NBC reported on Wednesday that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called President Trump a ‘moron’* in public. This was in July, at the Pentagon, after Trump had left a meeting. Shortly after that VP Mike Pence had to talk Tillerson into staying on and not quitting. *It’s actually worse than that .. whispers are that it was ‘f-ing moron’. The political publication The Hill tells NBC to come clean and report the exact phrase that was used.
Anyway, does it matter? Both Tillerson and Trump denied on Wednesday that anything was amiss. (Tillerson: the President is a ‘smart man’; Trump: NBC is ‘fake news’, ‘totally made-up’). Right. I will go with NBC’s version, to believe.
It does matter. It’s not good that there is such a rift between the President and his Secretary of State. And Trump seems to routinely undermine his cabinet’s efforts by tweeting totally contradicting policy points of view. Example: I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man .. Save your energy Rex, we’ll do what has to be done!