‘We are in a worse place today than we were before he entered’

WASHINGTON – Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who once called President Donald Trump an “idiot” behind closed doors, is now officially depreciating his former boss’s control over internal and external affairs.

“His understanding of global events, his understanding of global history, his understanding of the history of the United States were really limited,” said the former head of Exxon Mobil Foreign policy magazine in an interview released this week.

The Texan added: “It is very difficult to have a conversation with someone who doesn’t even understand the concept of why we are talking about it.”

There was never any lost love between Tillerson and Trump, especially after the president sacked his first secretary of state by tweet. Trump criticized the Texan as “dumb as a rock” and “lazy as hell”, while Tillerson called Trump an “undisciplined” leader who “doesn’t like to read”.

But so far, Tillerson had not been so detailed in his frustration.

“I used to go to meetings with a list of four to five things I needed to talk to him about and I quickly learned that if I reached three, it would be a home run, and I realized that getting two that were significant would probably be the best goal” , he said Foreign policy.

He explained that he started “taking pictures and graphics with me because I found that they seemed to hold his attention better”.

“If I could put a photo or image in front of him or a map or a piece of paper with two large markers, he would concentrate on that, and I could develop this,” Tillerson told the vehicle. “Just sitting around and trying to have a conversation like you and me just doesn’t work.”

Asked by Foreign policy as Trump made informed decisions if the president had difficulty concentrating during briefings and did not read the briefing material, Tillerson did not hesitate.

“Well, that’s the key,” he said. “I’m not sure if many of those decisions were well informed.”

The interview with Foreign policy it was conducted before Trump urged a crowd to march on the Capitol – an event that prompted the House this week to accuse the President for the second time. And given the magazine’s audience, the conversation focused almost exclusively on international affairs.

But even only on the global front, Tillerson offered a grim assessment of Trump’s approach, expressing perplexity at the president’s tendency to criticize allies and move closer to authoritarian regimes.

“Nothing worked,” he said.

The United States “wasted the best opportunity we had in North Korea,” said Tillerson. With Russian President Vladimir Putin, “we did nothing,” he said. And, he added, the United States “is nowhere with China on national security.”

“We’re in a worse place today than we were before he came in,” said Tillerson, “and I didn’t think that was possible.”

Click here to read the full interview.