President Donald Trump denounced his first Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, as “dumb as a rock” and “lazy as hell” on Friday after Mr. Tillerson said the President had regularly pushed him to take actions that were illegal.

Mr. Trump, who fired Mr. Tillerson with a Twitter post in March, lashed back at him the same way after the former Secretary gave a talk in Houston and said Mr. Trump was undisciplined, did not like to read and did not respect the limits of his office.

“Mike Pompeo is doing a great job, I am very proud of him,” Mr. Trump wrote on Friday afternoon. “His predecessor, Rex Tillerson, didn’t have the mental capacity needed. He was dumb as a rock and I couldn’t get rid of him fast enough. He was lazy as hell. Now it is a whole new ballgame, great spirit at State!”

‘An undisciplined man’

Mr. Tillerson took the stage for a benefit for the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, at which he presented a blistering account of the President he served. “It was challenging for me coming from the disciplined, highly process-oriented Exxon Mobil Corporation to go to work for a man who is pretty undisciplined, doesn’t like to read, doesn’t read briefing reports, doesn’t like to get into the details of a lot of things, but rather just kind of says, ‘Look, this is what I believe’,” said Mr. Tillerson.

Mr. Trump, he added, kept pressing for actions beyond his authority. “So often, the President would say here’s what I want to do and here’s how I want to do it and I would have to say to him, ‘Mr. President, I understand what you want to do, but you can’t do it that way’,” Mr. Tillerson said. “It violates the law.” Often, he said, Mr. Trump would get frustrated. “I’d say, ‘Here’s what we can do. We can go back to Congress and get this law changed. And if that’s what you want to do, there’s nothing wrong with that’,” he said. “I told him, ‘I’m ready to go up there and fight the fight, if that’s what you want to do’.” NY Times