Tillerson: I reaffirm my commitment to this role; British prime minister May's speech plague by problems.  Aired at 11:25-12p ET
ANDERSON: Hello, I'm Becky Anderson, this is Connect the World. If you are just joining us, you are very welcome. To our developing story this hour, the U.S. secretary of state says he is fully committed to President Donald Trump. Rex Tillerson, delivered a statement about a half hour ago after a report of a deep rift between himself and the U.S. president. Report claims Tillerson is angry about being under mind and then earlier this year, he dismissed Mr. Trump as a moron. Mr. Trump has already tweeted that the country has owe an apology for that reporting writing NBC News stories just been totally refuted by secretary Tillerson and Vice President Pence is what he tweeted, it is fake news. They should issue an apology to America. Well, senior U.S. diplomatic correspondent Michelle Kosinski is at the State Department, and unlikely, they will get that apology -- he will get apology, just as they stand by the story, correct?</s>MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: When the president is tweeting that something is fake news by now -- I mean, what does that even mean anymore. Does anyone believe that is true, what the president is tweeting. I think you know, that has become a whole blurry place of its own. But Tillerson was given a chance in that press conference or whatever you want to call it. It's hastily arranged, surprised statement here at the State Department about a news story. I mean, I can't remember when I last saw something like this happened. I mean because -- you know ask yourself, isn't that then -- if you don't like a news story, you are then doing a press conference about it, just highlighting all of the details that are in there. And when he frames this as a way to refute that story, the only thing that he pulled out specifically and said was untrue was that the vice president had allegedly persuaded Secretary of State Tillerson to stay on and not resign. Well, Tillerson says he had never considered resigning. He is just as committed now to doing his job as he was when he started. But he didn't say anything about that moron comment and he was asking out anything else, you'd like to refute about that article, he didn't get in to any other details. When he was asked specifically about that comment, he called it petty and said he didn't want to address those petty things, he doesn't know. He said why people in Washington talk about those things. That was weird on a number of levels, but he clearly wanted to put out there his commitment to talk about the good things that he feels the Trump administration is doing and the goals that they have ahead list the instances, the teamwork that he could think of. But I think, you walk away from this wondering just how much collaboration there was with the White House on this and you know, was he pressured to make this statement. He said that he hadn't talked to the president about it, that that was about as far as we heard along those lines. Becky.</s>ANDERSON: Michelle Kosinski on one of the stories of the hour. Michelle, thank you. And to the U.K. now, another story of the hour, British Prime Minister Theresa May earlier had her big moment at what is known as the conservative party conference.</s>ANDERSON: But it didn't go as planned. This is May interrupted by an audience member, lost her voice and the stage behind her was quite literally falling apart. And this all comes says, a new fuel over the always controversial, it seems a foreign secretary Boris Johnson.</s>ANDERSON: Let's bring in CNN's Bianca Nobilo for more on all of these. As far as -- as far as the sort of optics on this when today, they were great and what do we get out of it? This is May gets to this conservative party conference. She is on the back for a number of issues, not at least the fact that she call a snap election back earlier year, when she really didn't need to. And it went fair shape, so what do we get out of this today?</s>BIANCA NOBILO, CNN PRODUCER: It was a disaster, Becky. He twisted all the things that have gone wrong and her throat was actually croaky and she kept coughing. So the (Inaudible) had to her throat sweet to help sooth it, to get through the speech. It has been a really tricky week with prime minister with terribly recede media appearance starting on her birthday on Sunday and this was really the chaotic climax but all of that, this really could be receive two ways. In fact to the speech was so badly, it could mean that some people feel that humanized that shown her more vulnerable side because it was difficult. She even joked about it afterwards and that might make people want her more. Some people have been speaking through here that said she shows great fortitude and grit. So it could go to positive direction. However, if people interpreted more in a negative way and they pity her because it was quite a disastrous performance. And all the journalists and politicians I was speaking to said it was sort of agonizing to watch and it really was. Then any leaders that pity is really going to have problems with authority and she's already got enough of those especially going into this next round of Brexit negotiations too, Becky. So we just keep an eye on all the papers on the U.K. tomorrow morning, see how they are receiving this and how the voters are responding.</s>ANDERSON: Bianca is outside one of everybody damned and dungy (ph), conservative party conference today certainly one bit of a damned and dungy (ph) day it seems for the U.K. prime minister. All right, thank you, Bianca. I'm Becky Anderson, just before we wrapped it, just want to get you up to date on the story of the hour, just about an hour ago, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson held what was in impromptu news conference starting by saying there is some news reports that he wanted to address. He went on to say, his commitment today to President Trump and his office is as strong as it was the day he was offered the job. There has never been a consideration in his mind he said to leave the administration. He said that despite reports of course, that close friend and associate have been saying otherwise, he avoided the question about whether he call the president a moron. That was first reported by NBC matched by CNN in the past hour simply saying he is not going to deal with petty stuff like that. I'm Becky Anderson, that was Connect the World from the team here, it's very good evening. Same time tomorrow. END