little time off" after returning from a "mega trip" at the beginning of the month that included stops in Germany, Ukraine, Turkey, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. 
 
 "He's entitled to take a few days himself," Nauert said. 
 
 CNN said Tillerson told "friends outside of Washington" that he intended to remain at the State Department at least through the end of the year, but the network also cited two anonymous sources who said they thought he might leave sooner than that. 
 
 Those sources added that Tillerson "could have been venting after a tough week." 
 
 Tillerson's senior aide RC Hammond denied the report in a Buzzfeed News story published Monday. 
 
 "As long as there are rogue regimes pursuing nuclear weapons or terrorists seeking safe haven the secretary will remain on the job," Hammond said. 
 
 There has been tension between Tillerson and the Trump administration over issues ranging from Iran policy to State Department personnel, according to several media reports. In June, the secretary of State unloaded on White House aide Johnny DeStefano over staffing issues. 
 
 "Well, it is a lot different than being C.E.O. of Exxon because I was the ultimate decision maker," Tillerson told Tillerson told The New York Times earlier this month about his role as chief diplomat. "That always makes life easier." 
 
 Some reporters speculated that Trump's politicized address at the Boy Scout Jamboree could have further alienated Tillerson, a Distinguished Eagle Scout and former national president of the Boy Scouts of America. 
 
 Rex spoke to Scouts Fri w/o public fanfare. Trump comments more likely to push him out than policy contradictions. https://t.co/AIuDVpyd7e — Nicholas Wadhams (@nwadhams) July 25, 2017 
 
 Everyone covering the State Dept. is on "Tillerson quits" countdown watch. Tillerson has a long history with the Boy Scouts. https://t.co/iNsP7evHN3 — Edward Wong (@comradewong) July 25, 2017 
 
 Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2v5P4sG ||||| Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrives at the Capitol to join Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis in briefing House members on the situation with ISIS on July 20, 2017. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images) 
 
 Secretary of State Rex Tillerson may be considering resigning from his job as frustrations with the Trump administration may have him nearing the end of his rope. 
 
 People "familiar with Tillerson conversations with friends outside Washington" told CNN the mood in Foggy Bottom's Mahogany Row has grown increasingly dark in recent days, particularly since President Donald Trump gave an interview to The New York Times in which he publicly rebuked Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Tillerson and others are said to also be troubled by the turmoil at the White House, resulting in last week's shake up of Trump's legal team, the hiring of new communications director Anthony Scaramucci and the resignation of press secretary Sean Spicer. 
 
 Tillerson has been criticized for his absence on the world stage as the Trump administration has left allies concerned with the U.S.' commitment to its agreements and the president's continued warmth toward Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin. 
 
 Tillerson's silence has at times been attributed to his disapproval of the president's actions and policies, and those of the people around him. 
 
 Speculation that Tillerson may leave by the end of the year – after reorganizing the State Department – has been circulating for weeks. The former CEO of ExxonMobil has been open about his reluctance to work in government, saying in March that he "didn't want this job." 
 
 Tillerson's frustrations with the White House increased in late June when he lashed out at Johnny DeStefano, the White House's personnel director, about the State Department's decimated ranks. 
 
 According to CNN, two sources close to Tillerson said they sensed a change in recent days, predicting a "Rexit" sooner than originally rumored -- though the sources also acknowledged Tillerson may simply have been "venting after a tough week" and may not mean he's headed out the door immediately. ||||| WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Frustration is mounting among leading foreign policy officials in President Donald Trump’s administration as they chafe at some policy and bureaucratic defeats and complain they lack independence to do their jobs, officials say. 
 
 U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson attends a joint news conference with Qatar's foreign minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani in Doha, Qatar, July 11, 2017. REUTERS/Naseem Zeitoon 
 
 The clash between internationalists urging the traditional U.S. leadership role in the world and advocates of an “America First” approach has worn down foreign policy and intelligence professionals inside the government, according to the officials. 
 
 Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has told friends he will be lucky to last a year in his job, according to a friend, while two officials said national security adviser H.R. McMaster was frustrated by what he sees as disorganization and indiscipline on key policy issues inside the White House. 
 
 A source familiar with the situation told Reuters that Tillerson was “very upset at not having autonomy, independence and control over his own department and the ability to do the job the way the job ... is traditionally done.” 
 
 The source said he had heard nothing about any possible departure, but added: “The situation doesn’t seem to be getting any better, and in some respects appears to be getting worse.” 
 
 R.C. Hammond, Tillerson’s spokesman, denied Tillerson was considering leaving or that his frustrations were boiling over, saying he had “plenty of reasons to stay on the job, and all of them are important to America.” 
 
 “There’s a desperate need for American leadership in the world and that’s where the secretary’s focusing his attention,” he said. 
 
 Tillerson scored a policy win last week when the administration certified, albeit reluctantly, that Iran was complying with the 2015 nuclear deal under which Tehran agreed to restrain its atomic program in exchange for sanctions relief. 
 
 He was upset, however, by fierce internal criticism from Trump, as well as his chief strategist, Steve Bannon, and White House aide Sebastian Gorka, over the decision, said another U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity. 
 
 “The secretary does not feel that White House staff members should be in a position to conduct hostile cross-(examinations) of Cabinet officials,” the official said. 
 
 Hammond disputed the account of harsh discord between Trump and Tillerson regarding recertifying the Iran nuclear deal, saying: “I don’t buy this whole thing that there are tensions. Developing public policy is about vetting out ideas,” he said. 
 
 Following last month’s move by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt to boycott Qatar, which they accuse of financing extremist groups and supporting terrorism, Tillerson publicly asked the nations to ease their blockade, and put the onus on both sides to end the crisis. 
 
 Less than 90 minutes later, Trump accused Qatar of being a “high level” sponsor of terrorism and suggested he had helped plan the Qatar action with Arab leaders. 
 
 “As a government we offered some confusing signals, but we’ve since been able to clear up and clarify that,” Hammond said. 
 
 Politico reported last month that Tillerson was furious with Johnny DeStefano, the head of the presidential personnel office, for torpedoing proposed nominees to key State Department posts. 
 
 ‘DISRUPTIVE FIGURE’ 
 
 Senior national security officials said McMaster was dismayed that his recommendations, backed by his senior director for Russia, Fiona Hill, about taking a tough stance with Russian President Vladimir Putin, had been ignored. 
 
 Trump has questioned the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election to try to help him defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton. 
 
 McMaster, a three-star Army general who once praised Trump as a “disruptive” figure, is also troubled by a protracted debate about sending more U.S. forces to help Afghanistan reverse gains by the Taliban, officials familiar with the matter told Reuters. 
 
 Slideshow (2 Images) 
 
 Asked to respond to the characterizations of the views of McMaster and other officials, a White House official said: “Assertions not of fact but of state of mind in internal thought have no place in a story like this.” 
 
 While circumspect, Tillerson talked about the challenges of his new job earlier this month, telling reporters that it differed from his former role as chief executive of Exxon Mobil Corp, where “I was the ultimate decision-maker. That always makes life easier.” 
 
 “I knew what to expect and we had very long-standing disciplined processes and decision-making,” he said. “Those are not the characteristics of the United States government.”
– Jeff Sessions may not be the only Cabinet member whose days are numbered. Multiple reports say Secretary of State Rex Tillerson isn't destined for a long tenure. The latest is Reuters, whose source says Tillerson was "very upset at not having autonomy, independence and control over his own department and the ability to do the job the way the job ... is traditionally done." It says Tillerson has told friends he likely won't last a full year, a sentiment echoed in an earlier CNN story. That one quotes two insiders who say a "Rexit" is possible before the end of the year, adding that Tillerson has been especially unhappy with President Trump's public criticism of attorney general Sessions. The story adds, however, that Tillerson might just have been "venting." Tillerson had previously signaled that he intended to see through a restructuring of the State Department through 2017, but that now seems to be in doubt, reports Newsweek. It runs through his past frictions with the White House, including not being consulted on major issues such as the travel ban. The speculation has been circulating for weeks now, notes US News & World Report, and it isn't helped by statements from Tillerson himself, who said in March that he "didn't want this job." It's reached the point where Tillerson's spokesman addressed the subject, though in the form of a denial that his boss is on the way out. Tillerson, he said, had "plenty of reasons to stay on the job, and all of them are important to America."