Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Sunday again declined to deny that he called President Donald Trump a “moron.”
“Is it true? Did you call him a moron?” Jake Tapper asked Tillerson on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“I’m just not going to dignify the question,” Tillerson replied. “I call the President ‘Mr. President.’ He and I have a very, very open, frank and candid relationship.”
.@jaketapper: Did you call Trump a moron?
Rex Tillerson: “I’m not gonna deal with that petty stuff” #CNNSOTU https://t.co/kOTYS3As6c
— CNN (@CNN) October 15, 2017
Responding to reports that Tillerson openly characterized him as a “moron” earlier in the year, Trump said, “If he did that, I guess we’ll have to compare IQ tests. And I can tell you who is going to win.”
“He made a joke,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Tuesday of Trump’s remark. “The President certainly never implied that the secretary of state was not incredibly intelligent.”