Mike Pompeo was a bull in a diplomatic china shop as US Secretary of State – released by President Donald Trump “who was able to break glass.”
“I used to be very blessed this manner,” Pompeo told The Post. “It was definitely the biggest challenge of my life,” he said of his three years as America’s top diplomat. “Look, I used to be a soldier. My behavior could also be more Department of Defense than State Department, that is probably fair. Nevertheless it was all the time in the context of trying to realize a goal that the American people needed.”
Pompeo – a self-proclaimed “grinder” who was first in his class at West Point – was a surprise alternative as Trump’s first CIA director. Months later, Trump fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and nominated Pompeo to exchange him.
“Hearing our intelligence fighters has been the biggest experience of my life,” he writes in his memoir, Never Give An Inch: Fighting For the America I Love (Broadside Books), which got here out Tuesday. “Head of the State Department was, well, fascinating.” Listed here are some of his observations on world leaders – and Dennis Rodman.
Kamala Harris and the Democrats
Pompeo writes that in 2017, the CIA developed a still-secret plan to counter Iranian interference in Iraqi national elections. But first he had to tell the congressional oversight committee.
“Well, Iran won’t prefer it!” nervous Harris, then a senator from California.
“No way, you may’t do this,” congressman Adam Schiff complained.
Most “annoying,” Pompeo writes, was Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, who asked, “How are you going to elucidate this to the Recent York Times?”
“We’re fucking America,” Pompeo exploded to timid Democrats. “I would not explain it to the Recent York Times because they simply couldn’t understand that we’re the good guys.
“They simply had a fundamental misunderstanding of America as a force for good in the world.”
Vladimir Putin
Russia’s ruler “may be funny and cheerful even when he’s evil,” writes Pompeo. As a former director of the FSB, “He knew the whole lot about me, where I grew up, about my background,” Pompeo said. “So he would joke, ‘Oh, that is right, you are from that left-leaning little place in Southern California,’ and stuff like that.
“He was all the time testing, probing, but he had an excellent sense of humor,” Pompeo recalled of Putin. “And he could give and take; I studied it too. So the conversations were tense and difficult, but there have been moments that were absolutely lighter.”
Pompeo’s CIA saved a whole lot of lives in 2017 when it alerted Russia to an impending ISIS attack on the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg. Putin called Pompeo on to thank him, saying “Tank Man saved our ass.”
The nickname “was a little bit bit related to my background” as a U.S. Army cavalry lieutenant, Pompeo said, “and a little bit bit to my demeanor: straightforward and all the time on the attack.
“I actually like that nickname, even when it comes from an unreconstructed KGB officer.”
Kim Jong Un
Pompeo often dated North Korea’s “little, sweaty, bad” dictator. He credits Kim with “brain, sharpness and ruthlessness” – but additionally writes how the little tyrant could show flashes of humor.
During the 2018 Singapore Summit, Trump tried to downplay the infamous “Little Rocket Man” insult he had lobbied at Kim the previous 12 months.
Trump said [Elton John’s ‘Rocket Man’] was an ideal song and the reference was intended as a compliment,” Pompeo wrote.
“Rocket Man, okay,” Kim replied through the translator. “Little”, not okay.
“All of us laughed,” writes Pompeo.
Trump, the master of taunts on Twitter, “used that language to essentially great effect,” Pompeo said. “I’m not saying on purpose. But I saw that Chairman Kim understood: these guys are different and possibly we are able to find some method to reduce the risk. We definitely broke glass doing it.
Xi Jinping
China’s “gloomy” president is “not a lot serious as dead,” writes Pompeo. “Of the dozens of world leaders I’ve met, he was one of the most unpleasant.”
The disgust went each ways. In March 2020, when Pompeo publicly blamed the Chinese Communist Party for the COVID pandemic that swept the world, Xi called Trump to fireplace Pompeo.
“My Mike, that fucking guy hates you!” exclaimed Trump.
Weeks later, Pompeo exacted a sly revenge by posting what he claims was “completely innocent photoof his dog hugging a well-chewed Winnie the Pooh toy – however it was commonly seen as excavations against a Chinese leader who eerily resembles a cartoon bear.
“It was nothing, a bit of fun, but the Chinese propaganda authorities write about it to this present day,” Pompeo said. “And yes, they do look alike.”
Dennis Rodman
The NBA freak is, in response to Pompeo, an actual intelligence asset relating to North Korea.
Rodman “provided us with the most detailed knowledge of Chairman Kim we had in our collection, including many insights into Kim’s personality,” Pompeo writes.
Kim, a giant fan of American sports, worshiped Rodman when he first visited in 2013. Trump knew a nasty basketball boy from The Apprentice.
“Oh, it’s best to call him!” Trump told his then CIA director, adding: “Call him before noon! He’s often drunk or high afterwards.
“At some point,” Pompeo guarantees, “I’m going to publicly imitate President Trump imitating Dennis Rodman imitating Chairman Kim. Yes, it really happened.”
Emmanuel Macron
The French president mistakenly considered himself a “Trump charmer”.
Macron, desperate to save lots of the nuclear cope with Iran, in 2019 urged the US president to satisfy head to head with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Finally, an “enraged” Trump exploded at him over the phone.
“Stop! Stop calling me,” Trump shouted. “Stop calling them and begging – you seem like a weak little girl!”
He twisted the knife by nodding to the populist Yellow Vest protesters who then harassed Macron’s rule. “Run your country,” Trump scornfully advised, “or the yellow jackets will.”
“France has abandoned its mediation efforts,” writes Pompeo.