Eli Lake, Columnist

Trump Looks for Good Cop-Bad Lieutenant at State

Tillerson and Bolton would be a contrast in personalities. Who would win?

December 12, 2016 at 10:00 AM UTC

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

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The winners of “America’s Next Top Diplomat” appear to be in. If reports over the weekend are correct, president-elect Donald Trump will tap Exxon’s chief executive officer Rex Tillerson to be his secretary of state, and a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, to be Tillerson’s deputy.

To say that this would represent a good cop/bad cop combination is an understatement. With apologies to Harvey Keitel and Abel Ferrara, the Tillerson/Bolton combo at Foggy Bottom would be more like good cop/“Bad Lieutenant.”