Trump tries to make good after IQ testing ‘joke’
UNITED STATES: US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson are trying to smooth over tensions in their relationship after the president proposed an ‘‘IQ tests’’ faceoff with his top diplomat, who earlier had privately called Trump a ‘‘moron’’ and disparaged his grasp of foreign policy.
In an interview with Forbes magazine published yesterday, Trump fired a shot at Tillerson over the ‘‘moron’’ revelation, first reported by NBC News and confirmed by several other news organisations.
‘‘I think it’s fake news,’’ he said, ‘‘but if he did that, I guess we’ll have to compare IQ tests. And I can tell you who is going to win.’’
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders later insisted that Trump’s comment was ‘‘a joke, and nothing more than that’’.
‘‘The president certainly never implied that the secretary of state was not incredibly intelligent,’’ Sanders said.
She added that Trump had ‘‘100 per cent confidence’’ in Tillerson, and admonished reporters for taking the president’s comment so seriously. ‘‘Maybe you guys should get a sense of humor and try it some time,’’ she quipped.
Although Trump has said publicly that he has confidence in Tillerson, as he did again yesterday, behind the scenes he has long been brooding about his job performance, according to administration officials and outside advisers. Trump has been frustrated by what he sees as the secretary’s traditionalist world view on a host of issues, from Iran to North Korea, in contrast to the president’s desire to redefine America’s role around the globe.
Trump met Tillerson and Defence Secretary James Mattis for lunch in the president’s private dining room at the White House yesterday. Sanders characterised the lunch as ‘‘a great visit’’.
Shortly before the lunch, a reporter asked Trump whether he had undercut Tillerson with his comments to Forbes. ‘‘No, I didn’t undercut anybody. I don’t believe in undercutting people,’’ Trump replied.
In the Forbes interview, for the magazine’s cover story under the headline ‘‘Inside Trump’s Head’’, the president mentioned upcoming economic development legislation ‘‘nobody knows about’’, which would penalise American companies that move operations overseas, and offer incentives for those that stay in the US.
Trump also said that he had purposefully not filled many jobs throughout the federal government, including at the State Department, where several top positions remain vacant.
‘‘I’m generally not going to make a lot of the appointments that would normally be, because you don’t need them. I mean, you look at some of these agencies, how massive they are, and it’s totally unnecessary. They have hundreds of thousands of people.’’