With a little probing, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson responded to Sen. Bob Corker’s complaint that he had been ‘castrated’ by President Trump on the world stage.
‘I checked. I’m fully intact,’ Tillerson told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday.
On Friday, Corker, the retiring Tennessee Republican who has been feuding with President Trump all week, told the Washington Post he was the ‘most exercised about’ the president’s treatment of Tillerson, who Corker complimented for making great strides with China, only to be undercut.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was asked about a comment made Friday by Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., in which the Republican suggested President Trump was ‘castrating’ his secretary of state on the world stage
‘I checked. I’m fully intact,’ Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (left) told CNN’s Jake Tapper (right) on Sunday when asked if he felt ‘castrated’ by President Trump’s behavior, which often seems to undercut him
Earlier this month when Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was in Beijing, President Trump (pictured) sent out a series of tweets that suggested Tillerson shouldn’t bother finding a diplomatic solution to deal with North Korea
‘When you jack the legs out from under your chief diplomat, you cause all that to fall apart,’ Corker said. ‘Us working with [Beijing] effectively is the key to not getting to a binary choice,’ he continued, speaking about the North Korean threat.
‘When you publicly castrate your secretary of state, you take that off the table,’ Corker said.
Earlier this month, during Tillerson’s trip to Beijing, Trump interrupted the negotiations with a series of tweets suggesting diplomacy wasn’t going to work with North Korea.
‘I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man…,’ Trump tweeted. ‘Save your energy Rex, we’ll do what has to be done!’
Later in the day Trump wrote, ‘Being nice to Rocket Man hasn’t worked in 25 years, why would it work now? Clinton failed, Bush failed, and Obama failed. I won’t fail.’
During today’s sit-down on State of the Union, Tapper asked Tillerson about those tweets, suggesting that Chinese officials and North Korean officials could be lead to believe that ‘Secretary Tillerson doesn’t really speak for President Trump.’
Tillerson responded by pointing to the close relationship between Trump and President Xi of China.
‘But don’t tweets like that undermine you?’ Tapper pressed.
Tillerson said Trump wanted to make it clear to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un that the U.S. had military preparations ‘ready to go’
‘The president has also made clear to me that he wants this solved diplomatically. He’s not seeking to go to war,’ Tillerson said.
Tapper then asked, ‘So he doesn’t think it’s a waste of time?’
Tillerson gave a ‘no, sir.’
‘He has made it clear to me to continue my diplomatic efforts, which we are, and we will, as I have told others, those diplomatic efforts will continue until the first bomb drops.’
Later in the interview, Tapper brought up Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and asked Tillerson about Corker’s ‘castration’ comment.
Tillerson attributed Trump behavior to him being ‘an unconventional president.’
‘He uses unconventional communication tools. He uses unconventional techniques to motivate change,’ the secretary of state said.
‘And for people that have been around Washington a long time, this is a place that – you know better than I – you have been here longer than I have – this is not a place that likes to change. It actually enjoys that status quo,’ Tillerson continued.
Tillerson continued by saying that he was ‘fully committed to his objectives,’ repeating a promise he had made earlier this month after returning to Washington from Beijing and being confronted with an NBC News report that said he had wanted to quit and had called President Trump a ‘moron’ at a Pentagon meeting.
He still wouldn’t fully deny he used the term during his sit-down with Tapper today.
‘I’m not dignifying the question with an answer, Jake,’ after several rounds of back and forth.’
Tapper tried to pin Tillerson down on the ‘castration’ question too, pointing out that he owned cattle and had a cattle range.
‘You don’t want to say anything about the senator suggesting you have been gelded before the world?’ Tapper asked. ‘That’s not anything that bothers you?’
And with that Tillerson told Tapper that he had checked and everything was A-OK, causing the CNN newsman to laugh.
‘I did not expect that answer,’ Tapper said.