Trump and Tillerson exchange barbs

I think he grew tired of me being the guy every day that told him you can’t do that and let’s talk about what we can do

Rex Tillerson, US former secretary of state

washington — Former US secretary of state Rex Tillerson said Donald Trump was “undisciplined” and repeatedly wanted to break the law — leading the US president to respond on Friday that his onetime cabinet member was “dumb as a rock.”

Tillerson, who was fired in March, made no attempt to deny his poor relationship with Trump during a rare interview on Thursday night as part of a charity dinner in his native Texas.

“I think part of it was obviously we are starkly different in our styles. We did not have a common value system,” Tillerson told veteran journalist Bob Schieffer of CBS News, which broadcast an excerpt of the interview.

“I’d have to say to him, ‘Well, Mr President, I understand what you want to do, but you can’t do it that way — it violates the law, it violates a treaty.’”

“He got really frustrated,” he said. “I think he grew tired of me being the guy every day that told him you can’t do that and let’s talk about what we can do.” Trump voiced anger hours later in a harsh tweet, saying that Tillerson “didn’t have the mental capacity needed” to be the top US diplomat.

“He was dumb as a rock and I couldn’t get rid of him fast enough. He was lazy as hell. Now it is a whole new ballgame, great spirit at State!” Trump wrote from Air Force One as he returned from a conference in Kansas City about crime.

Trump praised Tillerson’s successor, the brusque former congressman and CIA chief Mike Pompeo, for “doing a great job.”

He becomes the latest cabinet member on which Trump has turned his knives. —