Rex Tillerson (Still) Refuses to Say He Did Not Call Donald Trump a ‘Moron’ (Video)

“I Call the President ‘Mr. President’”

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson once again refused to say he did not call the President of the United States a moron.

NBC News first reported nearly two weeks ago that Tillerson came close to resigning this summer and had indeed, in the presence of others, called the president a moron. The report has prompted numerous tweets of attack from Trump, although he’s been silent on social media about the tragic events unfolding in the California wildfires and the four soldiers killed in Niger.

The report also forced the Secretary of State to hold an unscheduled press conference to reaffirm his commitment to Donald Trump. Immediately after, the president took to Twitter to demand NBC apologize to America and to falsely claim Tillerson “totally refuted” their reporting. (He did not.)

The Secretary of State, in an appearance Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” was asked directly by host Jake Tapper if he had called the president a moron following his initial refusal to deny the reports.

“Is it true? Did you call him a moron?” Tapper asked.

“Jake, as I indicated earlier, I was asked about that,” Tillerson responded, “I’m not gonna deal with that kind of petty stuff.”

The Secretary of State turned to Washington D.C., calling it “a town that seems to relish gossip, rumor, innuendo, and they feed on it… they feed on one another in a very destructive way,” he continued, advising he wouldn’t dignify the question.

“I call the president ‘Mr. President,’” Tillerson asserted. “He and I have a very, very open, frank and candid relationship. I see him often, speak to him nearly every day… we have a very open exchange of views on policy. At the end of the day, he makes decisions, I go out and do the best I can do execute those decisions successfully.”

This week, Donald Trump advised that he would “win” in an IQ test with his Secretary of State.

Watch the full exchange between Tillerson and Tapper below:

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