WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Sunday sidestepped the question of whether he truly called President Donald Trump a "moron," dismissing the brouhaha as the "petty stuff" of Washington. Though they keep coming, Tillerson insisted the persistent queries aren't hindering his mission as the nation's top diplomat.
Asked about a leading GOP senator's comment - "You cannot publicly castrate your own secretary of state" - Tillerson would have none of it. "I checked. I'm fully intact."
Again and again, Tillerson declined in a news show interview to attest to the accuracy of the report about his use of the word "moron" to describe the commander in chief.
Tillerson said he was "not dignifying the question with an answer," reprising his response from earlier this month, the morning the story broke, when he used an extraordinary televised statement to insist he had nothing but respect for Trump.
"I'm not making a game out of it," Tillerson said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." Asked once more, he replied: "I'm not playing."
Yet Tillerson has let others play it on his behalf. He previously dispatched State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert to flatly deny he ever called the president a "moron."
It was unclear why Tillerson was unwilling to repeat what his spokeswoman has said on his behalf. But the continuing questions have brought his strained relationship with the president into renewed focus.
Tillerson insisted the relationship is solid, and that the continuing public focus on whether he's being undermined by the president has not impeded his ability to succeed in his role. As the drama has played out, Tillerson has brushed it off as meaningless Washington-centric noise that he says he doesn't understand as an outsider. The Texan and former Exxon Mobil CEO never served in government or politics before becoming secretary of state.
"I know the appearance of it certainly looks like there's sometimes disunity," Tillerson said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "There's no confusion among the people that matter."
Tillerson's critics, including a growing list of foreign policy experts, have questioned whether he can effectively lead American diplomacy if he's perceived by foreign leaders as being at odds with the true decision-maker: Trump.
Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, a Republican who has become a vocal critic of the president, made the castration analogy last week to The Washington Post.
"At the end of the day, he makes decisions," Tillerson said of the president. "I go out and do the best I can to execute those decisions successfully."
People close to Trump say the president has grown increasingly dissatisfied with Tillerson, whom Trump views as holding a conventional view of America's role in the world and lacking star power.
Tillerson, meanwhile, is said to have grown weary of Trump contradicting his public pronouncements and of becoming increasingly isolated in a capital to which he has never warmed.