Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson is "a good appointment" as secretary of state, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay told Newsmax TV on Tuesday, but he hopes the Senate "will probe and make sure that Rex Tillerson is 'America first.'"
"He is a worldwide person, a person who has great contacts all over the world," DeLay, who served Texas in the House for 21 years, told "The Steve Malzberg Show."
"The only concern I have, in my dealings over the last 30 years with Exxon Mobil, Exxon Mobil thinks it is its own country," he added. "It's got $250 billion in assets. It could be its own country.
"Trump keeps talking about 'America first, America first.'
"I hope they will probe and make sure that Rex Tillerson is 'American first, American first' and not some globalist produced from Exxon Mobil."
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DeLay added Tillerson's link to Russian President Vladimir Putin is "probably is a good asset to have in a secretary of state.
"Russia is a problem — and we're going to have to deal with Russia, and we have to deal from strength, obviously.
"But if Rex Tillerson can pick up the phone and talk to Putin, more power to him."
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