According to the White House, Trump communicated with Tillerson on March9 and told him he would be replaced. Tillerson cut short a visit to Africa and returned to the United States on March 12. On March 13, Trump announced via a public tweet that Tillerson was out. A spokesman for Tillerson, Steve Goldstein, the under secretary of state for public diplomacy, was quoted by "The Washington Post" that Tillerson did not know why he had been fired by Trump and only found out about his firing when he read Trump's tweet on the morning of March 13; Goldstein, who was generally perceived within the White House as being anti-Trump, was fired by the White House later that day, reportedly for contradicting the official account of Tillerson's dismissal. A senior Trump administration official cited "upcoming North Korea talks and various trade negotiations" as the reason for replacing Tillerson. Trump later told reporters his differences with Tillerson came down to personal chemistry and disagreements on policy, adding that he and CIA director Mike Pompeo "have a very similar thought process". "The New York Times" reported that Lebanese-American businessman George Nader turned Trump's major fundraiser Elliott Broidy "into an instrument of influence at the White House for the rulers of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates... High on the agenda of the two men... was pushing the White House to remove Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson." UAE and Saudi Arabia lobbied Trump to fire Tillerson for not supporting the blockade of Qatar during the Qatar diplomatic crisis. Robert Malley, former top Middle East adviser to President Barack Obama, said that "senior Qatari officials with whom I spoke were convincedor at least acted as if they were convincedthat Saudi Arabia and the UAE had been planning a military attack on their country that was halted as a result" of Tillerson's intervention.