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White House says IQ comment was Trump joke

Posted at 3:20 PM, Oct 10, 2017
and last updated 2017-10-10 15:20:59-04

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House says President Donald Trump was joking when he appeared to question his secretary of state’s intelligence.

Trump said in an interview published Tuesday in Forbes magazine that if Rex Tillerson did call him a moron, as has been reported, the two should “compare IQ tests.”

“And I can tell you who is going to win,” Trump added.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters Tuesday that the president “never implied that the secretary of state was not incredibly intelligent.”

She says: “He made a joke, no more than that.”

She also says the president has “100 percent confidence” in Tillerson. She said reporters “should get a sense of humor.”