Tillerson says he never considered resigning post

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Wednesday he had never considered resigning from his post, saying he was as committed to President Donald Trump’s agenda as much today as he was when he first came into office.

“I have never considered leaving this post,” Tillerson said at the State Department. “I am here for as long as the president feels I can be useful to achieving his objectives.”

Tillerson spoke after NBC News reported that Vice President Mike Pence and other top officials intervened to persuade him not to resign during the summer as tensions rose between Trump and his top diplomat.

Trump appeared to undercut Tillerson over the weekend when he tweeted that he told Tillerson that he was “wasting his time” trying to negotiate with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs.

Representatives for the state department and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the NBC report.

The president is flying to Las Vegas this morning to meet with victims and first responders from the deadly shooting on Sunday. On the flight, Trump tweeted, “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!”

It was an apparent response to an NBC report that Tillerson had called Trump a “moron” and was close to quitting this summer.

Tillerson, in late July, had weighed whether to return to Washington from a personal trip to Texas but was reassured after discussions with General John Kelly, now Trump’s chief of staff, and Defense Secretary James Mattis, the network reported, citing four people with direct knowledge of the exchanges. 

Tillerson said publicly in late July that he was “not going anywhere.”

The White House declined to comment to NBC, and a state department spokesman told the network Tillerson did not consider quitting in July and did not call the president a moron.

“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!” Trump tweeted Wednesday morning shortly after NBC published its report. It was not clear what stories Trump was disputing.

Over the weekend, Tillerson said the United States had direct channels of communication with North Korea to see if it was interested in dialog in hopes of reducing tensions. The next day on Twitter, Trump said Tillerson was “wasting his time.”

Tillerson is not the only Cabinet official to have publicly diverged from the president on policy issues.

Mattis said on Tuesday the United States should consider staying in the Iran nuclear deal unless it was proven that Tehran was not abiding by the agreement or that it was not in the U.S. national interest to do so.

Trump has called Iran’s 2015 deal with six world powers an “embarrassment.”

Mattis has played down any tensions between Trump and Tillerson over their apparent split, most recently over North Korea.

Trump’s White House and State Department have also taken differing stances on other foreign policy issues.

Earlier this year, Trump backed Gulf Arab leaders in their boycott of Qatar even as Tillerson and the Pentagon cautioned against the military, commercial and humanitarian effects of the dispute.

Review-Journal writer Debra Saunders contributed to this report.