Trump Opens Fire on Ex-Secretary of State Tillerson: He ‘Made Up a Story’ I Was ‘Out-Prepared’ By Putin

Donald Trump blasted Rex Tillerson on Thursday after his former Secretary of State said the president was not sufficiently prepared for a meeting he had with Vladimir Putin back in 2017.

“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,” Trump wrote of his former top diplomat on Twitter. “I don’t think Putin would agree. Look how the U.S. is doing!”

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. I don’t think Putin would agree. Look how the U.S. is doing!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 23, 2019

Tillerson spoke to the House Foreign Affairs Committee this week, and sources from the closed-door meeting told Washington Post that Tillerson recalled a G-20 summit in Hamburg where the administration apparently did not expect a series of initial meetings to expand into a broader event. The result was that Tillerson got the impression that the Russian president was more prepared for the meeting than his American counterpart.

“We spent a lot of time in the conversation talking about how Putin seized every opportunity to push what he wanted,” a committee aide said. “There was a discrepancy in preparation, and it created an unequal footing.”