Rex Tillerson Says He Was Cut Out of Decisions by Kushner and Bannon – The New York Times

“So at that point I just urged all the parties to be calm, let’s de-escalate this thing, don’t escalate, because that’s obviously the most dangerous situation at the moment is somebody decides they’re going to dial this thing up,” he added.

Mr. Tillerson was also asked why no note-taker was present for a July 2017 meeting between Mr. Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in Hamburg, Germany. The lack of any formal record of some of Mr. Trump’s discussions with Mr. Putin has been a continuing controversy during his presidency.

Mr. Tillerson said “the Russians preferred” no note-taker be present at the session, which he attended along with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The American side agreed, he said, because the meeting was expected to be simply a short, introductory exchange of pleasantries.

Instead, the meeting lasted well over two hours. Mr. Tillerson said that Mr. Putin came “very prepared” to discuss a substantive issue that Mr. Tillerson did not describe. Mr. Trump was not as prepared “because we didn’t expect that’s the way it was going to go,” he said.

Mr. Trump has said that the two men also discussed the ongoing furor in the United States over Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, and Mr. Putin twice denied to him that he was involved. He has also said that he told Mr. Putin that he believed him.

Mr. Tillerson said that he did not recall the president saying that, nor did he see the president take the translator’s notes of the meeting, as some media outlets reported.

At dinner that evening, the two leaders again talked for about an hour without an official note-taker present. Mr. Tillerson was not present for that event.