bad salad

Donald Trump Once ‘Ordered’ Rex Tillerson to Eat Caesar Salad in China

Now ex–secretary of State Rex Tillerson was unceremoniously dumped by President Donald Trump on Twitter today, but perhaps the biggest insult is a new Wall Street Journal report that indicates that Trump — a man whose diet famously includes plenty of McDonald’s, Diet Coke, and well-cooked steak — “ordered” Tillerson to eat an unwanted Caesar salad during the presidential trip to China last November.

According to the Journal, the salad standoff occurred in China’s Great Hall of the People:

In a private room in China’s Great Hall of the People in November, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sat with President Donald Trump and other U.S. officials as their hosts delivered plates of wilted Caesar salad.

Mr. Trump, in the midst of a five-country tour of Asia, grew concerned the untouched greens would offend the Chinese, according to people familiar with the matter. So he ordered Mr. Tillerson to start. “Rex,” he said, “eat the salad.”

Tillerson reportedly laughed it off, and — against his boss’s orders — did not eat the salad in question, one more diplomatic issue on which the president and his now-fired secretary of State apparently did not see eye to eye.

Trump ‘Ordered’ Rex Tillerson to Eat Caesar Salad in China