No Matter How Sweet The Lies May Taste

At 10:34 AM today the State Department tweeted out notification of an imminent announcement by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

A flurry of reports based on an exclusive story published by Carol E. Lee, Stephanie Ruhle and Dafna Linzer on behalf of NBC News touting the Secretary as having called President Trump a “moron” during a meeting with Pentagon officials and cabinet members.

The tensions came to a head around the time the President delivered a politicized speech in late July to the Boy Scouts of America, an organization Tillerson once led, the officials said. 

Officials said that the administration, beset then by a series of high-level firings and resignations, would have struggled to manage the fallout from a Cabinet secretary of his stature departing within the first year of Trump’s presidency. 

The NBC “story” went on to say Vice President Pence “spoke to Tillerson about being respectful of the president in meetings and in public, urging any disagreements be sorted out privately.”

In August, Trump was furious with Tillerson over his response to a question posed by Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace concerning the president’s handling of the racially charged and deadly violence in Charlottesville, VA. “The president speaks for himself,” Tillerson said at the time.

Tillerson said Wednesday that he has never considered resigning his position, disputing the NBC News report that he was on the verge of such a move over the summer. 

"The Vice President has never had to persuade me to remain as Secretary of State because I have never considered leaving this post," Tillerson said in remarks delivered from the State Department.

From the transcript of his remarks:

“To address a few specifics that have been erroneously reported this morning, the vice president has never had to persuade me to remain as secretary of state, because I have never considered leaving this post. I value the friendship and the counsel of the vice president and I admire his leadership within President Trump’s administration to address the many important agendas of President Trump, both from a foreign policy perspective and a diplomatic — I’m sorry, a domestic objective.”

“Let me tell you what I’ve learned about this president, whom I did not know before taking this office.”

“He loves his country. He puts Americans and America first. He’s smart, he demands results wherever he goes, and he holds those around him accountable for whether they’ve done the job he’s asked them to do.”

“Accountability is one of the bedrock values the president and I share. While I’m new to Washington, I have learned that there are some who try to sow dissension to advance their own agenda by tearing others apart, in an effort to undermine President Trump’s own agenda. I do not and I will not operate that way. And the same applies to everyone on my team here at the State Department.”

As the battle between the media and the president rages on the American public grows ever more weary of the bias and the salacious lies they purvey.  Creating outrage with their Trump bashing is their stock in trade.  As sweet as their lies may taste to them, they cannot mask the authentic progress the Trump Administration has made.