In all of the reporting about Secretary of State Rex Tillerson calling Donald Trump a “fucking moron,” it was never made clear what prompted him—in that moment anyway—to say it. Until now:
President Donald Trump said he wanted what amounted to a nearly tenfold increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal during a gathering this past summer … It was soon after the meeting broke up that officials who remained behind heard Tillerson say that Trump is a “moron.”
It seems Trump was shown a chart outlining “the history of the U.S. and Russia’s nuclear capabilities that showed America’s stockpile at its peak in the late 1960s,” and Trump—perhaps also fresh off of learning that ads promising “to add 3 inches” were mankind’s real fake news—didn’t like that, and apparently didn’t care that such an increase would:
… break with decades of U.S. nuclear doctrine … violate international disarmament treaties … [and] that such a move could set off a global arms race.
Other news to come out of this meeting with “the nation’s highest ranking national security leaders”?
Some officials in the Pentagon meeting were rattled …
... the president stunned some of his national security team
The thinking was: “Maybe we need to slow down a little and explain the whole world” from a big-picture perspective
But according to Trump, the meeting was “absolutely great.”
We’re all going to die.