Rex Tillerson furious with Donald Trump on policy decisions: Report

Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson was so infuriated with President Trump this past summer that Vice President Mike Pence had to intervene, NBC News first reported on Wednesday.

Mr. Tillerson had numerous issues with the administration’s policies, and particularly with Mr. Trump’s political comments to the Boy Scouts last summer.

The secretary of state considered resigning, but he was talked out of it, the report said.

Mr. Tillerson referred to Mr. Trump as a “moron,” according to three officials familiar with the incident, NBC News reported.

Mr. Pence tried to calm tensions between the two, but Mr. Tillerson is still unhappy that the president continues to undercut him on North Korea.

Recently, Mr. Trump tweeted messages that Mr. Tillerson was “wasting his time trying to negotiate” with North Korea.

I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 1, 2017

…Save your energy Rex, we’ll do what has to be done!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 1, 2017

“I know that Secretary Tillerson, through his spokesman, denied that absolutely. There were other things in the story that we pushed back on pretty hard. And in the end, it’s a give and take,” Michael Anton said Wednesday on “The Hugh Hewitt Show.” Mr. Anton is the deputy assistant to the president on strategic communications at the National Security Council.

Although Mr. Anton said he could not deny the comment himself since he wasn’t at the meeting, he did say that he believes Mr. Tillerson’s denial. He also claimed that there were other parts of the article that were wrong.

“I think the story is wrong on so many levels. I mean, there were so many things that they had that they came to us with that we were able to fix or get taken out, and other things that I’m still sure are wrong that we weren’t able to fix and get taken out,” Mr. Anton added.