Rex Tillerson still won't deny calling President Trump a 'moron'

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has once again appeared to avoid denying that he called President Trump a “moron.”

During a CNN interview Sunday, host Jake Tapper asked him point blank if he had made the comment, and Tillerson said, “I’m not going to deal with that kind of petty stuff.”

“I mean, this is a town that seems to relish gossip, rumor, innuendo, and they feed on it," he added. "They feed on one another in a very destructive way. I don’t work that way, I don’t deal that way, and I’m just not going to dignify the question. I call the president ‘Mr. President.’ He and I have a very very open, frank, and candid relationship.”

The controversy began earlier this month after an NBC News report cited senior officials as saying Tillerson “was on the verge of resigning this past summer amid mounting policy disputes and clashes with the White House.”

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“Just days earlier, Tillerson had openly disparaged the president, referring to him as a ‘moron,’ after a July 20 meeting at the Pentagon with members of Trump’s national security team and Cabinet officials, according to three officials familiar with the incident,” NBC also noted.

Tillerson held a press conference soon after and said, in part, “To address a few specifics that have been erroneously reported this morning…I have never considered leaving this post.”

But when a reporter asked him directly about allegedly calling Trump a “moron,” he seemed to sidestep the issue.

“I’m not going to deal with petty stuff like that. I mean, this is what I don’t understand about Washington," Tillerson responded. "Again, I’m not from this place, but the places I come from, we don’t deal with that kind of petty nonsense. And it is intended to do nothing but divide people. And I’m just not going to be part of this effort to divide this administration.”

While Trump has called the NBC News report “#FakeNews,” he also seemed to challenge Tillerson, telling Forbes, “…if he did that, I guess we’ll have to compare IQ tests. And I can tell you who is going to win.”