Rex Tillerson Urged to Run for President During Controversial Houston Talk

Rex Tillerson for president. It was a comment heard throughout the ballroom of the Hilton Americas-Houston even before the former Secretary of State took the stage for M.D. Anderson Cancer Center‘s “Conversation With a Living Legend” discourse.

There was just something presidential, diplomatic about the statuesque gentleman with the charming Texas accent. He was joined on stage by another beloved Texan, CBS political correspondent Bob Schieffer, as the two exchanged a Q&A that had far reaching, unexpected results including drawing a derogatory tweet from President Donald Trump.

It was Tillerson’s first public discussion since Trump fired him in March. The full conversation can be read here.

For the record, Tillerson is not running for anything. During the VIP reception, the retired chairman CEO of ExxonMobil promised his wife, he told admirers, that he was retiring. Period.

More than 850 M.D. Anderson supporters joined the conversation evening that raised more than $1.78 million for cancer research and patient care initiatives.

The evening began with a tear-filled tribute to former President George H.W. Bush, who had been laid to rest only that afternoon at the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum at Texas A&M University. Bush and his late wife, Barbara Bush, were Life Members of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Board of Visitors, which he chaired from 2001 to 2003.

M.D. Anderson president Dr. Peter W.T. Pisters gave a remembrance of Bush. Joining the program were dinner chairs Kathy and Jeff Love, University of Texas System president James Milliken and emcee Shara Fryer of 740 KTRH News Radio.

PC Seen: Annette and Melvyn Klein, Jenna Klein and Tor Van Dyke, Greg Fourticq, Patsy Fourticq, Julie and Markley Crosswell, Carolyn Young, Sonny Messiah-Jiles and Jodie Jiles, Soraya and Scott McClelland, Dr. Bud Frazier, Regina Rogers, Tony Bradfield, Margaret Alkek Williams, Yvonne and Rufus Cormier, and Jan Duncan.