If there's one thing the Trump administration has in common with previous Republican presidencies it's a bone-deep hostility to the State Department. This goes back decades to the anti-communist fervor after WWII and the case of Alger Hiss, a high ranking diplomat, and Joseph McCarthy's witch hunt, which began with his famous "list" of supposedly 205 communists employed in the department. (The number changed daily and McCarthy never produced the names but he managed to keep half the nation in a state of full-blown hysteria for years.)
Even after the Red Scare died down, the right wing never gave up their suspicion of the State Department. Even if it wasn't crawling with commies, it was considered weak and useless in the fight against the Soviets with its diplomacy, treaties and whatnot. That belief lasted long after the Evil Empire was defeated, with the likes of former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich lambasting the "Rogue State Department" in an essay for Foreign Policy back in 2003, writing, "anti-American sentiment is rising unabated around the globe because the U.S. State Department has abdicated values and principles in favor of accommodation and passivity."
