‘It Troubles Me That the American People Seem to Want to Know So Little About Issues’ Tillerson Says
Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson this week revealed that he had to repeatedly stop President Donald Trump from breaking the law.
The Houston Chronicle reports that Tillerson opened up about his working relationship with Trump during a public appearance in Houston on Thursday evening.
In particular, Tillerson said that the president quickly grew tired of hearing that he couldn’t take certain actions because they would be illegal.
“So often, the president would say, ‘Here’s what I want to do and here’s how I want to do it,’” Tillerson explained. “And I would have to say to him, ‘Mr. President I understand what you want to do but you can’t do it that way. It violates the law.’”
Tillerson said that he advised Trump to lobby Congress to change certain laws if they interfered with what he wanted to do, but the president mostly just got angry with him.
Tillerson also said that he was disturbed that Trump managed to get elected president despite having a simplistic understanding of how government works.
“I will be honest with you, it troubles me that the American people seem to want to know so little about issues, that they are satisfied with a 128 characters,” Tillerson said, referring to Trump’s tweets.