Pompeo leaned in
We all knew Pompeo is awful, but…yikes. CNBC reports:
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cursed out an NPR reporter after she pressed him to answer questions about the removal of former U.S. ambassador Marie Yovanovitch from her post in Ukraine, the outlet reported Friday.
The reporter, “All Things Considered” co-host Mary Louise Kelly, interviewed Pompeo on Friday amid President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate, which centers around the president’s dealings with Ukraine.
He refused to answer all her questions about Ukraine, saying he’d agreed only to talk about Iran.
You can hear her not letting him shout her down.
NPR reported that “immediately after the questions on Ukraine, the interview concluded. Pompeo stood, leaned in and silently glared at Kelly for a period of several seconds before leaving the room.”
He’s big. He’s a big, scowly, angry-looking man. It’s interesting to learn that he feels entitled to use that fact to try to intimidate a female reporter.
An aide to the Cabinet official asked Kelly to follow Pompeo to his living quarters at the State Department without a recording device, but did not specify that the ensuing exchange would be off the record, according to NPR.
“Inside the room, Pompeo shouted his displeasure at being questioned about Ukraine,” NPR reported. “He used repeated expletives, according to Kelly, and asked, ‘Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?’”
On a radio program for NPR that aired Friday, Kelly provided more details about her unrecorded exchange with Pompeo.
“I was taken to the Secretary’s private living room, where he was waiting, and where he shouted at me for about the same amount of time as the interview itself had lasted,” Kelly said.
“He used the F word in that sentence, and many others. He asked if I could find Ukraine on a map I said yes. He called out for his aides to bring him a map of the world with no writing, no countries marked,” Kelly said.
“I pointed to Ukraine,” she said. “He put the map away. He said, ‘People will hear about this,’ and then he turned and said he had things to do, and I thanked him again for his time and left.”
The Secretary of State, ladies and gentlemen.
Well, you have to admit, he is a fairly good representative for his president. The same bullying, thin skin, and temper tantrums.
“Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?” says the man whose defense of the President’s actions is that they were deeply concerned about corruption in the Ukraine.
musubk, but they were deeply concerned – deeply concerned that Trump’s lies about Biden’s misbegotten billions would be seen as nothing more than a lame attempt to smear a political opponent. They were concerned enough about that to attempt to engineer some kind of confirmation, something like a totally uncoerced announcement of an investigation into Biden from somebody who couldn’t possibly be influenced by Trump. An announcement from such a person would be certain to add plenty of flesh to the dry bones of Trump’s lies. Of course, there was no such concern that the Ukranian president wouldn’t make make such an announcement since they held all the cards, and no concerns about the lengths Trump was prepared to go to to bolster his lies might be made public, because Trump had the big “EYES ONLY” rubber stamp, and surely nobody would dare violate the sanctity of the rubber stamp.