During a press briefing on Tuesday afternoon, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters that President Trump was allowed to have a sense of humor. She was specifically responding the suggestion that the President wanted to challenge his Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, to an IQ off.

The focus on 'petty' moron statement

The President made this statement during an interview with Forbes where he said that the report that Tillerson had called him a "moron" was fake news. But said that if he was called that, then they would have to compare IQ tests.

Despite reports from multiple news sources throughout the summer, President Trump's Secretary of State has denied last week that he was frustrated with his role at the State Department and that he had ever thought about resigning.

It seemed that Tillerson wanted so urgently to address those recent reports that he began his press briefing last week with those blatant denials. In his statement, he made sure to add that he served at the appointment of the President.The Secretary was referring to a report from NBC News that said Tillerson had called the President a "moron", a few days before the President made his speech to the annual Boy Scouts of America jamboree this year.

It was reported at the time that that during that jamboree speech, President Trump took the opportunity to attack the media for their negative coverage of him.

During his speech, Trump also made lewd sexual suggestions with a story he was telling, saying that when the boys scouts were older, they would get the suggestion. Tillerson was once a formal Eagle Scout and once chaired the organization.

Reports of Secretary's frustration with administration

During a Q&A at the end of the press briefing, Tillerson was asked by a reporter if he would address the allegation that he had called the President a moron which he referred to as "petty nonsense." But he did not deny that he had actually said it.

In fact, NBC News reporter Stephanie Ruhle would later verify that Tillerson had called the President a "fucking moron".

On June 28, Politico reported in an article titled: "Tillerson blows up at top White House aide" that the President's secretary of state had expressed his frustration at the White House when he went off on Johnny DeStefano.

The reason for his frustration at the time was due to the fact that DeStefano had turned down Tillerson's own picks for State Department positions.

Much of Tillerson's responsibilities as secretary of state had been removed from him from the beginning, to go with the budget proposals from the administration that looked to cut about 37 percent of his department's funding.

Back in March as the administration's first budget proposal had been released, the Washington Post reported in an article titled: "Tillerson pushes back on White House’s proposed cuts to State Department and USAID" that the secretary had initially pushed back.

But the view is that Tillerson's role has been significantly weakened anyway as many of his responsibilities have gone to President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner.

President Trump tweeted out that NBC's report was "fake news" and that they were worse than his media rival CNN. Since the reports about Tillerson had been published, Trump had not only "challenged" a comparison of IQ tests but also suggested that NBC's license should be revoked.
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