Trump trashes Tillerson for saying Putin outfoxed him

President Donald Trump again bashed former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson as “dumb as a rock” on Thursday, charging that he was “totally ill prepared and ill equipped” to become America’s top diplomat.

“Rex Tillerson, a man who is 'dumb as a rock' and totally ill prepared and ill equipped to be Secretary of State, made up a story (he got fired) that I was out-prepared by Vladimir Putin at a meeting in Hamburg, Germany,” the president

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The president’s outburst on social media follows a report from The Washington Post that Tillerson met for seven hours Tuesday with members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and told the lawmakers that Trump was less prepped than Russian President Vladimir Putin for a 2017 session in Hamburg, Germany.

In a statement to the Post, Trump said that he “was perfectly prepared for my meetings” with Putin, adding: “We did very well at those meetings.”

Trump previously lashed out at Tillerson on Twitter in December 2018, after the former ExxonMobil chief described him as "pretty undisciplined" to CBS News, and told attendees of a Houston fundraiser that the president would sometimes order directives that violated the law.

“Mike Pompeo is doing a great job, I am very proud of him,” Trump

Twitter

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“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!”

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Thursday defended the president’s account of the Hamburg meeting, saying that the talks “went extremely well” and that “no one has been tougher” on Russia than the Trump administration.

“The president has been very well prepared not just for that meeting but the dozens and dozens of meetings that he has had with other foreign leaders,” Sanders said.

Pressed on the White House’s reluctance to release transcripts of various conversations between Trump and Putin, Sanders said: “That’s insane.”

She added: “The idea that there was no transparency is just ridiculous and it's just simply false.”

Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine