Not undercut by Trump comments, Tillerson says

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Rex Tillerson defended his standing within the administration on Sunday, saying President Donald Trump’s social media pronouncements on major global issues did not undercut the nation’s top diplomat.

“I’m not going to deal with that kind of petty stuff,” Tillerson said on CNN’s State of the Union, rejecting a chance to address reports that he called Trump a “moron” during a meeting of top national security officials. “I don’t work that way.”

Tillerson’s appearances on the Sunday talk shows provided his most complete comments since NBC News reported that, during a meeting of top national security officials, the secretary of state called Trump a “moron” after the president suggested a buildup in the nation’s nuclear stockpile. That was followed by Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., a close ally of Tillerson’s, suggesting that Trump had “castrated” the secretary of state with tweets undermining his diplomatic missions to China to try to resolve the standoff with North Korea over its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

“I checked, I’m fully intact,” Tillerson said, after being pressed by CNN’s Jake Tapper about the castration remark.

The secretary of state said that his relationship with the president, often described as strained, was just fine and that there was often a frank exchange of views. “I call the president Mr. President,” Tillerson said, again declining to address the “moron” comment.

“We have a very open exchange of views,” he said.

Questions about Trump’s tensions with his secretary of state come as the U.S. faces a series of international crises, including the threat posed by North Korea and fate of the Iran nuclear deal.

Tillerson said Sunday that diplomatic efforts aimed at resolving the North Korean crisis “will continue until the first bomb drops.”

But it was only recently that Trump tweeted that Tillerson was “wasting his time” trying to negotiate with the leader of the nuclear-armed nation.

In the CNN interview Sunday, Tillerson said that Trump “has made clear to me that he wants this solved diplomatically. He is not seeking to go to war.”

With Trump’s national security team fanned out across the Sunday show lineups, the advisers tried to present a united front. Nikki Haley, the ambassador to the United Nations, deflected reports that she and Tillerson are butting heads.

“That’s ridiculous,” she said on ABC’s This Week.

On NBC’s Meet the Press, she said that Tillerson and Trump have a good relationship. “I’m not going to get into the drama of the hesaid-he-said situation. What I will tell you is what I have witnessed is the president and Secretary Tillerson work very well together,” Haley said.

Tillerson said Trump has assembled an “unconventional team” of national security leaders, noting that he is an “unconventional” secretary of state as a former chief executive of Exxon Mobil.

“This is an unconventional president. He uses unconventional communication tools, he uses unconventional motivational techniques to motivate change,” Tillerson said, explaining Trump’s social media habits.

He said it does not matter that many observers see his refusal to address the “moron” controversy head-on as tacit confirmation that he did use that word to describe Trump.

“I’m not playing. These are the games of Washington; these are the destructive games of this town,” Tillerson said.