NBC News has an exclusive story this morning that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was ready to quit after Trump's debacle of a speech to the Boy Scouts -- an organization Tillerson supported.
"What was it about the Boy Scouts speech that finally was the straw that broke the camel's back?" Mika Brzezinski said.
"There were a number of things leading up to July," said reporter Carol Lee.
"Leading up to July, there was this spat between the president and Tillerson over Qatar where the president said they should resolve this and the president came out and backed Saudi Arabia, you had the Iran nuclear deal and Tillerson was arguing with the president to recertify. They had a confrontation there. Then, they had a series of meetings where after one of them in late July, Tillerson was overheard afterwards talking with cabinet members and White House officials and referred to the president as 'a moron.'"
"He was clearly frustrated. And then you have this speech at the Boy Scouts of America to these young people. It was just all kind of coming together at the same time. It was a real inflection point for the secretary."
"So he kept him there and Mattis kept him there," Joe Scarborough said. "Obviously, he is very close to General Mattis, Secretary Mattis. What did they do to persuade Rex Tillerson to stay secretary of state when he has just been treated about as badly as any major cabinet secretary in recent history?"
"I think they were generally just trying to get him to stay on, things will get better. we will work this out. Afterward, Tillerson was in Texas and he came back and Vice President Pence had a meeting with him where it was described to us as them giving him a pep talk. And said in order to move forward, you need to get on board with the president's program here and you need to figure out ways to do that. There was this broad attempt at a reset, and as we've seen, it hasn't really stuck."
