Apparently Romney was at the top of the list for the position of Secretary of State, but according to this CNN report, he wouldn’t placate his Trump critics and apologize for his terse comments in the primary. So the job went to Tillerson:
CNN – As President-elect Donald Trump considered Mitt Romney for secretary of state, Trump wanted one thing Romney wouldn’t give him: an apology.
Trump was willing to move past Romney’s bitter campaign-trail criticism of him. And incoming chief of staff Reince Priebus, who chaired the Republican National Committee during both men’s presidential campaigns, convinced Trump there was value in showing he was big enough to bring Romney into the fold.
But top aides, including Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon, saw Romney’s attacks as unforgivable, according to three sources close to Romney, two of whom are familiar with Trump’s transition process.
CNN has learned that Vice President-elect Mike Pence and Priebus also wanted Romney to apologize as a way to smooth over the tension.
After Conway and others attacked Romney publicly — lobbying against his selection in television interviews — and more than a week after the two had begun talking, Trump raised the possibility of a public apology with Romney as a way of mollifying those critics, the sources said. He asked Romney to say publicly he was “wrong” about Trump.
Trump personally saw it in business deal terms: He would get the mea culpa he sought from Romney; Romney would get the job he covets.
But Romney — who titled his own book “No Apology” — declined.
He offered forward-looking praise for Trump — starting with the President-elect’s election-night speech. But he wouldn’t go backward and retract his words from the campaign.
Eventually, Romney’s critics persuaded Trump to look elsewhere, and on Monday he tapped ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as his nominee for secretary of state.
I’m not a huge fan of Romney, but it actually makes me respect him more than he didn’t completely sell out to Trump just to get the big job.
I think Trump would have probably given it to him too if he wasn’t constantly hearing a chorus of boos from the naysayers in his Trumpian collective.