Rex Tillerson reportedly called Trump a moron and Pence had to mediate. Get popcorn.
A salacious new report from NBC News has everything: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson calling Donald Trump a "moron" in front of multiple administration officials, VP Mike Pence talking Tillerson down from resigning, and a seemingly immediate response from the president:
And hours later, an explicit response from the president:
According to NBC News, "tensions came to a head" after Trump's notoriously terrible speech to the Boy Scouts of America. Here, to jog your memory:
Well, it turns out that Rex Tillerson once served as president of that organization, and he may have resigned if it weren't for Pence, who "counseled Tillerson... on ways to ease tensions with Trump." Current Chief of Staff John Kelly and Defense Secretary James Mattis apparently helped to calm down the Secretary of State, as well.
But it's the "moron" anecdote that's sure to grab the most attention. Here it is verbatim, via NBC News:
Tillerson stunned a handful of senior administration officials when he called the president a “moron” after a tense two-hour long meeting in a secure room at the Pentagon called "The Tank," according to three officials who were present or briefed on the incident. The July 20 meeting came a day after a meeting in the White House Situation Room on Afghanistan policy where Trump rattled his national security advisers by suggesting he might fire the top U.S. commander of the war and comparing the decision-making process on troop levels to the renovation of a high-end New York restaurant, according to participants in the meeting.
Twitter is truly loving this public melt down, even if we're only learning of it months later.
Just days ago, Donald Trump tweeted about Rex Tillerson's efforts to negotiate with North Korea.
I'm sure Rex appreciated that. I'm sure this is all fake news. These guys seem to have a really healthy way of communicating. Stay tuned.