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23 May, 2019 15:17

Trump says Putin didn’t ‘out-prepare’ him at 1st meeting, bashes ‘dumb’ Rex Tillerson over claim

Trump says Putin didn’t ‘out-prepare’ him at 1st meeting, bashes ‘dumb’ Rex Tillerson over claim

US President Donald Trump tore into Rex Tillerson after the former secretary of state said he was outclassed at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2017.

In a fiery Thursday morning tweet Trump said Tillerson “made up a story … that I was out-prepared by Vladimir Putin at a meeting in Hamburg, Germany”.

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

The angry message also labelled Tillerson “dumb as a rock” and “ill equipped” for the job he gave him. It came in response to reports that Tillerson had told members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the president was less prepared than his Russian counterpart when they met in the sidelines of the G20 Summit in 2017.

At the same hearing, held off the record on Tuesday, Tillerson also reportedly told lawmakers that he couldn’t vouch for Trump’s commitment to “American values.”

In a statement to the Washington Post the president disputed the claim and said he was “perfectly prepared” for the meeting with Putin.

“We did very well at those meetings,” President Putin said at the time.

Also on rt.com ‘Dumb as a rock’ & ‘lazy as hell’: Trump destroys Rex Tillerson in tweet praising Pompeo

It isn’t the first time President Trump traded blows with his former secretary of state. Last year Tillerson told CBS News that the president was “pretty undisciplined”. This prompted a strong rebuke from Trump, who tweeted that Tillerson “didn’t have the mental capacity needed” for his job, and that he was “lazy as hell.”

Tillerson was dismissed from his position as secretary of state in March of 2018 after months of butting heads with the president over policy issues.

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