Spearheaded and achieved enormous successing wi enormous success, passing the toughest u. N. Sanctions to date on north korea. General mattis and i communicate virtually every day and we agree there must be the highest level of coordination between our diplomatic efforts and our military efforts. You cant have a stronger partner than a secretary of defense who embraces diplomacy. And i hope he feels he has the partner he needs at the at a time department. And this is just the beginning of the list of partners and friends across the government who are all working for the american people. Theres much to be done and were just getting started. To address a few specifics that have been erroneously reported this morning, the Vice President has never had to persuade me to remain as secretary of state, because i have never considered leaving this post. I value the friendship and the counsel of the Vice President and i admire his leadership within president Trumps Administration to address the many important agendas of President Trump, both from a Foreign Policy perspective and a diplomatic im sorry, a domestic objective. Let me tell you what ive learned about this president , whom i did not know before taking this office. He loves his country. He puts americans and america first. Hes smart, he demands results wherever he goes, and he holds those around him accountable for whether theyve done the job hes asked them to do. Accountability is one of the bedrock values the president and i share. While im new to washington, i have learned that there are some who try to sew dissension to advance their own agenda by tearing others apart, in an effort to undermine President Trumps own jaagenda. I do not and i will not operate that way. And the same applies to everyone on my team here at the sTate Department. When i wake up in the morning, my first thoughts are about the safety of our citizens at home and abroad. Theres no more importantly responsibility i carry with me than ensuring that americans are safe. Providing for the security of the United States must be the number one goal of our american Foreign Policy. President trump and his administration will keep moving forward as one team, with one mission. Doing great things for the United States of america, to make America Great again. Thank you. Is that the only thing that you consider to be erroneous in that article . I think its the most important out of the article is to reaffirm my commitment to this role that President Trumps asked me to serve and to dispel with this notion that i have ever considered leaving. I have answered that question repeatedly. For some reason, it continues to be misreported. Theres never been a consideration in my mind to leave. I serve at the appointment of the president and i am here for as long as the president feels i can be useful to achieving his objectives. Mr. Secretary, do you agree with secretary mattis that the United States should stay in the jcpoa . Well have a recommendation for the president. Were going to give him a couple of options of how to move forward to advance the important policy towards iran. As youve heard us say many times, the jcpoa represents only a small part of the many issues that we need to deal with when it comes to the iranian relationship. So it is an important part of that, but it is not the only part. And ive said many times, we cannot let the iranian relationship be defined solely by that nuclear agreement. Can you address the main headline of this story that you called the president a moron, and if not, where do you think these reports im not going to deal with petty stuff like that. This is what i dont understand about washington. Again, im not from this place. But the places i come from, we dont deal with that kind of petty nonsense. And it is intended to do nothing but divide people. And im just not going to be part of this effort to divide this administration. Secretary, did you speak with the president about the report and did he ask you to make a statement or i have not spoken to the president this morning. I think hes on his way to las vegas, is my understanding. Secretary, [ inaudible ] foreign minister [ inaudible ] do you have a reliable partner in pakistan now . Yes, i believe we do. I think the pakistan relationship the pakistan relationship and the u. S. Relationship is extraordinarily important region fally. And as we rolled out the south asia strategy, we spoke about it in a regional context. It is not just about afghanistan. This is about the importance of pakistan and pakistans longterm stability as well. We have concerns about the future of pakistans government, in terms of the want it to be stable and peaceful. And many of the same issues theyre struggle with inside of pakistan is our issues. We think there is an opportunity to strengthen that relationship. Were going to be working very hard at all levels, from the sTate Department to the Defense Department to our intelligence communities, as well as economic, commerce opportunities as well. So it really is a regional approach and pakistan is critical, i think, to the longterm stability of the region. Thank you very much. All right. Hello, everyone. Im kate balduan. I want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and around the world. We were seeing just now, secretary of state Rex Tillerson, taking kind of an extraordinary moment to address some reporting coming from reporting about his position in the administration, if he wanted to leave, if he thought about leaving the administration. This coming from reporting from nbc news. We have a lot to discuss here, because this is not a secretary of state who often takes questions, either. Joining me right now to discuss is barbara starr. Shes our pentagon correspondent, of course. David chalian is a cnn political director, Global Affairs correspondent, elise labott, and Kaitlan Collins, white house correspondent. Kaitlan, you have some new reporting on all of this. Tell me what you have. Reporter so we have confirmed that the secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, who we just heard from there, did refer to the president addss a moron s summer. Im told by sources from the white house that the president was aware about this remark, but that the situation has gotten worse now that its become so public after nbc news first reported it this morning. Now, we just saw tillerson there, with he was directly asked if he referred to the president as a moron and he did not deny it, but said he was not going to get into petty stuff, quote. Now, tillerson also during that said, reaffirmed his commitment to the position of secretary of sta state. He pushed back on those reports the that the Vice President had to convince him to stay because he was considering leaving. Tillerson said that he did not consider leaving and pence did not tell him that. But sources tell cnn that pence and tillerson are quite quote, the two men get lunch quite often and communicate very frequently. And they told us today after that moron remark after the summer, that pence counseled tillerson on how to interact with the administration the best and how to interact with the president moving forward. So we have some reporting about that today. And Rex Tillerson was asked directly about this, this reporting by nbc news that he had called President Trump a moron after a meeting over at the pentagon. Rex tillerson not addressing it, just saying, this is not what i dont understand about washington, im not going to deal with petty stuff like this, this petty nonsense. David chalian, let me bring you in on this. This is kind of an extraordinary moment for the secretary of state to hold this unscheduled, hastily planned News Conference to address a news report, to reaffirm that he is not leaving the administration. Normally you only hold such a press conference that if youre making an announcement that, i dont know, you are leaving your post. I cant think of an example of this highlevel cabinet member ever holding a formal News Conference to make a statement to deal with a story that was reported with Anonymous Sources and what have you. So it is definitely a departure from the norm of what we see here. Theres no doubt about that. And that may be because donald trump operates in a way that dpra departs from the norm all the time with his team. And perhaps secretary tillerson might have thought this might be the best way to communicate with donald trump, to let the president see him going to this extra effort. As we know, the president is a Huge Consumer of cable news throughout the day and to go before cameras and do this publicly and talk with press about it, perhaps he thought this was the best strategy to let President Trump knew where exactly he was going here, to reaffirm his commitment to say. I thought stfit was really interesting, kate. He said he wanted to address a couple of specifics in that nbc report. And he did. He addressed two specifics. One, he said he never considered ever leaving the administration. That was one specific in the story that he addressed. And two, he addressed the specifics of the reporting about mike pence counseling him and talking to him. And he said, we never had a conversation where mike pence convinced me to stay, because, refer to point one, i never consider leaving. What he did not do was address specifically this charge, this reporting that we now have, too, of him calling the president a mor moron. He just completely did not deny that that is actually something, a word that came out of his mouth when discussing the president of the United States. He did, indeed, took pains in his statement to say that he thought President Trump was smart. But he didnt deny at all that he used the word moron when describing his boss. Well, now, Kaitlan Collins has matched this reporting on the moron comment. David, on the most basic level, how does a president keep a secretary or any cabinet level in place who thinks hes a mo n moron . It is hard to imagine that this is not the kind of thing that gets under Donald Trumps skin. This is any president , im sure, would be annoyed if their secretary of state called them a moron, right . Anybody could understand that. Somebody working for you, out there using that kind of language. Absolutely. But this president specifically, because of how much he cares about his brand and the narrative in the news and whats out there. If he can actually stomach, he is not the most thickskinned guy, as hes proven to be throughout his tenure in the white house. So if he can actually stomach having a secretary of state out there referring to him as a mar r moron, that would be turning another cheek that we dont see donald trump do all that often. Lets back up a couple of steps. We kind of started in the middle of it with this press conference today. For our viewers, this came about, because nbc had reporting this morning that Rex Tillerson came out just now and said was not true. Walk us through this, please. Reporter well, look, kate, weve all been reporting for several months, back since the summer, that secretary of state tillerson is frustrated in the job. This is a man who came from the top echelons. He was the ceo of exxonmobil, one of the Biggest Multinational Companies in the woer world, coming in as essentially a staffer to the president , and repeatedly has been kind of, you know, undermined by the president. Whether its on whether hes flying down to mexico to meet with the mexicans and President Trump says something negatively about the mexicans, as recently as this week, when hes in the middle of trying to get some negotiations going with north korea and the president tweets that, you know, im telling my secretary its a waste of time. So we know that this secretary is frustrated. This is not a secret to anybody. But the fact that hes using this kind of language, i mean, out in the open, i think, is very interesting. Look, you remember after the charlottesville violence, when he was asked pointedly about President Trumps behavior and his tweets, and secretary tillerson said, the president speaks for himself. I think that was one of the major kind of ruptures where we saw that this frustration with the president s behavior, with his speech, with his policies is getting a little bit much for secretary tillerson. But i have to say, speaking to aides, they say that he doesnt really you know, he may gripe and may talk about, you know, maybe leaving at some point, but that hes not ready to go and why . Because hes working with secretary mattis, with secretary ma nuchen, with general kelly, the chief of staff, in terms of working for the country. This is a patriot and he doesnt immediate the job. I mean, hes worth tens of millions, possibly billions of dollars. But aides tell me, look, he has a job to do. Hes going to try to do that job, as long as he can. And hes just going to try to tune out the noise. This is a man that generally does not care about whats written about him in the press, he doesnt talk to the press very often. So thats why today is so extraordinary. I think he was really speaking to the president to say, i know we have our differences, but i respect you and i want to do the job on behalf of the american people. Ive never considered leaving this post. Theres much to be done and were just getting started. Those are two of the big points from today. For our viewers, here is the news. Here are the headlines that he was responding to today. Nbc reporting this morning that he was on the verge of resigning over the summer, because of policy differences and personal differences. This came in light of when the president went and made that speech, speech to the boy scouts of america. Also, then that Vice President mike pence had to step in, had to talk to Rex Tillerson and convince him to stay in his post and counsel him on how to mend relationships and how best to communicate with the president of the United States. The additional bit that we have been talking about is that they are reporting, we have confirmed that reporting, that Rex Tillerson called the president a moron then in a july 20th meeting at the pentagon, with the National Security team. Thats a little bit background, that i think is important, that everyone has. Lets go to the sTate Department. Michelle kosinski. She was in the room for this somewhat this extraordinary moment and press conference with the secretary of state. Michelle, take us in the room. Reporter yeah. I think its clear what he wanted to focus on and didnt want to focus on. I mean, what he didnt focus on was the gorilla in that room. Going in, even aides, some of them didnt know what he was going to say until moments before. They knew the gist of it. Everybody was speculating, was he going to fullon resign . Was he going to defend himself or shut down that reporting . I think that was the most likely answer. And thats what it was. But shutting it down, i mean, he really didnt do much to that extent, other than what weve already mentioned in that statement that the Vice President had to persuade him to stay. So thats really the only thing that he pointed out, that he called erroneous. So, you know, the first question was obvious. Anything else . You know, maybe that moron comment . But he wouldnt deny that. I think thats very telling. And i think when you look at the extent of tillersons time at the sTate Department, its often what he doesnt say. I mean, hes the one who will tell you, hes a man of few words. So when he just days ago wont defend the president s tweets, you know, its a situation where you have this spokesperson for the sTate Department defending those tweets on north korea and defending those tweets and seems to undermine tillerson himself, and saying things like, oh, the president is cloear and direct. Well, tillerson wont say those things. He wont go so far as to point out even a single thing that is helpful about some statements that the president had mas made when tillerson is asked directly about them. So there is no secret that he has been frustrated. That its been hard for him to do his job at times. And we heard this coming from foreign diplomats who have had conversations with him, who have been in the room when hes been undermined by the president s tweets, at the very moment that a meeting is going on. We hear this from friends of turls tillerson who dont deny the rumors that he might leave at some point. Its not ever been to a point where weve heard directly that hes on the very brink of leaving or Something Like that, but weve heard from friends of tillerson, that he is not happy in washington. Weve heard this from more than one friend of his. So, we know he has frustrations. I dont think hes hidden those very well. But today, i think you have to ask yourself, how much did the white house, not the president himself. I mean, he said he hasnt spoken to the president today, but how much did the white house and collaboration there go into this statement that was like a litany of things that the administration has done or wants to accomplish, kate . Michelle, thank you so much. The one one of the people that the secretary of state took pains to compliment in his remarks