Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo joined me Friday morning:

Audio:

03-05hhs-pompeo

Transcript:

HH: Joined now by the former Secretary of State, the 70th Secretary of State in the United States, Michael Pompeo. Mr. Secretary, good morning. How are you?

MP: Good morning, Hugh. I’m great. How are you today?

HH: Good. I enjoyed being with you on Tuesday night via Zoom, and I must say the exchange between you and Henry Kissinger was telling. Dr. Kissinger’s esteem for you is significant. Your esteem for him is significant. I kind of thought that was sort of passing of a baton from one geostrategist to another. Were you surprised by Dr. Kissinger, both his energy, his insight, and his kindness towards you?

MP: You know, his kindness towards me, Hugh, has been remarkable not just this past week, but for the entire time, my time in Congress and then more importantly, when I was Secretary of State. I called on him a number of times for helping me think through particular problem sets, reminding me of particular histories. He was always incredibly valuable. In that sense, I wasn’t surprised by his sharpness. I have seen that for all the time I have known him. He is an historic figure, a remarkable man, and someone who is still very much engaged on the world stage, and was prepared to help me and the Trump administration think about problem sets in ways that were incredibly important, incredibly creative, and helped us deliver on our American first foreign policy.

HH: You know, I’m going to make that available from the Nixon seminar for everyone, because it was so remarkable to see Dr. Kissinger today. But I almost went through the Zoom screen to grab Congressman Gallagher when he asked Dr. Kissinger about AI, because I figured look, the guy’s 97. He’s not going to be really up to speed on AI, and he said well, I’ve been meeting with Eric Schmidt every Sunday for four years on it, and I said oh, gosh, never underestimate Kissinger, right?

MP: It was truly, truly remarkable. I think it made everyone chuckle to see that he is still hard at it, still trying to learn himself. I think that’s a lesson for everybody. He is still trying to make sure that he has the best information and as much knowledge as anybody so that he can apply all the skills that he developed all of his years. If each of us would take that on as a practice, a professional practice, I think we’d all be better off.

HH: Well, I want to learn a few things about CPAC and about your ambitions this morning. First of all, great speech at CPAC. I played a lot of it on Monday of this week. What did you make of CPAC, because of course, the narrative, the elite media, Manhattan-Beltway media elite narrative is that the Republican Party is shattered into a thousand shards and they’re at each other’s throats? I didn’t see that. What did you see at CPAC?

MP: Hugh, I think we saw at CPAC precisely what we saw on November 3rd, which is that there are tens of millions of Americans who deeply believe that the policies that this administration put in place for four years were the right thing for people all across America. I had a chance to walk around the hotel for a bit and shake hands and meet a few people, people from the West Coast, people from the heartland like Kansas, places like Kansas, my home. Every one of them understood that this is going to be a truly testing four years. They’re going to reverse a great deal of the good policy work that we did that had made the lives better for ordinary people all across America. And they’re about to embark on a foreign policy as well that won’t put America first, but rather will begin to value globalism for the sake of globalism, which is much to the detriment of the American people.

HH: Now I get asked all the time after that speech, and after the Nixon seminar, is Secretary Pompeo going to run for president in 2024? I send them to the Hannity show where you say I’m always up for a good fight. And then I say hell, yes, he’s running. Can you be more explicit than you were with Hannity? Do you expect to run in 2024?

MP: Hugh, I love you, brother, but no. Look, I gave an answer to Sean, because it’s the truth. And I think, Hugh, anybody who’s watched me and my wife, Susan, these last ten years, and then saw my time in service as a soldier knows that I care deeply about America, and I want to do my best to give back to this country that’s done so much for me. And so I’m going to work really hard these next two years to continue to put forward the right ideas for America, help candidates get elected in 2022. And then in the months and years ahead, we’ll see what life holds for 2024.

HH: All right, well, if you won’t tell Hannity, you’re not going to tell me. But I nevertheless tell people hell, yes, he’s running. Let me talk to you about issues now. There is an American contractor dead at al-Asad. After the first attack by the Shia-based militias that are backed by Iran, the Biden administration did strike an Iranian target in Syria. Nothing has happened after the second attack. Is that a mistake, Mr. Pompeo?

MP: Hugh, I saw some remarks from the Pentagon spokesperson yesterday where he was repeatedly asked about this attack. And he called it a Shia-backed attack, and the reporter was befuddled. The first rule is you have to identify the perpetrator. And the perpetrator here is almost certainly the Iranian regime. And that’s the policy that the Trump administration put in place. We made clear to the Iranians that we weren’t going to allow you to use some knuckleheads in the desert to harm and threaten Americans and not hold the Iranian regime itself accountable. And so I don’t know precisely the strike that they took after the first attack. It certainly didn’t demonstrate the effect that they would have hoped, which was to deter further attacks. You have to go to the source. You have to hold accountable the people responsible. The people responsible for putting American lives at risk in Syria and Iraq today are the Iranian regime. And so I hope that they’ll respond in a way that protects Americans. So far, the evidence that they’re going to do anything forceful with respect to Iran is not apparent.

HH: Now Mr. Secretary, as someone who had family deployed at al-Asad when the ballistic missiles were launched, they got off in time, I am always concerned. I wanted the Americans to respond to every Iranian provocation, because that kept them in their box. I think that the families and the troops who are stationed in the Middle East right now want an immediate response. Is that what you heard from the soldiers with whom you used to serve and other branches of the service in the area? They want immediate responses?

MP: Of course, they do, Hugh. And more importantly, they deserve that. And America needs it. It is the duty of every leader, and I spent an awful lot of time, a lot of sleepless nights as CIA director, as Secretary of State making sure that my officers at the CIA or my diplomats at the State Department had every security element that they needed, and that our policies, the things that we did, the actions that we took all across the world, deterred others, deterred our adversaries from even contemplating attacking them. I was blessed. I didn’t have an officer or a diplomat who was killed during my time in office. That was partly due to the great work of my team, and then the grace of God. But we took this seriously. We took the responsibility to protect our soldiers and our diplomats all across the world seriously, and we did it with good effect.

HH: Now I don’t know whether I should be alarmed by this or less alarmed by this, but yesterday, Congressman Dan Crenshaw remarked upon President Biden having diminished cognitive capacity, because he called Texans Neanderthals. But I do worry about who is deciding whether or not to respond. I don’t know that the President is leaning into this. I know he’s, Robert Gates on this show said not only was he wrong about every foreign policy decision for the past generation, but that he had a bad relationship with the Pentagon. That was news when he said it on my show last year. It didn’t get a lot of pick up, but I’ve been thinking about that since. Do you think the President has a good working relationship with General, now-Secretary Austin? Do you think he has a suspicion of the use of military force?

MP: Well, I don’t know his relationship precisely with all the folks at the Pentagon. I would guess that it is varied. But I do know this. I do know that President Biden when he was vice president and a senator often got it wrong with respect to thinking about how to use American power to deter American adversaries and to protect and preserve freedoms all across America. I watched it in policy after policy where they apologized for America instead of defending the basic freedoms that we loved. And when it came time for preserving and protecting other democracies around the world, they were often willing to give in to the Chinese Communist Party or the Iranians or others who don’t share our view of life. And when push comes to shove, aim to undermine the very democracies that America has been so blessed to have for all these years.

HH: Now I am concerned as well about their early actions. One of his first executive orders was to reverse your move and President Trump’s move on the Confucius Institutes. Now a lot of Steelers fans listen, so they won’t know what a Confucius Institute is, Secretary, so you have to explain to them. But that was a very bad signal to send, I think. What did you make of it?

MP: The Chinese Communist Party presents the most existential threat to the American way of life of any other adversary. Xi Jinping and the leadership there have a hegemonic intent. They want to undermine our way of life. The Confucius Institutes themselves are something that the Chinese have built out here in the United States frankly, Hugh, under Democrat and Republican presidents. This hasn’t been a partisan failure. It’s been a bipartisan failure. And they’re in our schools. They’re trying to use their access to Western freedoms to propagandize inside of our schools all across America. And so many colleges have these things called Confucius Institutes, which were largely an extension of the People’s Liberation Army and the Chinese MSS, their security apparatus. The Trump administration issued an executive order. We began to make the case to schools to close them down. Many of them did. And immediately upon entry into government, these folks shut it down and continued to encourage the Confucius Institutes to be built out. It is dangerous for America. And I hope that they’ll rethink that. I hope they’ll see what we saw is happening inside of these schools. And frankly, I hope every school that has a Confucius Institute will take it upon themselves to protect their students from this threat.

HH: Now Mr. Secretary, if we elect our next president based upon who the Chinese dislike the most, the Chinese Communists, you’ll win running away, because they really hate you. I mean, every time you show up and say something, the CCP puts out one of their talking heads to attack you. Are you just getting used to that?

MP: You know, Hugh, I’ve watched the Chinese Communist Party react with personal attack on me. They’ve sanctioned me and my family. You know, I think it’s a demonstration of weakness. I think they can see that when leaders are prepared to push back against them, they don’t have many answers other than to attack that person individually and personally. Yeah, you know, you don’t get used to it other than you do begin to recognize when you have hit on something that matters an awful lot, whether it is calling them out for the Wuhan virus and their failure to protect the United States and the world from the virus that was spread from their country, or the terrible activities that are taking place, the million Uyghur Muslims that are in internment camps and have suffered forced sterilizations and all the horrors that are taking place in the west. I think when leaders talk about that, you can see the Chinese response, and you know when they are sensing weakness and you’ve attacked at a point which really hurts them.

HH: Now Congressman Michael Waltz, and at there, I always have to note my son works for him, so I have to always disclose that. But Congressman Michael Waltz put out a resolution calling on his members, his colleagues in Congress, to join in demanding that the United States boycott the 2022 Olympics in China. Do you agree with that resolution, Secretary Pompeo?

MP: We were working on this very issue during the final months of the Trump administration, trying to figure out the best approach, the approach that would impose the most costs on the Chinese Communist Party. And so our first push was to develop a coalition around the world to convince the IOC to move those Games. They ought not to be held there. I hope that our athletes get a chance to participate in the Olympics. They very much deserve that. But in the end, we cannot allow American athletes to travel to Beijing and reward the Chinese Communist Party all the while that they doing all of the nasty activity that they’re engaged in, all of the malign activity they’re engaged in around the world. The world ought to unite. The Olympics are an expression of freedom and athletic talent. And to hold them in Beijing is completely inappropriate.

HH: Now I also have to disclose I work for NBC. NBC has scheduled to broadcast those Olympics. So that’s a conflict of interest on my part. The Washington Post will probably be covering that. That’s a conflict of interest on my part. But I’m going to ask you anyway. Does everyone who facilitate these Games, and every sponsor of these Games, whether it’s McDonald’s or GM, whoever likes to go, because the Games get a big audience, and people sell a lot of stuff. Are they participating, indirectly or directly, in the genocide that you and Tony Blinken, your successor, agree is underway in China? They are trying to wipe out the Uyghur people, and we have to bluntly ask CEOs everywhere to ask themselves the question, do they want blood on their hands?

MP: Hugh, I’ve done that. I’ve talked to CEOs from the entertainment industry, from the technology industry, from manufacturing companies. I called them. I spoke with them personally. I wanted to share with them to make sure there was no mistake that they knew what was taking place there. And I wanted to urge them don’t be part of that. We know the history of the 1930s. We know how many senior leaders turned the other eye when there was a Holocaust taking place in Germany. The kind of things that’s happening in China today are reminiscent of that. And I think senior leaders, governmental leaders, business leaders, leaders of non-profits all need to take seriously their responsibility to make sure that what, the things that they’re doing, the activities they’re engaged in, don’t contribute either directly or indirectly, into furthering the Chinese Communist Party’s capacity to wipe out this entire class of people.

HH: Should, and by the way, I don’t know why Americans don’t get it about the Uyghurs, maybe because we don’t understand it. I know you made efforts to understand it. Do you think American media discounts the Uyghur people, that they just don’t value them, that, for example, the way they value any other ethnic minority that is represented in the United States in large numbers?

MP: Hugh, I think this is changing. I think it took American leaders who were prepared to call this out. And I have seen this. I’ve seen the tide turning on this issue. I now see the world more alert to this. The Canadians have acted, the Dutch have acted. I’m hopeful the British will take action. I actually see people becoming more aware of this. I hope the Muslim world, I hope Islamic countries will come to see this, too, that these are their bothers and sisters in faith, and I hope they, too, will begin to call that out. We worked on this to the extent you can make the case to people of what’s really happening there. I think people of all faith will come to understand that this is unacceptable. And I’m convinced that the world will hold China accountable for what it is that’s taking place there today.

HH: Two last questions, Mr. Secretary. Germany and Turkey present unique problems. Germany is building this Nordstream-2 despite your best efforts, and the Biden administration doesn’t seem to care, which is going to undercut Ukraine and strengthen Russia. And Turkey has bought Russian anti-aircraft. Can we really think of NATO as NATO anymore if Germany and Turkey, are they really allies if they’re going to help out Russia?

MP: Turkey is a complicated situation for sure. We imposed an enormous sanction. We denied the Turks the capacity to either manufacture or fly F-35 aircraft. We slowed them down a bit, but they continued to persist in buying Russian anti-aircraft. That is inconsistent with their obligations to NATO, and we made clear that we would impose continued costs to them if they headed down that path. Germany is a fine ally. The Germans’ challenge is that they have not been prepared to spend German taxpayer resources, and to build a military with German young men and women that was consistent with their power and their resources. And so President Trump put as much pressure as he could on them to continue to make sure they weren’t freeriding on the United States inside of NATO. And you know, this pipeline, this pipeline is a complicated issue. We concluded ultimately that this was a pipeline that had strategic importance and was going to benefit the Russians, so we put sanctions on companies that were engaged in it. We slowed this pipeline down tremendously. It’s multiple years behind. This administration is going to allow the pipeline to continue to be built, creating European jobs, and they’ve shut down a pipeline in the United States that destroys American jobs. It’s a real headscratcher, Hugh.

HH: Last question. I’ve asked this of a lot of people. Do you personally expect President Biden to be leading the Democrats in 2024 in the election of that November?

MP: Hugh, I’ll just leave that to the Democrat Party to decide who their leader is. I’m very focused on making sure that the conservative movement and the ideas that I worked so hard on alongside President Trump for four years continues to advance.

HH: Have you stood up a website, yet, Mr. Secretary, so people can know what you’re up to and what you’re doing?

MP: Nope. I have a Twitter, @MikePompeo. That’s all I’ve got for today.

HH: All right, for the time being. Secretary Pompeo, come back early and often. Always a pleasure. Thank you, sir.

MP: Thank you, Hugh. So long, sir.

End of interview.