Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo joins the podcast to give us insight into what it was like serving the country as secretary of state, including his tough stance on China and how the landmark breakthroughs in the Middle East happened. He also shares his perspective on freedom in the U.S. and around the world, addresses the concerns that our rights are being eroded, and grades the Biden administration on their foreign policy.
Michael Pompeo was sworn in as Secretary of State on April 26, 2018. He previously served as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from January 2017 to April 2018. Prior to joining the Trump Administration, Mr. Pompeo was serving in his fourth term as congressman from Kansas’ 4th District. He served on the House Intelligence Committee, as well as the Energy and Commerce Committee and House Select Benghazi Committee. Prior to his service in Congress, Mr. Pompeo founded Thayer Aerospace, where he served as CEO for more than a decade. He later became President of Sentry International, an oilfield equipment manufacturing, distribution, and service company. Mr. Pompeo graduated first in his class at the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1986 and served as a cavalry officer patrolling the Iron Curtain before the fall of the Berlin Wall. After leaving active duty, Mr. Pompeo graduated from Harvard Law School, having been an editor of the Harvard Law Review.
TRANSCRIPT
Beverly Hallberg:
And welcome to She Thinks, a podcast where you’re allowed to think for yourself. I’m your host, Beverly Hallberg. And on today’s episode, it’s an honor to have with us former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, he’ll give us insight into what it was like serving the country as Secretary of State, including his tough stance on China and how the landmark breakthroughs in the Middle East happened. He’ll also share his perspective on freedom in the US and around the world, and don’t even ask him to give a grade to the Biden administration on their foreign policy. But before we bring him on a little bit more about Mr. Pompeo. Mike Pompeo was sworn in as Secretary of State in April of 2018. He previously served as director of the CIA. Prior to joining the Trump administration, he was serving in his fourth term as congressmen from Kansas’ fourth district, and prior to his service in Congress, Mr. Pompeo founded [inaudible 00:01:04] Aerospace, where he served as CEO for more than a decade. He graduated first in his class at the US Military Academy at West Point in 1986, and served as a cavalry officer patrolling the Iron Curtain before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Finally, after leaving active duty, Mr. Pompeo graduated from Harvard Law School having been an editor of the Harvard Law Review. Mr. Pompeo, it is a pleasure to have you on, She Thinks today.
Mike Pompeo:
Beverly, it’s great to be with you. It’s a lot of fun to be on the show, looking forward to it.
Beverly Hallberg:
Well, before we get into some of the specifics of foreign policy where I do want to get more in depth, I was hoping you could just share with us some of your insight into what it was like serving as Secretary of State? You traveled the world, you met with world leaders, you defended American values, what was your time like as Secretary of State?
Mike Pompeo:
Oh goodness. It was such an enormous privilege to be America’s chief diplomat. And for me, I was proud to do it, advocating for America first policies that President Trump had put forward when he campaigned, and then for his four years in office. We made clear that we understood our founding, that it was a wonderful, important experiment in democracy like the world has never seen, and that we were going to defend America. Whoever I was with, we wanted it to be South Korea first or Australia first for them, and that when we did that, America would be a force for good. And so, for someone like me who grew up in a family who didn’t have either parent graduate from college, and then who was so blessed to get the chance to go to West Point, to find myself serving as the 70th Secretary of State was a humbling experience, a real burden, a lot of work, but also an enormous privilege to get to represent the United States all around the world.
Beverly Hallberg:
And of course this America First policy and forward thinking comes after the Obama who apologized for America. So what was it like when you met with world leaders and praised this country and praised our founding, and how was that received?
Mike Pompeo:
This is one of the things that I think is the biggest misconception out there. Leaders around the world welcomed it. It was honest, it was candid. We accepted the world as it was. We made clear that we had an agenda. There were the things that we wanted to make sure that we’ve got good jobs here at home, that we could trade fairly, that we were going to build out our defenses so that we could secure American freedoms, and that America doesn’t get it right every day, but, we knew that when we showed up, when the Secretary of State for the United States of America showed up, people wanted to see me. Not because it was Mike, but because it was the American Secretary of State. We could do so much good to help the people in their country. It was refreshing for them, a weak America, and appeasing American, an apologetic America is that something that’s good for leaders around the world and the people that they are responsible for taking care of themselves.
Beverly Hallberg:
And we do find ourselves in a situation right now in the United States, where there is more polarization than ever before. We now have a president who was even talking about election laws, being Jim Crow Laws, where we have people in the administration talking about the sins of America’s past is still the sins of today. When we have that posture towards America, not just apologizing for it, but condemning it, what does that do to not just our enemies, but what does that do to our allies when they see the leader of the free world condemning America for what it stands for, and how it was founded?
Mike Pompeo:
Well, two things happen immediately. First, I think that demonstrates weakness. And as President Reagan told us and showed us, and as President Trump reminded us, and showed us, deterrence is built on an understanding of an America that is strong. And when we have our leader talking about denigrating the America, and America’s capacity around the world, and our ambassador with the United Nations saying out loud that we can’t join the UN Human Rights Commission until we acknowledge the central failing of our founding. First of all, leaders around the world, know that’s not true, that our founding was special, and our Judeo-Christian heritage has benefited us. And so, I’d say for the first thing, I think it demonstrates weakness.
The second, when I hear American leaders talk like that it is straight out of the playbook of the left. And I mean that the global left. The global left wants to make the image of America a nation in decline. So this professor, I think he’s a professor named Jeff [Sachs 00:05:43] using language that was almost identical to that, that I heard from [inaudible 00:05:47] when I met my Chinese Communist Party Counterpart, said a language about America that is fundamentally inconsistent with what I know this great nation to be. We ought not do that. It’s inappropriate, and it makes it more risky. And it puts our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines all around the world, more at risk.
Beverly Hallberg:
And this America First policy did lead to a lot of accomplishments globally. One of the major accomplishments that I don’t think gets enough credit, or isn’t talked about enough, at least in the mainstream media is that the Trump administration was able to secure for Middle East peace deals; Morocco, the UAE, Bahrain, and Sudan, all agreeing to normalize relationships with Israel. That’s a huge accomplishment. I didn’t think that was possible. What was it like to be part of that diplomatic process, and what was it about the Trump administration that was able to move forward with these peace deals?
Mike Pompeo:
Yeah, it is really historic and it’s not going to go back. The people of those nations of Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Israel, the Sudan and others that came close to, Morocco. They’re not going to go back. They recognize that being friends with the Jewish state is the right thing to do, and antagonism or desire to wipe them off the face of the Earth is not the right path forward in modern time. It was a big team that worked on this. We knew it was a significant mountain to climb, we’d seen the history where previous administrations, both Democrat, Republican had conducted under Secretary of State back and forth between the West Bank and Israel trying to negotiate a deal. We would love to see the Palestinians come to terms with the Israelis, but we weren’t going to let the absence of that stand in the way of building out prosperity and stability. And we did it.
It was really premised on three things. One was the vision for peace that the President set out for the Middle East, his grand vision. Second, our identification and clear call out of the primary driver of instability in the Middle East being the theocrats, the kleptocrats that run Iran today. The Iranian’s regime. That was central to withdrawal from the JCPOA, and support of our allies and friends in the Gulf was essential to this. And then finally, it was just a determination on the part of so many of the administration who works so hard to see this happen. And three great leaders in the region who were prepared to do this, and President of United States that was prepared to back them in their efforts.
Beverly Hallberg:
And one of the things I personally appreciated about a stance that you took, obviously on behalf of the Trump administration, but you use strong language against the Chinese government in reference to their human right atrocities against the Uighur population. It’s not something that we have seen from the Biden administration. How important is it for the United States government to condemn the behavior of the Chinese government, in reference to the genocide that is taking place?
Mike Pompeo:
It really is unmistakable that our generation’s fight, my generation’s fight is one that pushes back against another too radical authoritarian communist regime; the one that is made up of a party inside of China, the Chinese Communist Party, and as central pillar of that is political control that they try and assert, and one of the places they’re doing that is in Western China. And they’re doing it in a way that is reminiscent of what we saw in Germany in the 1930s. A million people in some form of constrained captivity, forced abortions, force sterilizations, treating women in ways that are fundamentally inconsistent with what we all know to be right, given the fact that every human being is created in the image of God. What’s taking place there is in fact genocide, and attempt to eliminate the Uighur people and other non-Han Chinese populations. And the world has a moral obligation to make sure that our commitment to saying, “This will never happen again,” that things like the Holocaust will never happen again, our commitment to that must be steadfast. And so, I was able to make the determination that in fact, the actions that were taking place there in China was in fact genocide. And, I am hopeful that nations all across the world will impose real costs on China, until such time as they relent, and stop their genocidal activity inside of their own country.
Beverly Hallberg:
Do you think part of that cost includes us corporations, such as Coca-Cola, Apple not doing business there? The NBA? And do you think that also includes the United States handling the Winter 2022 Olympics differently, that are scheduled for next February in China? Do you think the United States should not participate, because it’s held in China?
Mike Pompeo:
These will forever be marked as the genocide Olympics. We know the history from 1936 in Berlin, the Chinese Communist Party wants to use this opportunity to have the world gather inside of their country to promote the model that they have put forward to talk about Chinese greatness, all the while treating these minority populations inside of China in a way that is truly genocide. We ought not participate in that. No American company should support it. No American athletes should be forced to go there, to demonstrate their excellence on the world stage. They shouldn’t be forced to go and travel to a country like China, so I hope the President Biden and the United States Olympic committee and the International Olympic Committee will all work to find another place. Beverly, we found a new home for a all-star game in about 24 hours, seemed to me, then in a handful of months, we could find a new place for an Olympics, or what if the United States could host the games where athletes could demonstrate their excellence on playing fields here in the United States.
And to answer more broadly, businesses, the companies you identified are American companies, and they often talk about social justice, and it seems to be the center point of much of their focus these days. Well, if you’re going to talk about true justice, if you’re going to talk about morality, and corporate responsibility to defend morality and righteousness, it seems to me that it is difficult to square, those commitments that these companies, leaders make to their shareholders, and to their employees, it seems impossible to square that with doing business with the Chinese Communist Party.
Beverly Hallberg:
And I like your idea of moving the Olympics. You’re correct; if we can move the all-star game in 24 hours, why not move the Olympics? I’m for that. But before we move on from China, just one final question for you on that topic. Something that seems to be even more concerning as time goes on, that isn’t getting a lot of media attention, but it is about the democracy of Taiwan. First of all, what is China currently doing against Taiwan? And what does this mean, not only for the people there, but generally for the free world?
Mike Pompeo:
Taiwan has demonstrated that you can have a society that is democratic and successful, and we ought to support that at every turn. We’ve had this long standing One-China Policy, and our administration remains committed to that, but the Chinese Communist Party under Xi Jinping, the General Secretary there has made clear that he’s had about enough of this. They use the term, “Reunification,” but in fact, it’s not reunified. And this would be something far different from that, this would be bringing Taiwan into colonial subservience to the Chinese Communist Party. And they’re building out their military, they’re using information warfare, they are putting political pressure on countries around the world to disconnect from Taiwan. We can’t let that happen. We should honor the commitment that we have made to Taiwan to support them, to do the things that provide them the opportunity to continue to demonstrate their democratic principles in a way that shines glory on their people.
Beverly Hallberg:
And is this something where you can see China posturing in such a way that military intervention on our part might be necessary?
Mike Pompeo:
There’s always that risk. I think we’re still a ways from that, but one never knows what Xi Jinping might do tomorrow or the next day. Our first effort must be deterrence, which begins with political and diplomatic, making clear to the Chinese Communist Party that it would be unacceptable to move in a way that would use military conquests as a means of taking control of Taiwan. Second, you have to work with friends and allies in the region. I spent a lot of time building out an organization we called The Quad; was four big countries, with big economies and big democracies; Japan, and Australia, and the United States, and India working together to build out an understanding of the way that we could push back against the Chinese Communists. But those are the things we can do to deter Xi Jinping. And if we do them well, and we do them right now, we can prevent this from happening, and from ever having to cross that difficult decision to provide American military support in the defense of Taiwan.
Beverly Hallberg:
And it’s not just China, it’s also Russia. We know that Russia has made some very dangerous statements about Ukraine, and are making moves against Ukraine. How much do you think China and Russia may be coordinating, collaborating on everything from diplomacy to military exercises? Basically, are we seeing a 21st century rise of an axis and evil between those two countries and potentially Iran as well?
Mike Pompeo:
So, it’s difficult to say precisely how this will end, but it is absolutely the case that at least for the moment that a tactical and operational level, and maybe even in some cases, a strategic level that Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping who share an ideology, are beginning to share a strategy as well. But there are many places that they will come into conflict as well; it’s not as simple as the two of them forming the axis that you describe. What the United States responsibility is to protect Americans here at home, is to create space where there are fissures. But also just to make clear, I saw tanks that were being masked by the Russians that are threatening Ukraine. And I saw pictures of it. This administration is going to have to address that. They were an administration that allowed the Russians to take over one fifth of Ukraine in Crimea in the last eight years of democratic control. This administration is going to have to demonstrate real resolve to push back against the Russians. And when they do, I think the Russians will find and respect the United States more, and be less inclined to partner with the Chinese on a wide set of issues where China and Russia may not have perfectly aligned interests.
Beverly Hallberg:
Well, let’s get into the Biden administration and what you have seen so far. So, we’re only four months in, so there’s still a lot more time to see what the foreign policy position will be of the Biden administration, but what are you currently seeing? I’m curious as far as Iran, and the Iranian Nuclear Deal, and wanting to get back into that, and also immigration, and what’s going on on the board, and what seems to be a lack of focus and dedication to solving the crisis that we do see?
Mike Pompeo:
Well, let me start there. It took the Trump administration a year and a half, or two. Remember, the first efforts that we had made were thrown out by the courts, so it took us a little while, but we ultimately found the right formula. It was a formula that I worked at diplomatically with the Mexican government, with the government in El Salvador and Honduras and Guatemala, and we got the Mexicans to put more forces at their border. We convinced the leaders of the three central American countries that they needed to take certain set of actions to prevent their people from making this dangerous trek up and through Mexico. And we’d gotten the formula right, we had turned off the magnet, and we had reached a place where we were in a lot better shape protecting the sovereignty of our Southern border.
This administration came in and just flipped the switch, and we see the chaos that is Susan, the devastating humanitarian crisis that is at our borders. Humanitarian for the people who are traveling, it’s a humanitarian crisis for American citizens who are living on our side of the border, who are seeing this devastation, and it’s an enormous national security crisis as well. We can go back to where we were, it would be easy to do, it is fair and equitable. It permits a lawful process for people to come into our country as we always have, but it ensures that we defend American sovereignty everywhere and always.
On Iran, I don’t have any good news to share. The administration is one by one, taking down all of the leverage we provided to convince the Iranians not to continue to build out their nuclear program, whether that was taking away a tear designation on a bunch of bad guys in Yemen who are Iranian proxies, or permitting money to be transferred from frozen accounts so that the theocrats, the kleptocrats inside of Iran will have more resources to [inaudible 00:18:47] and threatening Israel, build out their nuclear capacity. When you take away that leverage, when you take away that coercive power, when you go to Vienna to negotiate, you have nothing but to appease, And I sadly think that that’s the direction the administration is heading.
Beverly Hallberg:
And one more thing on immigration. You talked about the humanitarian crisis, I think we all recognize it as that. How concerned should we also be about those who are not turning themselves in, but sneaking across the border, that may be coming from other countries, may be coming from the Middle East, from Russia, are there people using our porus border right now, and the Biden administration’s lack of any type of keeping the border in check as an opportunity for those who want to do as harm to come here?
Mike Pompeo:
There’s always the risk when you don’t have control, when you don’t know who’s coming in and out of your country, then you’ll have lots of things that threatened the United States come across the border. You talked about the potential terrorists traveling across. We’ve seen examples of that. There’s the risk of firearms being transported across the border. We all know the challenges that are presented with fentanyl, making the trek from China to Mexico, into the United States, across a porous border. There are so many reasons that you have to secure your nation. That, yes, there is a real threat that those who now see that there is a gap in the American Southern border will use this for nefarious purposes, and it won’t just be people from Central and South America could be people from all across the world who come here with malign intent.
Beverly Hallberg:
And I want to round out our conversation, which was something that you’ve talked about publicly. And that is a role model that you’ve had in your life. This is Professor [Glenndon 00:20:29] who you appointed to chair of a commission that you started when you were a Secretary of State, the Commission on Unalienable Rights, which focused on human rights worldwide. Since this is brought to you by Independent Women’s Forum, I thought it would ask you about the women in your life, your mentors, your role models. How have women played a role in your career, and also your view of human rights and society?
Mike Pompeo:
Oh my goodness. The list is too long. I suppose if I go sequentially through life, it would first be my mother who was an amazing woman. Born in [inaudible 00:21:04], Kansas, raised in Wellington, Kansas, and who worked her tail off and knew that her kids were going to go to school and have a life that was even more filled with opportunities than hers was. She worked really, really hard, and she was an amazing disciplinarian, and great mom. You mentioned Professor Marianne Glenndon, I never took a class with her, but I was her research assistance for, I think all three years when I was in law school. I think she paid me like seven bucks an hour, eight bucks an hour, but she had been the ambassador from the United States to the Vatican. She had an amazing life protecting the unborn, and in the pro-life movement had worked on behalf of the US government in women’s organizations around the world to bring a conservative understanding to what it meant to be an empowered female. And she was an enormous role model intellectually, personally, she is a woman of enormous grace and I love her dearly. She’s still out doing great things for our country.
And then I can’t stop there; my wife continues to be my partner in all of the things that we work on together. She and I raised one son, Nick and I watched my wife’s grace and her dignity as we have moved through our various points in our life, including this more public portion of our life, where we’ve had the opportunity to serve America, and I could have done none of this without her. And, when I see the way that women are treated in some countries around the world, I think of the fact that that could be my wife, or a female friend of mine, or my niece. I think about that, and I know that we, the United States has a responsibility to do everything we can to protect their fundamental rights in the same way we tried to do it for American theater at home.
Beverly Hallberg:
Well, we so appreciate your work as Secretary of State and the work you did even prior to that, we appreciate you standing up for the human rights of all people, including women in Iran, and women and the Uighur area of China, the Uighur population, and in that region in China. And we so appreciate you coming on and sharing your perspective on, She Thinks today. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, thank you so much.
Mike Pompeo:
Beverly, thank you too. God bless you, so long.
Beverly Hallberg:
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