President Donald Trump defended his intellect after reports that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called him a “moron. ’’
“I think it’s fake news, but if he did this, I guess we’ll have to compare IQ tests,” Trump said in an interview with Forbes Magazine published Tuesday. “And I can tell you who’s going to win. ”
The president’ comments come less than a week after NBC News reported that Tillerson had clarified the president in unflattering terms and was on the verge of resigning.
Trump and Tillerson have denied the reports, though Tillerson didn’when reporters asked if he had called the president a moron t answer. A State Department spokeswoman said Tillerson doesn’.
Trump is set to meet with Tillerson at the White House on Tuesday. Tillerson told reporters last week that he would be giving the president a recommendation on what to do about the Iran nuclear deal. Trump has called the deal an “embarrassment” and threatened to decertify it before an Oct. 15 deadline.
From the interview with Forbes, Trump also said that several of the unfilled positions within the State Department would remain empty. Tillerson has complained about the slow pace of getting his secretaries and deputies nominated and confirmed.
“I’m not going to make a lot of the appointments that would be –since you don’t want them,” Trump said. “I mean, you look at a number of these agencies, how massive they are, and it’s totally unnecessary. They have thousands and thousands of individuals. ”
