I can’t stop laughing out loud over the “joke” that Donald J. Trump told about Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
Maybe you’ve heard it.
Trump was being interviewed by Forbes magazine and he suggested that he and Tillerson take IQ tests. The president, as you might imagine, was suggesting he possessed more intellectual firepower than the secretary of state.
The statement came in response to Tillerson reportedly calling Trump a “moron” earlier this summer. The president will have none of that, as you might imagine. Thus, he told Forbes about the IQ test.
Now we hear from the White House that Trump was joking. He didn’t really mean it. He didn’t really question Tillerson’s intelligence. He didn’t really mean that he’s smarter than the average bear.
As Politico reports: Trump told Forbes in his interview that he did not believe Tillerson had called him a “moron,” which NBC News reported he had, but that if he did, “we’ll have to compare IQ tests.”
“I think it’s fake news, but if he did that, I guess we’ll have to compare IQ tests. And I can tell you who is going to win,” Trump said.
There’s also this, also from Politico: President Donald Trump was making “a joke” when he challenged Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to an IQ test in an interview with Forbes, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Tuesday afternoon.
“The president certainly never implied that the secretary of state was not incredibly intelligent. He made a joke, nothing more than that,” Sanders said. “He has full confidence in the secretary of state. They had a great visit earlier today. And they are working hand in hand to move the president’s agenda forward.”
The “full confidence” and the “great visit earlier today” would seem to belie what has been reported widely throughout Washington since the “moron” comment became known. Which is that Trump and Tillerson don’t trust each other as far either of them can throw the other guy.
Perhaps that’s why I don’t believe that the president was joking. If he was, he needs to work on his comedic timing.