Oh no. What’s stuck in his craw now? This:
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was on the verge of resigning this past summer amid mounting policy disputes and clashes with the White House, according to multiple senior administration officials who were aware of the situation at the time.
The tensions came to a head around the time President Donald Trump delivered a politicized speech in late July to the Boy Scouts of America, an organization Tillerson once led, the officials said.
Just days earlier, Tillerson had openly disparaged the president, referring to him as a “moron,” after a July 20 meeting at the Pentagon with members of Trump’s national security team and Cabinet officials, according to three officials familiar with the incident.
While it’s unclear if he was aware of the incident, Vice President Mike Pence counseled Tillerson, who is fourth in line to the presidency, on ways to ease tensions with Trump, and other top administration officials urged him to remain in the job at least until the end of the year, officials said.
Actually, here’s a tweet from another NBC journalist:
Just now, @SRuhle: “My source didn’t just say he called him a moron. He said he called him an f-ing moron.”
— Ken Dilanian (@KenDilanianNBC) October 4, 2017
Whoa. Trump just now….
The @NBCNews story has just been totally refuted by Sec. Tillerson and @VP Pence. It is #FakeNews. They should issue an apology to AMERICA!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 4, 2017
He’s talking now about Tillerson giving a press conference in which he gives a non-denial denial that he ever called Trump a fucking moron:
In a press conference full of effusive praise for President Trump on Wednesday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that he had never considered leaving the Trump administration, despite an NBC News report earlier in the day that claimed otherwise.
“My commitment to the success of our president and our country is as strong as it was the day I accepted his offer to serve as secretary of state,” Tillerson said, addressing the report, which also claimed Tillerson had “openly disparaged the president, referring to him as a ‘moron,’ after a July 20 meeting at the Pentagon.”
When pressed about the report’s contents, Tillerson responded, “I’m not going to deal with petty stuff like that. This is what I don’t understand about Washington. I’m not from this place. The place I come from, we don’t deal with that petty nonsense. It is intended to do nothing but divide people, and I’m just not going to be part of this effort to divide this administration.”
Tillerson did not deny calling Trump a “moron.”
Rex Tillerson is very pointedly NOT denying he called president a “moron”
— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) October 4, 2017
Folks, we have the Streisand Effect going on….
By going on camera to try to refute @NBCNews report, Tillerson took a one-outlet scoop and made it an all-Washington story of the day.
— Garrett Haake (@GarrettHaake) October 4, 2017
Yup.
CNN: “We have confirmed that Tillerson did refer to the president as a moron.”
— erica orden (@eorden) October 4, 2017
Bonus — a Trump tweet from 2014:
An interesting cartoon that is circulating. pic.twitter.com/OPG2R2ytkr
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 22, 2014
UPDATE — it’s the afternoon and these people don’t know how to make this non-story go away
BREAKING: State Department spokeswoman denies that Rex Tillerson called President Donald Trump a `moron'
— The Associated Press (@AP) October 4, 2017