For Trump, the Reality Show Has Never Ended<br />Asked if he still had confidence in Mr. Tillerson, Mr. Trump said simply, “Yes.”<br />At the time, Mr. Trump was sitting next to Henry Kissinger, the former secretary of state who happened to be visiting the Oval Office on Tuesday.<br />Instead, Mr. Trump picked Rex W. Tillerson, who is several inches taller<br />but whose own relationship with the president has deteriorated to the point that he was said to have called Mr. Trump a “moron.”<br />Mr. Tillerson initially did not deny it, but later he had a spokeswoman insist that he did not say it.<br />In an interview aired on Monday to promote her new memoir, Ivana Trump, his first wife, told ABC News that “I’m basically first Trump wife, O. K.?<br />WASHINGTON — Over the weekend, President Trump was accused by a Republican senator of running the White House like a “reality show.” In the 48 hours<br />that followed, this is how the president rebutted the characterization.<br />“Reality TV is known for its humiliation tactics and its aggressive showmanship and also the idea<br />that either you’re in or you’re out, with momentum building to the final decision on who stays and who goes.”<br />Among those on the in-or-out bubble in this week’s episode was Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, the frustrated Republican who described — and derided — the conversion of the White House into a virtual set for “The Apprentice” and, for good measure, expressed concern in a weekend interview with<br />that the president could stumble the country into a nuclear war.
