Curl up...

Tillerson jokes: Some days I need to 'curl up in a ball'

Tillerson earlier this month held a news conference to insist he's never considered resigning.

By NOLAN D. MCCASKILL

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who has repeatedly endured apparent slights from President Donald Trump, said on Thursday that some days he feels like he needs to “curl up in a ball.”

Tillerson traveled to Geneva, where he met with staff and families of the U.S. mission there. He also toured nearby parks, according to ABC News.

The secretary of state was filmed admiring a statue of what appeared to be a small group of people embracing one another.

“Yeah, some days I feel like I need to do that — curl up in a ball,” Tillerson said, laughing.

Tillerson earlier this month held a news conference to insist he's never considered resigning after NBC News reported he was on the verge of leaving over the summer and that he referred to Trump as a “moron.”

While he denied he's eyeing the exit, Tillerson did not explicitly deny calling the president a moron.

The extraordinary news conference came after Trump for months had appeared to undercut his secretary of state on everything from mediating international tensions over Qatar to addressing provocations from North Korea.

Trump tweeted earlier this month, for example, that Tillerson was “wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man,” a reference to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. “Save your energy Rex, we’ll do what has to be done!”

Tillerson had said the U.S. was in direct communication with North Korea before Trump fired off his tweet.

In an interview with Forbes, Trump said he thought the NBC News report that Tillerson called him a moron was “fake news.” “But if he did that, I guess we’ll have to compare IQ tests,” he said. “And I can tell you who is going to win.”

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders later said the president was joking. “He made a joke,” she told reporters then. “Nothing more than that.”