"I fully respect and understand his reasons for remaining in the private sector," Donald Trump said. Giuliani pulls name from contention for secretary of state ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson has emerged as the leading contender for the job. 
 
 Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani pulled out of the secretary of state sweepstakes late last month, President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team said Friday, as Trump has widened his search to select the nation’s top diplomat. 
 
 "Rudy Giuliani is an extraordinarily talented and patriotic American. I will always be appreciative of his 24/7 dedication to our campaign after I won the primaries and for his extremely wise counsel,” Trump said in a written statement. “He is and continues to be a close personal friend, and as appropriate, I will call upon him for advice and can see an important place for him in the administration at a later date.” 
 
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 The transition team said that he withdrew on Nov. 29, though aides had mentioned him as one of four contenders multiple times after that date. One transition source said Giuliani continued to be the subject of internal discussions for the job through mid-week. 
 
 Giuliani had previously mounted a vigorous public campaign for the post, irritating Trump. On Friday, he explained his decision to withdraw. 
 
 “The whole thing was becoming kind of very confusing and very difficult for the president-elect, and my desire to be in the Cabinet was great, but it wasn't that great,” Giuliani said in a Fox News interview. “He had a lot of terrific candidates, and I thought I could play a better role being on the outside and continuing to be his close friend and adviser.” 
 
 Giuliani said secretary of state was the only position he had pursued and was not interested in others. “They're down to the last two, three, four. So, it makes sense to just, you know, get out of the way,” he added. 
 
 Trump has considered a host of possibilities for secretary of state, historically a high-profile Cabinet position that is in the line of presidential succession. Giuliani’s chief rival at times was seen as former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who is still under consideration. 
 
 But ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson has emerged as the leading contender, according to two transition aides. Others still in the mix include retired Adm. James Stavridis, Foreign Relations Committee chair Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and former U.N. ambassador John Bolton, one aide said. Former Ford CEO Alan Mulally also met with Trump recently to discuss the position. 
 
 Another transition team aide named Romney, Tillerson and Corker as the front-runners for the job, adding that Giuliani's self-promotion had hurt his case. 
 
 "Giuliani started doing interviews about himself, and that bothered people. You never want to be more controversial than the boss," the aide said. "The issue with Trump is you need to close the deal when he's in the mindset. He's not in the Rudy mindset anymore." 
 
 In the Fox News interview, Giuliani advised Trump not to pick Romney after the 2012 GOP presidential nominee disparaged Trump during the 2016 campaign. 
 
 "I thought Mitt went over the line in the things that he said about Donald Trump," Giuliani said. "I mean, the president-elect is gonna make his decision. I will support that decision. But, you know, my advice would be: Mitt went just a little too far. You can make friends and make up, but ... I would not see him as the candidate for the Cabinet." 
 
 "I also think John Bolton has to be considered in that mix. John would probably be my choice," he added, referring to the former U.N. ambassador. "I think John is terrific." 
 
 Giuliani, 72, pulled himself out of the running for any position in the administration, the transition team said. Officially, the transition team is describing the decision as a result of Giuliani's desire to return to his day job. 
 
 "Rudy would have been an outstanding member of the Cabinet in several roles, but I fully respect and understand his reasons for remaining in the private sector," said President-elect Trump. 
 
 “This is not about me," Giuliani said. "It is about what is best for the country and the new administration. Before I joined the campaign I was very involved and fulfilled by my work with my law firm and consulting firm, and I will continue that work with even more enthusiasm. From the vantage point of the private sector, I look forward to helping the president-elect in any way he deems necessary and appropriate.” 
 
 Giuliani’s allies cast the withdrawal as a gracious move by one of Trump’s most dedicated supporters. 
 
 Tony Carbonetti, a close Giuliani associate, said the only administration position that interested the former mayor was secretary of state. 
 
 "He didn't want another job in the administration," Carbonetti said. "I think when he realized it was becoming a distraction, he decided it was time to remove himself from consideration. I don't think there was a lot more to it than that." 
 
 “He told me several weeks ago [that] if he was offered the job, he was going to take it. He thought he'd do well at it,” said former New York police commissioner Bernie Kerik. 
 
 Romney's emergence as a serious contender did not cause Giuliani to bow out, Carbonetti said: "That wasn't the factor. When you're going for a position like that, you want to go against everyone who is interested." 
 
 “It’s pretty simple. They went in a different direction,” a Giuliani adviser said. 
 
 But several people close to the transition had expressed concern that Giuliani, who they said often seemed tired on the campaign trail, lacked the energy necessary for the rigors of a job that demands long hours of tedious discussions with foreign counterparts and thousands of miles of travel. 
 
 “It's not what this office needs,” one transition source said of Giuliani. 
 
 Longtime associates of the former New York mayor, meanwhile, privately worried that Giuliani wasn’t his old self, and some wondered why he would even want to endure confirmation hearings that were likely to be highly contentious. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had vowed to block his nomination. 
 
 One close ally said that Giuliani had grown distant from a number of his old friends in New York politics, who struggled to understand why the former mayor had gone all-in for Trump. Others said they hardly recognized the man who delivered a hard-line speech at the Republican National Convention. 
 
 Trump’s incoming chief of staff Reince Priebus dismissed talk that Giuliani’s business ties were the reason for his withdrawal. Priebus said he “was vetted by our team for any possible conflicts and passed with flying colors." 
 
 But others acknowledged that Giuliani’s paid work for foreign governments, which was under review by a growing team of lawyers at the firm Jones Day, had hurt his chances. 
 
 "Rudy’s just got so many complications” one transition aide said. “Probably about half the companies on Earth have paid him money for security advice.” 
 
 Fred Siegel, a Giuliani biographer who has known him for decades, said the former mayor was “enormously disappointed” about not getting the job. 
 
 “I think that Trump has got to, in a way, do something for Rudy because he came in so early and was so active and so loyal,” said another former Giuliani aide, who nonetheless questioned whether his onetime boss was up to the task of being America’s top diplomat. 
 
 “He's a big boy,” said Kerik. “He is very close to the president-elect. I'm sure he'll remain an adviser in a number of different capacities.” 
 
 Eliana Johnson and Alex Isenstadt contributed to this report. ||||| Rudy Giuliani professed his desires out loud. Mitt Romney wooed the president-elect over frog legs at a Michelin three-star restaurant in Manhattan. Retired Gen. David Petraeus pleaded his case on national television. Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker, among a host of others, traipsed through the camera-filled lobby of Trump Tower. 
 
 ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson entered through the Trump Tower back door (twice). He left as the nominee to be America’s top diplomat. 
 
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 Donald Trump’s decision-making process for secretary of state — the Cabinet post that he and his advisers felt was the most important one — played out much as his campaign had. It was messy. There were rival factions. Loyalty was paramount, until it wasn’t. Trump chafed at the constraints of tradition. There were accusations of worry-worthy friendliness with Russia. 
 
 And all the drama unfolded on live TV — complete with a last-minute plot twist and a candidate no one initially saw coming. 
 
 “The Tillerson thing, I’m sort of in a fog about,” Giuliani told POLITICO on Tuesday. “I wasn’t really involved deeply in the process when that came along. I don’t know a lot about him. I knew about four or five of the others.” 
 
 Now the suspense continues, with the next act being a confirmation battle on Capitol Hill. But the selection process itself — it was Trump’s most high-profile decision after his selection of Mike Pence as his running mate this summer — is instructive for a president-elect who has never before held political office. 
 
 Trump had lots of inputs during the process, which was simultaneously haphazard and deliberative, but the final output rested ultimately with a man who has said for decades he is guided more by his instincts than anything else. 
 
 “He’s like a judge who listens to input from everybody and then issues his verdict. And then there’s no discussion, no dissent,” said one senior transition aide. 
 
 That’s what happened with Tillerson. 
 
 When Trump and Tillerson met in Trump Tower on Dec. 6, “they hit it off” immediately, as one transition official put it — two men who have made billion-dollar deals and boast the bona fides of having run multinational companies. 
 
 “He’s totally the Trump M.O.,” this official said. “Strong guy. … As soon as he met him, he told people that Tillerson is the kind of guy that walks in a room and commands respect. Liked Romney. Liked Rudy. But Tillerson was a stronger guy. He liked his strength.” 
 
 Added another adviser, “He liked the outsized, Texan, can-do swagger.” 
 
 Tillerson would be the presumptive pick within days and the official one within a week. 
 
 But it had been a long process to get there. Within days of the election, Giuliani was publicly pining for the job and has since confirmed that he turned down two other Cabinet posts. Quickly, stories surfaced about Giuliani’s out-of-office international business dealings and speechmaking. 
 
 “I told them to vet me, and nothing came out that showed any conflict, any irregularity,” Giuliani recalled. “That part of the process, where people speculated we had done improper things, bothered me a lot. That really annoyed me.” 
 
 Giuliani had been Trump’s most steadfast supporter in the darkest hours of the campaign, going on the Sunday shows to defend Trump after a 2005 tape emerged of him bragging about groping women and getting away with it because he was a star. 
 
 But the business dealings — and Trump’s reported unhappiness at Giuliani’s public dismissal of any post other than State — opened the door to other possibilities. 
 
 “He felt some loyalty issues over Rudy, and it was painful,” said one person close to Trump who spoke with him during the search process. 
 
 On Nov. 19, 11 days after Trump won the election, Romney traveled to Trump’s golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, for a meeting that, by all accounts, went extremely well. Trump’s team might have initially liked the symbolism of Romney paying homage to a president-elect whom he had opposed all the way through the election, but after the meeting, Romney quickly vaulted into serious consideration. 
 
 “He’s really, really good at storylines, at pushing storylines,” said the person close to Trump. “Romney was like Omarosa coming back in the second season of ‘The Apprentice.’ This was a fun thing to discuss.” 
 
 Inside the campaign, two competing factions developed. Romney was the preferred pick of Reince Priebus, Trump’s incoming chief of staff, as well as Vice President-elect Pence, according to transition officials. But those from Trump’s campaign itself — led publicly by former campaign manager Kellyanne Conway and privately by former campaign CEO Steve Bannon — were in the anyone-but-Romney camp. 
 
 Dissent bubbled up by Thanksgiving, as Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee, two early Trump backers, went public in opposition. Then Conway said in television interviews that Sunday that selecting Romney would lead Trump’s supporters to “feel betrayed.” 
 
 “It’s just breathtaking in scope and intensity the type of messages I have received from all over the country,” Conway said of the opposition to Romney. While Conway said she was speaking on behalf of Trump’s voters, she was also voicing the internal concerns of some of the Trump’s own staff. 
 
 Trump felt trapped, according to transition officials and others, as he set up meetings with Petraeus, Corker and Romney again in the last week of November. It was then that Giuliani says he withdrew from the sweepstakes — albeit in secret. 
 
 “I would have taken the State job if it were nice and easy and I was the only candidate and it all happened very smoothly. I didn’t want it strongly enough to be in competition for it,” Giuliani said. 
 
 He submitted a letter of withdrawal dated Nov. 29 — the same day Trump and Romney dined together in New York. The letter didn’t go public until last Friday. 
 
 “They were telling people that I was in the running, and I allowed them to do that so they could have some cover. They didn’t want to be rushed into making the choice,” Giuliani said, adding that the only people who he knew were aware of the letter were Trump, Priebus, Bannon and Trump’s influential son-in-law, Jared Kushner. 
 
 Romney, meanwhile, was doing everything he could, effusively praising Trump after their Jean-Georges dinner as “enlightening” and “engaging.” “He did something I tried to do and was unsuccessful in,” Romney told reporters that night. 
 
 Quick facts on Rex Tillerson, Trump's pick for secretary of state On Tuesday morning, President-elect Donald Trump officially announced he picked ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as his choice for secretary of state. poster="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201612/332/1155968404_5245983026001_5245976071001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true 
 
 The next day, on Nov. 30, Condoleezza Rice met with Pence in Washington, D.C., as the former secretary of state — who only a month before the election had called for Trump to drop out — was emerging a surprise influencer. 
 
 Rice and former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who met with Trump on Dec. 2 in New York, both recommended that Tillerson be considered as secretary of state, sources said. (The person close to Trump, however, said, “This guy was on the radar screen earlier than that.”) Gates knew Tillerson not just as a business leader but also because both had served as president of the Boy Scouts of America. 
 
 “Trump seemed surprised and intrigued,” a source close to Gates said of the Tillerson suggestion. 
 
 That weekend, Trump formally expanded the list again, setting up meetings with Tillerson, retired Adm. James Stavridis and former Ford CEO Alan Mulally. As one Trump official told POLITICO at the time, “There’s got to be someone out there that can dazzle and wow. I just don’t think we’ve found that person.” 
 
 It happened Tuesday with Tillerson, as the wheels were soon set in motion for his selection. 
 
 A top political concern — especially amid accusations that Russia hacked the emails of a top Hillary Clinton aide and the Democratic Party to help Trump — was the ExxonMobil CEO’s close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. As the final line of Tillerson’s official biography on the ExxonMobil website reads, “In 2013, he was awarded the Order of Friendship by Vladimir Putin, president of the Russian Federation.” 
 
 And as Tillerson joined the short list and then became the front-runner last weekend, even Republicans were raising questions about his relationship to Russia. “I don’t know what Mr. Tillerson’s relationship with Vladimir Putin was,” influential Sen. John McCain said Saturday on Fox News. “But I’ll tell you it is a matter of concern to me.” 
 
 Trump — never one to be dictated by his detractors — pushed ahead quickly. By Monday, it was a done deal. The formal announcement came Tuesday. 
 
 Gates and Rice, who have counted Tillerson’s company among their clients, were among the first and most prominent voices in the GOP foreign policy establishment to praise Tillerson when he was picked. 
 
 “Everyone knows this is going to be our toughest confirmation, but I don’t think Trump was going to change his mind at the end of the day,” said a transition official. 
 
 Later on Tuesday, Trump made a surprise visit to the lobby of his Manhattan skyscraper. There, he stood side by side with another visitor. It was Kanye West. 
 
 Tillerson was still nowhere to be seen. 
 
 Annie Karni, Eliana Johnson, Josh Gerstein and Jake Sherman contributed to this report.
– You can whittle Donald Trump's long list of Secretary of State candidates down a bit: Rudy Giuliani has pulled his name out of contention, per Trump's transition team. "Rudy Giuliani is an extraordinarily talented and patriotic American. I will always be appreciative of his 24/7 dedication to our campaign after I won the primaries and for his extremely wise counsel," Trump said in a statement Friday. "He is and continues to be a close personal friend, and as appropriate, I will call upon him for advice and can see an important place for him in the administration at a later date. ... Rudy would have been an outstanding member of the Cabinet in several roles, but I fully respect and understand his reasons for remaining in the private sector." Giuliani will stay on as vice chairman of Trump's transition team, per CNN. As Politico puts it, the former New York mayor "had previously publicly campaigned for the post," and it's unclear why he's pulled out of the running for not just Secretary of State but any position in Trump's administration, a move the transition team said happened on Nov. 29. Reince Priebus, who will be Trump's chief of staff, said Giuliani had been fully vetted for any potential conflicts of interest and "passed with flying colors," and that his business ties had nothing to do with his withdrawal. Giuliani said in a statement that he still "[looks] forward to helping the President-elect in any way he deems necessary and appropriate." His biggest rival for the Secretary of State post was thought to be Mitt Romney; other possibilities include Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, retired Adm. James Stavridis, Sen. Bob Corker, and former Ford CEO Alan Mulally.