In an interview at the MD Anderson Cancer Center on Thursday, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson slammed President Donald Trump, calling him “undisciplined,” the Daily Beast reports. The president, according to Tillerson, “doesn’t like to read,” and frequently has to be stopped by White House staff from breaking the law.
“So often, the president would say here’s what I want to do and here’s how I want to do it, 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. It violates treaty,’” Tillerson said.
But it didn’t take long for Trump to hit back at his former secretary of state. In a Twitter message published on Friday, Donald Trump called Tillerson “dumb as a rock,” and “lazy as hell,” asserting that the current secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, is doing a superior job. Trump added that Tillerson did not have “the mental capacity needed” for the job.
Tillerson’s interview appears to have angered the president, who took to social media to criticize the former secretary of state. Trump did not directly address some of Tillerson’s answers, however. Notably, the former chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil broke with Trump, saying that “there’s no question” that Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election. Apart from touching upon the Russia collusion, Tillerson provided details about his tenure at the White House, confessing that his former boss routinely sought to violate the law.
Ironically, Trump hit back at Tillerson via Twitter only hours after media outlets reported on the former secretary of state’s remarks, ignoring Tillerson’s criticism of the president’s tweeting habits. “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 at the MD Anderson Cancer Center.
Mike Pompeo is doing a great job, I am very proud of him. His predecessor, Rex Tillerson, didn’t have the mental capacity needed. He was dumb as a rock and I couldn’t get rid of him fast enough. He was lazy as hell. Now it is a whole new ballgame, great spirit at State!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 7, 2018
Although Rex Tillerson’s comments may come as a surprise to some, this is not the first time that someone has criticized the president for lack of discipline, nor is it the first time that the public has gained an account of Trump’s reading habits — or lack thereof. As recently detailed by the Inquisitr , a few of Trump’s longtime friends and allies told the media that the president does not like to read, and instead prefers graphs, images, and charts.
Over the years, however, Trump has critiqued a slew of books about himself.
Tillerson says Trump was a “pretty undisciplined” man who “doesn’t like to read” and often had to be reminded about the law https://t.co/mybdx3xX7S
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) December 7, 2018
The Daily Beast notes that former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has criticized Donald Trump on a number of occasions since his March ousting, but never as directly and candidly as in his remarks on Thursday.