Donald Trump has surreal meltdown after it’s revealed Rex Tillerson called him a “moron”
This morning NBC News reported that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had become enraged at Donald Trump, calling him a “moron,” and that Vice President Mike Pence had been forced to talk Tillerson out of resigning. The story made everyone involved look bad: Tillerson, for not having the fortitude to resign, and Trump for not having the decisiveness to fire him. Not surprisingly, the story sent Trump into a surreal meltdown which spanned across several hours.
This morning, Trump initially tried to tamp it down by taking a more generic approach to blaming his own administration’s chaotic troubles on the media: “Wow, so many Fake News stories today. No matter what I do or say, they will not write or speak truth. The Fake News Media is out of control!” But that didn’t work, and so four hours later he decided to ratchet up the absurdity: “NBC news is #FakeNews and more dishonest than even CNN. They are a disgrace to good reporting. No wonder their news ratings are way down!” That didn’t work either.
At that point Trump was in full meltdown, tweeting “The NBC News story has just been totally refuted by Sec. Tillerson and VP Pence. It is Fake News. They should issue an apology to AMERICA!” Trump didn’t appear to realize that he was relying on faulty “bank robber” logic: the media reports that someone is a bank robber, the bank robber refutes it while offering no evidence, and therefore the media’s reporting must be fake. But this story is even worse for Trump than he may realize.
According to that same NBC News report, Rex Tillerson called Donald Trump a “moron” back in June. The story is just being reported now, which means that someone on the inside is just now leaking it – and that person is clearly trying to cause trouble. So now Trump has a new leaker to worry about, on top of the fact that his own Secretary of State clearly has no respect for him.
