Thread: Tillerson called Trump a ‘f**king moron,’ threatened to resign

I agree with Trump on this one. No problem continuing diplomatic efforts, but they aren't going to work at all unless North Korea believes we're on our way to take them out.

Bob Corker just told the world what he really thinks of Donald Trump

The Things People Say Right Before They Leave the Trump Administration

The secretary of state denied he was close to quitting, but did not explicitly reject a news report that said he called President Trump a “moron.”

Yuri Gripas / Reuters

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Rex Tillerson’s forceful defense of President Trump, after an NBC News report said the secretary of state had called the commander-in-chief a “moron” and seriously considered quitting his job, offered few clues about his eventual fate. From Sean Spicer to Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus, it’s not uncommon for Trump’s aides to defend the president—right before being shown the door. Tillerson, the top U.S. diplomat, may be in a category by himself—but as he reminded everyone on Wednesday: He serves at the pleasure of the president.

“The vice president has never had to persuade me to remain as secretary of state, because I have never considered leaving this post,” Tillerson said in an unscheduled appearance before the media at the State Department, referring to the NBC report.

But multiple news reports since this summer have said Tillerson does not enjoy his job, feels undermined by Trump, and was considering resigning. If those reports were true, Tillerson was hardly going to confirm them at the State Department while insisting he was staying in his job. Instead, he offered what several officials from across administrations do when asked about rumors of impending resignation or dismissal.Tillerson’s exact words: “There’s never been a consideration in my mind to leave. I serve at the appointment of the president, and I am here for as long as the president feels I can be useful to achieving his objectives.” Tillerson was also careful to praise Trump, saying, “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.”

But Tillerson did not explicitly reject the crux of the NBC News reports—later corroborated by CNN—that he had called Trump a “moron” over the political nature of the speech the president made to an annual Boy Scouts of America gathering.

The Boy Scouts apologized for the speech, because presidential addresses to the organization have previously been about service, not politics. Tillerson, a former Eagle scout, once chaired that organization.

When asked whether he would address the “moron” allegation, he replied:

I’m not going to deal with petty stuff like that. This is what I don’t understand about Washington.

Again, I’m not from this place. But the places I come from, we don’t deal with that kind of petty nonsense. And it is intended to do nothing but divide people. And I’m just not going to be part of this effort to divide this administration.

Heather Nauert, the State Department’s spokeswoman, later explicitly denied Tillerson had called Trump a “moron.” She said the secretary had spoken to the president, adding there was no apology because none was needed.

Trump himself responded to the report ahead of Tillerson’s press conference, calling it “fake news” on Twitter.

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The @NBCNews story has just been totally refuted by Sec. Tillerson and @VP Pence. It is #FakeNews. They should issue an apology to AMERICA!
8:18 AM - Oct 4, 2017

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But what the president says publicly or on Twitter about those who work for him can be at odds with their political fortunes. Trump had publicly praised Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus, Sean Spicer, and Michael Flynn, for example, but all of them ultimately ended up departing the White House.

Spicer’s resignation in July came following Trump’s appointment of Anthony Scaramucci as the White House communications director. Reports that Trump was unhappy with Spicer had circulated for pretty much the entire duration of Spicer’s tenure as the White House spokesman. When asked about them in June, Spicer replied: “I’m still here.” Trump himself had defended Spicer’s performances at the White House podium, in which he frequently misled reporters or misstated facts: “As a very active president with lots of things happening, it is not possible for my surrogates to stand at podium with perfect accuracy!” he tweeted. “Maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future ‘press briefings’ and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy???”

Spicer’s resignation resulted in speculation that Priebus would be the next to go because of his own past frictions with Scaramucci. Priebus, too, denied anything was amiss. “We go back a long, long way and are very good friends,” Priebus told the AP. “All good here.” When Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked whether Trump had confidence in Priebus, she replied:

“We all serve at the pleasure of the president, and if it gets to a place where that isn’t the case, he’ll let you know.” Priebus was out soon after that. Even after replacing him with John Kelly, Trump called Priebus “a good man.”

Bannon, in an interview with the American Prospect that many say led to his ouster, fixed his ire on many of the president’s aides, but not Trump himself.

Indeed, after Trump’s controversial remarks on Charlottesville, in which he decried violence on both sides following a white-supremacist rally but added “you also had some very fine people on both sides,” many of Trump’s closest aides broke with him. But while Tillerson, Gary Cohn, and others publicly distanced themselves from Trump, Bannon was steadfast, reportedly saying he was “proud” of the president’s remarks. That didn’t save him, though.

Amid reports in August that Bannon’s future was in peril, Trump called his chief strategist “a good man, he’s not a racist, I can tell you that,” but he declined to offer details about Bannon’s future, saying merely, “we’ll see.” Bannon was out on August 18.

Scaramucci himself was ingloriously dumped following imprudent remarks to a New Yorker reporter about Bannon and Priebus—remarks he said he thought were off the record.

Mike Flynn, the national security adviser who resigned early on in the administration amid scandal over undisclosed contacts with the Russian ambassador during the campaign, remains a favorite of the president, who reportedly is still smarting over his absence. Even on the day Flynn left the White House, Kellyanne Conway, the president’s counselor, said Trump had “full confidence” in Flynn. Later in the day, Flynn was gone.

Trump at first favored then-FBI director James Comey, because of his role in the Hillary Clinton investigation at the height of the presidential campaign, but ended up firing him because of his continued investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties with Russia. In March, amid speculation he was considering resigning, Comey seemed confident he was keeping his job, telling an audience at a cybersecurity conference: “You’re stuck with me another 6½ years.” In fact, Comey had so little idea what was coming that he reportedly found out he’d been fired when he caught a glimpse of a CNN broadcast while delivering a talk in May to FBI personnel.

Tom Price, the first cabinet-level official to resign from the administration,was the latest to go. Trump said publicly he was “not happy” with his health and human services secretary, who stepped down over a scandal involving his use of private jets for government travel.

And when asked if he’d fire Price, Trump replied: “We’ll see.”

Tillerson, the former Exxon CEO, shies from publicity—and generally avoids the media, something that will ensure that he never outshines or gets better headlines than the president. It has been previously reported that Trump had been annoyed about the kinds of headlines Bannon received. But his remarks on Wednesday won’t quiet speculation about just how much influence Tillerson has on the U.S. foreign-policy agenda he’s supposed to be leading. (UN ambassador Nikki Haley, for example, can at times appear to be setting policy instead—most recently when she delivered a speech about the flaws of the Iran nuclear deal, and the possible case for withdrawal, that many diplomats say was Tillerson’s to make. Tillerson has called the deal flawed, but has previously said the U.S. should stay in it. Trump has called the agreement “the worst deal in history.”)

Among the foreign-policy issues where Trump has publicly broken with Tillerson are Qatar, NATO, Iran, and, most recently, North Korea. Ambassador Laura Kennedy, who served at the State Department for four decades until 2015 under both Republican and Democratic administrations, told me this week the president’s repeated public disagreements with Tillerson send a bad message. “For the president to deliberately and flippantly taunt his secretary of state undercuts that secretary of state, and it also introduces an element of childishness and pettiness that’s very much at variance with the needs of projecting our leadership throughout the world,” she said.

Tillerson’s remarks Wednesday that he had never considered quitting; that he thought the president was “smart;” and that he served at the pleasure of the president might assuage some of Trump’s own suspicions about his secretary of state. But recent history suggests that such statements don’t actually say much about the fate of those who make them.

https://www.theatlantic.com/internat...-moron/541977/

Tillerson reportedly called Trump a ‘f**king moron,’ threatened to resign

Hearsay!

Tillerson’s Fury at Trump Required an Intervention From Pence

More hearsay!

Tillerson’s Fury at Trump Required an Intervention From Pence

Even more hearsay!

Fact: Rex Tillerson said he had "no plans to quit".

Fact: "Heather Nauert, the State Department’s spokeswoman, later explicitly denied Tillerson had called Trump a 'moron.'"

Originally Posted by jtdc

Hearsay!More hearsay! Even more hearsay!

Fact: Rex Tillerson said he had "no plans to quit".

Fact: "Heather Nauert, the State Department’s spokeswoman, later explicitly denied Tillerson had called Trump a 'moron.'"

Exactly.

NBC stands by 'moron' report

President Trump focuses anti-media ire on NBC after Tillerson 'moron' report

by Brian Stelter @brianstelterOctober 4, 2017: 12:41 PM ET

On Wednesday NBC's news division published a story about what it said were Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's "disputes and clashes with the White House."

Minutes after Tillerson spoke in front of cameras to dispute portions of the story, Trump called on the network to apologize.

Unsurprisingly, the network shrugged off his Twitter demand.

"We stand by our reporting," an NBC News spokeswoman said.

It's the latest chapter in a lengthy book of the president's anti-media attacks.

Sometimes he complains in general terms about "fake news" when the coverage isn't as positive as he wants it to be. Other times he lobs insults at specific news outlets and journalists.

On Wednesday morning, all four of his statements on Twitter referred to "fake" news -- first about his trip to Puerto Rico and then about the Tillerson turmoil.

Related: After 'moron' report, Tillerson reaffirms commitment to Trump

Some analysts have said Trump resorts to the "fake news" claim when times are particularly tough at the White House.

In this case, he directed his Twitter ire at NBC News about four hours after the news division published this: "Tillerson's Fury at Trump Required an Intervention From Pence."

The story said that Tillerson disparaged Trump as a "moron" after a meeting at the Pentagon in July.

Over the summer, Tillerson "was on the verge of resigning," and "Vice President Mike Pence counseled Tillerson" about how to ease the tensions with the president, NBC reported.

The story cited "multiple senior administration officials who were aware of the situation at the time."

According to Carol Lee, who had the first of four bylines on the jointly-reported story, NBC "spoke with a dozen people" for it, including "seven people" who said 'he was close to resigning at that time.'"

Indeed, some details about Tillerson's dissatisfaction leaked out over the summer. CNN, NBC and other outlets reported that Tillerson's frustrations were mounting and that, in the words of CNN's John King, Tillerson might be looking for an "exit strategy."

In recent days, there has been even more speculation about a potential resignation, given how Trump has publicly undermined Tillerson on the subject of North Korea.

Then came NBC's story on Wednesday -- carefully timed for the morning news cycle.

The NBCNews.com story came out at 5:50 a.m. and made an immediate impact, particularly because of the "moron" quote. NBC's "Today" show aired a detailed segment about the news division's reporting.

Later in the morning, CNN independently confirmed the "moron" quote.

The State Department arranged a press availability for Tillerson, who has been known for keeping his distance from the press corps. While Tillerson prepared to step out and speak on live TV, Trump tweeted, "NBC news is #FakeNews and more dishonest than even CNN. They are a disgrace to good reporting. No wonder their news ratings are way down!"

Trump, who worked for NBC for over a decade as the host of "The Apprentice," has a keen interest in the TV ratings race.

But he's wrong about NBC's news viewership. In fact, the ratings for programs like "NBC Nightly News" and "Today" and quite strong, despite industry-wide changes in media consumption and TV viewing habits.

Tillerson spoke at 11 a.m. The headline, in the minds of many reporters, is that he did not deny calling Trump a "moron." He said he wouldn't deal with that kind of "petty nonsense."

Lee spoke right afterward on MSNBC: "He denied that he was ever intending to resign. Our reporting shows that he absolutely intended to resign and was very frustrated in July. Interestingly, he did not deny calling the president a moron."

Lee added: "The question now is, was it enough for Donald Trump?"

Analysts elsewhere on television said that Tillerson seemed to be speaking to an "audience of one," meaning President Trump, who was flying to Las Vegas at the time.

"Perhaps Tillerson thought this may be the best way to communicate with Trump," given that the president "is a huge consumer of cable news," David Chalian said on CNN.

Trump weighed in again a few minutes later, saying "The @NBCNews story has just been totally refuted by Sec. Tillerson and @VP Pence. It is #FakeNews. They should issue an apology to AMERICA!"

The story was not "totally refuted," and NBC emphasized again that it was confident in its reporting.

"NBC News will not be issuing an apology to America," MSNBC anchor Hallie Jackson said on air.

NBC White House correspondent Peter Alexander had perhaps the pithiest response to the president's tweets about his network.

He retweeted the first barb and said, "Thanks for watching."

CNNMoney (New York)First published October 4, 2017: 12:41 PM ET

http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/04/medi...ump/index.html

LOL!! No one cares about your FAKE NEWS, NBC. No one cares if Tillerson called Trump a moron. They don't even care if he called him a f....cking moron over some disagreement. What kind of dumb children are you at NBC that wastes time and resources for months on some story about someone calling someone a name during a disagreement, if it was true, which it isn't? You act like a bunch of 3rd girls jealous of the class President who are out to get her. GROW UP!!! STOP THE PETTY NONSENSE!!

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

NBC stands by 'moron' report

[snip]

Unsurprisingly, the network shrugged off his Twitter demand.

What does one expect from the parent of MSNBC?

The story cited "multiple senior administration officials who were aware of the situation at the time."

They were "aware"? So none of them were witnesses, and of course none of them were named. JUST MORE HEARSAY!

Originally Posted by Judy

Everyone says this never happened, Pence, Tillerson and State Department. If there is a new story here, the story is about liars and fryers at NBC and whoever thinks so little of our country that they would attempt to jeopardize and degrade those responsible for preventing war. setting the stage to win a few (wow, wouldn't that be novel) or both.

I don't know if it happened or not and don't really care either way. However, I do know, if it did happened, Pence, Tillerson and the State Department would never admit to it. Being a quality liar seems to be the norm for politicians these days ......... unfortunate but true.

That "quality" lying isn't limited to politicians.