But Tillerson did not explicitly reject the crux of the NBC News reports—later corroborated by CNN—that he had called Trump a “moron” over the political nature of the speech the president made to an annual Boy Scouts of America gathering. The Boy Scouts apologized for the speech, because presidential addresses to the organization have previously been about service, not politics. Tillerson, a former Eagle scout, once chaired that organization.

When asked whether he would address the “moron” allegation, he replied:

I’m not going to deal with petty stuff like that. This is what I don’t understand about Washington. Again, I’m not from this place. But the places I come from, we don’t deal with that kind of petty nonsense. And it is intended to do nothing but divide people. And I’m just not going to be part of this effort to divide this administration.

Heather Nauert, the State Department’s spokeswoman, later explicitly denied Tillerson had called Trump a “moron.” She said the secretary had spoken to the president, adding there was no apology because none was needed.

Trump himself responded to the report ahead of Tillerson’s press conference, calling it “fake news” on Twitter.

The @NBCNews story has just been totally refuted by Sec. Tillerson and @VP Pence. It is #FakeNews. They should issue an apology to AMERICA! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 4, 2017

But what the president says publicly or on Twitter about those who work for him can be at odds with their political fortunes. Trump had publicly praised Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus, Sean Spicer, and Michael Flynn, for example, but all of them ultimately ended up departing the White House.

Spicer’s resignation in July came following Trump’s appointment of Anthony Scaramucci as the White House communications director. Reports that Trump was unhappy with Spicer had circulated for pretty much the entire duration of Spicer’s tenure as the White House spokesman. When asked about them in June, Spicer replied: “I’m still here.” Trump himself had defended Spicer’s performances at the White House podium, in which he frequently misled reporters or misstated facts: “As a very active president with lots of things happening, it is not possible for my surrogates to stand at podium with perfect accuracy!” he tweeted. “Maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future ‘press briefings’ and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy???”

Spicer’s resignation resulted in speculation that Priebus would be the next to go because of his own past frictions with Scaramucci. Priebus, too, denied anything was amiss. “We go back a long, long way and are very good friends,” Priebus told the AP. “All good here.” When Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked whether Trump had confidence in Priebus, she replied: “We all serve at the pleasure of the president, and if it gets to a place where that isn’t the case, he’ll let you know.” Priebus was out soon after that. Even after replacing him with John Kelly, Trump called Priebus “a good man.”