Trump was on 'unequal footing' with Putin during their first meeting, former secretary of state claims
US President Donald Trump was less prepared than Vladimir Putin for their first meeting, allowing his Russian counterpart to promote his own agenda and leaving US officials at a disadvantage, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has told lawmakers.
Mr Trump fired back on Twitter, saying Mr Tillerson had made up the story and calling the former Exxon CEO "’dumb as a rock’ and totally ill prepared and ill equipped to be Secretary of State."
Mr Tillerson, who was fired by Mr Trump last March, delivered his assessment of the president's approach to the talks in Hamburg in 2017, in remarks to a Congress committee Tuesday reported by the Washington Post.
"We spent a lot of time in the conversation talking about how Putin seized every opportunity to push what he wanted," a committee aide told the newspaper.
"There was a discrepancy in preparation, and it created an unequal footing."
Mr Trump met with Mr Putin on the sidelines of the G20 summit in July 2017 under a cloud of rebuke for his reluctance to criticise the Russian leader directly over Moscow’s meddling in US elections the previous year.
He later said he got along with Mr Putin "very, very well" at the meeting.
In his tweet on Thursday, Mr Trump disputed that he had been "out-prepared" by Putin.
"I don’t think Putin would agree. Look how the U.S. is doing!"
Rex Tillerson, a man who is “dumb as a rock” and totally ill prepared and ill equipped to be Secretary of State, made up a story (he got fired) that I was out-prepared by Vladimir Putin at a meeting in Hamburg, Germany. I don’t think Putin would agree. Look how the U.S. is doing!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 23, 2019
Mr Tillerson attended the Hamburg talks, which were intended to be a brief meeting but spun out into a two-hour discussion on a variety of global issues, according to congressional aides.
The following year Mr Trump met again with Mr Putin for their first formal summit in Helsinki, dismissing top aides for two hours of talks, in a sharp break with standard diplomatic practice.
The businessman-turned-politician has previously expressed skepticism about the importance of preparation for high-stakes diplomacy, describing "attitude" as more useful than research.
Ahead of his first meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore last year, Mr Trump said with characteristic bravado: "I don’t think I have to prepare very much... It’s about attitude, it’s about willingness to get things done."
Mr Trump dismissed Mr Tillerson’s remarks, claiming he was "perfectly prepared" for meetings with Putin.
"We did very well at those meetings," he said, according to the newspaper.
Mr Tillerson has previously described Mr Trump as an "undisciplined" figure who repeatedly wanted to break the law – leading the US president to respond that his onetime cabinet member was "dumb as a rock" and lazy as hell."
