The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tillerson: I didn’t ponder exit or call boss ‘moron’
Secretary of state rebuts NBC News story that went viral.
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared Wednesday he never considered resigning as President Donald Trump’s top diplomat, disputing what he called “erroneous” reports that he wanted to step down earlier this year. After pointedly refusing to answer if he called the president a “moron,” Tillerson had a spokeswoman deny he used such language.
Thrust into the spotlight under uncomfortable circumstances, the normally camera-shy Tillerson sought to rebut a widely disseminated NBC News story that claimed Vice President Mike Pence had to talk the former oilman out of resigning over the summer, and that Tillerson had questioned Trump’s intelligence. The explosive claims followed several instances in which Trump and Tillerson’s policy pronouncements have appeared to clash.
“There has never been a consideration in my mind to leave,” Tillerson told reporters in an unusually personal address from the State Department’s staid seventh-floor Treaty Room outside of his office.
Even before Tillerson spoke, Trump offered support and denounced the report as “fake news.”
Trump’s administration already had seen an unprecedented wave of departures, including a chief of staff, a national security adviser and a Cabinet secretary. However, his core national security
team — Tillerson, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and his second national security adviser, H.R. McMaster — has been seen by Republicans and even many Democrats as a pillar of stability in an otherwise chaotic government.
Even so, Trump has at times seemed to undercut Tillerson’s message on some of America’s most sensitive national security challenges, including Iran and North Korea. Tillerson also has publicly complained about the White House blocking him from making key appointments.
While praising Trump’s foreign policy Wednesday, Tillerson raised eyebrows by pointedly declining to deny he had called the president a “moron” after a contentious meeting at the Pentagon in July.
“I’m not going to deal with petty stuff like that,” the former Exxon Mobil CEO said. “I mean, this is what I don’t understand about Washington.”
“Let me tell you what I’ve learned about this president, whom I did not know before taking this office,” Tillerson
said. “He loves his country. He puts Americans and America first. He’s smart. He demands results wherever he goes, and he holds those around him accountable for whether they’ve done the job he’s asked them to do.”
Later, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert flatly denied that Tillerson called Trump a moron. She also said Tillerson hasn’t said sorry to Trump, as no apology was needed.
Pence backed up Tillerson’s account by saying the two men never discussed the “prospect of the secretary’s resignation from the administration.”
“Any reporting to the contrary is categorically false,” Pence’s statement said.
NBC said Tillerson had been on the verge of resigning this summer amid mounting policy disputes with the White House. It said the tensions came to a head around the time Trump gave a politicized speech in July to the Boy Scouts of America, an organization Tillerson once led. The network claimed Pence, along with Defense Secretary James Mattis, convinced Tillerson to stay.