70th Secretary of State Mike Pompeo

00:00:00.200 — 00:00:30.520 · Peter Mallouk
So I love that you were like. Ask anything you want. It's a very cool thing. So instead of, you know, working our way to the big issue, let's dive right into Iran. Under your tenure as secretary of state. The the policy really shifted towards Iran, from my view. I'm eager to hear what you're going to say. And it's really carried out to another level now under Trump, too.

And I'm curious your take on the situation and where things go from here.

00:00:30.880 — 00:00:49.480 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
Peter, thank you and thanks for having me here. It's great to be in Kansas, the state that I was elected to Congress from. There's folks in this room that are responsible for good or for bad, for me getting the gig as CIA director and as secretary of state. And so it's it's great to be with you all today. By the way, thanks for putting me on after the Happiness Person.

00:00:52.160 — 00:01:18.770 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
My wife always jokes like, people walk out, they hear you, they go to the bar and get drunk. And Papa Xanax, it's like it's like, oh, I'll do my best not to. Not to drag us too far down. Look. Where to begin? By the way. On Iran, I'm not unbiased. Full disclosure. The Iranians are still trying to kill me now. No kidding.

They have $1 million bounty on my head to this day. By the way, my wife thinks that's a little low. Uh,

00:01:19.810 — 00:01:23.650 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
but as financial people, she's like, you know, it's ballpark, you know? Uh.

00:01:26.090 — 00:02:31.830 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
Look, um, this this challenge from the Islamic Republic of Iran, uh, has been something that the United States has been battling for. Come on. I'm 47, 48 years now. They've killed hundreds of our fellow Americans. Uh, they are the primary world's largest state sponsor of terror all throughout the region.

Um, and indeed, they've blown things up in Brazil. In Asia, they tried to kill an ambassador in Washington, D.C., a few years back. So this problem has been simmering. And what what we tried to do in the first term was to restore deterrence against them, which in the end, as secretary of State and director of the mission said, is to help the president figure out how to make sure we don't have to go send our young boys and girls to fight a war some far off, distant place and a longer story, but we were marginally successful at that in the first term.

Um, it took ultimately taking out their number two leader, a fellow named Qasem Soleimani. That's the that's the reason for the fatwa on my head is because it has been reported that I was responsible for that. Sometimes the papers get it right. Um,

00:02:33.430 — 00:04:13.369 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
and then, uh, President Biden and President Obama will tell you a different story on this later this afternoon. But they just have taken a different approach. They've taken an approach that says, um, like, can't we all just figure out how to get along and have tried to come to an accommodation by funding them, essentially.

And my sense of that has been and remains, the more money you give to the Islamic Republic of Iran, so long as the IRGC and the Ayatollah are in charge. The more deaths there will be to innocent civilians all throughout the world, including Americans. And so President Trump decided to, uh. So President Trump decided president Trump decided to go take aggressive action.

He's to his credit. And by the way, I don't I don't do politics on this stuff. I'll criticize President Trump when they get it right. I'll try to help him. I give President Trump credit. There was this deferred liability sitting on the American balance sheet as financial. Like that's how I think about it.

And they were very close to being impenetrable and able to build out a nuclear weapons program, much like North Korea today is almost impossible to think about kinetic action against because they have such a capable non-nuclear force. Iran was getting very close to that, and I think President Trump thought I got to do it.

I was the last thought on this is, by the way, I wish. I wish we would have stayed at it for another 45 days. I think President Trump made a mistake when he signed this silly mou which was meaningless, and the Iranians were now no more going to comply with it than man in the moon. I wish you'd have stayed on it, because we would have taken down more of their capability.

That is, making gas prices and diesel prices so high in the United States of America today. Last thought on this. I advocated for President Trump doing almost precisely what he did earlier

00:04:15.090 — 00:04:52.470 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
in this term when I was in office. And had we done it then, I don't know. I can't predict how it would have ended. But this much I can say, they wouldn't have fired a single drone into the Gulf, nor a long range ballistic missile into Israel or Europe, because they didn't have them. They didn't. They didn't exist in 2017 and 2018.

These were programs that were developed under President Obama's JCPoA. Right? This this agreement. So had had we waited five more years, I think the risk would have only accelerated. And so I've heard I've heard critiques, by the way, from Republicans and Democrats alike that say this was a war of choice.

00:04:53.710 — 00:05:09.750 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
I just I just urge you all to understand. Evil is real, and these people want to kill you. Not just me. They want to destroy the Great Satan. And so as long as you let this simmer and you let them grow, the capability was only going to expand and the risk was only likely to increase.

00:05:09.790 — 00:05:19.070 · Peter Mallouk
When you say they do, you mean the government of Iran, or do you feel like you feel like if you remove the government, you solve the problem? Or do you feel like the problem is bigger than that?

00:05:19.110 — 00:05:39.910 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
Uh, there are 400,000 people in the IRGC, the elite units of the Iranian military. I'd put most of those 400,000 in the bad camp. And then there's 82 million other Iranians who would just like a little freedom and have them stop killing 40,000 of their own citizens. So, yeah, it's the regime who is stealing and plundering and committing the terror acts.

00:05:39.910 — 00:05:52.040 · Peter Mallouk
So how do you see this playing out? I mean, even President Trump said, I this maybe didn't go as smoothly as I thought, like what happens to the Persian Gulf? What happens to the Strait of Hormuz? What's our policy? What's the Navy going to do in the future? Where does it go from here?

00:05:52.080 — 00:06:26.880 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
I don't I don't know. I mean, President Trump will ultimately have to figure out how he wants to proceed. But we often when you ask that question, you're asking like, what will Washington do? Yeah, I always think about it. What will the Iranians do? And the Iranians have no more interest in opening the Strait of Hormuz voluntarily because they're good people than a man in the moon.

And so, in the end, sheer force and power will need to be delivered to reopen the strait, get energy flowing again and make sure there's freedom of navigation everywhere in the world. And so, I don't know, in the end how much power has to be used to convince the regime to at least pause. But we're not there yet.

00:06:26.960 — 00:06:33.840 · Peter Mallouk
It's not it's not been Venezuela so far. So it seems like there's a lot of uncertainty. You'd agree there's a lot of uncertainty from here.

00:06:33.920 — 00:07:37.740 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
A lot of uncertainty. And by the way, Venezuela is not solved. There's been no election. I regret that there's not a date set for that election. To the people of Venezuela voted about 8515 for a woman named Maria Marina machado. Um Um. Or. Machado. Sorry. Um, we need to move in that direction to more. Not not not that hard.

We. You're not. You you all have an incredibly capable government and military. We have we have lots of capacity to do really good things. And not not for the people of Venezuela or the people of Iran, but for us, for Americans. When I think about these problems, that's when I was in office. I literally every morning would think about my friends from Kansas, the folks that had elected me to Congress four times.

I would think about what they were doing, whether they were in the farm business or the I was in the airplane parts business most of my life. Uh, how are they thinking about the world today? Now, the policies all need to be aimed singularly at making sure that the United States remains the most exceptional nation in history.

And our grandchildren get to live a life much like the one we're all enjoying here on a on a beautiful Saturday.

00:07:37.820 — 00:07:39.420 · Peter Mallouk
All right, let's shift over to Europe.

00:07:44.220 — 00:07:47.070 · Peter Mallouk
You were in the army in West Germany and.

00:07:47.710 — 00:07:47.950 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
A long.

00:07:47.990 — 00:08:01.030 · Peter Mallouk
Time ago, a long history with NATO, which seemed to be an ironclad alliance and now seems tenuous. What what do you see happening with NATO now and everything in the region?

00:08:01.390 — 00:08:08.710 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
Oh, goodness. By the way, when you asked the first question, I said you could ask anything. I usually get one of two questions. One is, can you tell me about the UFO files?

00:08:08.750 — 00:08:12.670 · Peter Mallouk
Right. It's coming. So it's coming. Well, you can just do that now if you want.

00:08:12.710 — 00:08:17.150 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
I'm ready. Right. I'm ready. And the second one is like, how do you lose all that way you look so different,

00:08:18.190 — 00:08:20.309 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
which is an absolute national secret. So

00:08:21.790 — 00:08:22.710 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
no telling.

00:08:22.870 — 00:08:24.110 · Peter Mallouk
Uh, look, uh.

00:08:25.270 — 00:09:03.360 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
Institutions like NATO, all of these multilateral institutions have to serve a purpose and they have to function. And NATO had reached a point where it had a purpose, but it was not functioning in a way that was delivering the security that the United States of America needed. It's why, you know, President Trump was was, you know, pilloried for telling NATO, you guys got to get off your rear ends, but they need to get off their rear ends.

And the good news is, between President Trump and Vladimir Putin, Europe is now getting engaged and becoming more serious about their own security. And we need that. The United States needs a Europe that's prepared to defend its own people.

00:09:04.480 — 00:09:31.080 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
And they're getting there. It'll be slow, it'll be fraught. But NATO will survive because NATO has turned out to prove incredibly important to the United States of America. It has delivered, coming on 80 years of solid security and relative peace for the United States of America. So the institution will survive so long as the partners at NATO pull their fair share and do the hard work that's needed.

00:09:31.080 — 00:09:43.460 · Peter Mallouk
So is it about money like you like what Trump is saying, hey, we need them to pay their dues to stay in NATO? Or is it a bigger issue than that? Or they really want them to be on the offensive with us and Yeah. Conflict. No, no.

00:09:43.460 — 00:09:45.420 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
It's so it's about money. At some point you.

00:09:45.420 — 00:09:45.620 · Peter Mallouk
Have.

00:09:45.620 — 00:10:30.180 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
To like it's you. You can't buy one, five, five rounds for free, right? So you do have to spend resources. But mostly it's not about money. Mostly it's cultural. The Europeans just decided we're going to take a holiday and go try and sell cars and build our businesses, and we'll rely on the United States of America to do the dirty work on a bad day.

And so elected officials in those countries, 20 plus European nations, by the way, all different. I have to be a little careful talking about Europe. The French and the Germans are terrible on this. The poles and the Baltic nations better. So if there's a differentiation. But but none of them were prepared to take seriously the, the fact that you have to deter the bad guys and the net result of that is today you have a war now coming on its fifth year,

00:10:31.220 — 00:11:16.510 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
that has killed almost as many people as were killed during the opening years of World War Two. And that's staggering. We we're insulated from it. We don't really feel it and see it. But I travel to to Kyiv every, every now and again. And you have a thousand Russians every day that are taken from the battlefield.

Some die, some just injured, a thousand a day. That that's just that's mind boggling in this time. And if we aren't serious about doing the necessary and we means France, Germany and their European friends, uh, the bad guys will sense weakness. They will sniff it. They could smell it. Just like you can in a business deal.

You can. You can smell when your opponents on their back foot and you seize the moment, the bad guys will seize the moment as well.

00:11:17.430 — 00:11:27.710 · Peter Mallouk
How do you see Ukraine and Russia playing out? You were just referencing, is this just going to go on forever? President Trump came into office the second time saying, this is a stupid war. I'm going to end it immediately.

00:11:27.750 — 00:11:29.590 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
He said, 24 hours. If I read correctly.

00:11:29.710 — 00:11:30.630 · Peter Mallouk
It's been more than 24.

00:11:30.630 — 00:11:33.630 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
Hours. The touch up we're touching. So we're a little behind schedule.

00:11:33.630 — 00:11:39.560 · Peter Mallouk
So why do you think he couldn't accomplish it or what? Who changed his mind? Or how is this going to play out?

00:11:39.600 — 00:12:09.120 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
I don't know. I mean, I worked so closely with President Trump for four years. I mean, I got to know him. I think I think his his assumption was that that what we'd accomplished in the president's first term was that we deterred Vladimir Putin. What do you think about this? Vladimir Putin took a fifth of Ukraine, Crimea in 2014 when President Obama was in office, then stopped for four years.

And then as soon as President Trump left office, when we were gone, he went back at it again.

00:12:10.240 — 00:13:21.020 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
You can describe that as random. You can say, I'm a Christian. That good Lord was just smiling on us. Those may well both be true, but I think they thought President Trump was a different cat, that he was fundamentally different. And so Putin's analysis of risk and reward was not not. I'll wait this one out for four years.

And I think he thought when he came back in, he might be able to to restore that deterrence. But it turns out once there's a jailbreak, it is a bear to put it back in the toothpaste tube. And, uh, you know, I'm not optimistic about what's taking place there. Uh, two liters. And not just the individuals. The institutions around them now are structured for this to continue for some time.

I hope I'm wrong. I hope while we're sitting here, peace broke out. Uh, but my my sense is, uh, that Russia has no prayer of actually succeeding at its ultimate objective, which is, uh, retaking all of the European capitals that were part of the Soviet Union, uh, very unlikely to retake much more of Ukraine in the short run.

And that means a miserable winter for the children and elderly in Kyiv for the next 4 or 5 months.

00:13:21.060 — 00:13:25.540 · Peter Mallouk
Well, working our way around the world from one crisis to another. Let's go over to Asia. You know.

00:13:26.340 — 00:13:28.740 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
So was my wife not down? Like we need the happiness.

00:13:28.940 — 00:13:32.820 · Peter Mallouk
That's what we had to have her before you. Just to lift people up a little bit before we did all.

00:13:32.860 — 00:13:32.980 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
Yeah.

00:13:34.020 — 00:13:56.390 · Peter Mallouk
Yeah. But, you know, in China originally, about eight years ago was the threat we were all worried about. That was the potential war. And of course, that war has broken out everywhere but there. How do you see China in the next 5 to 10 years? It feels like President Trump is using over the last six months much harsher, more confrontational language.

Do you think we take a different tack?

00:13:56.470 — 00:14:00.550 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
It's interesting. I actually think he's done just the opposite of that. I mean, that was a really nice dinner.

00:14:00.950 — 00:14:03.790 · Peter Mallouk
Yeah. Last night. Yeah. Day to day it can change.

00:14:03.830 — 00:14:04.230 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
Yeah.

00:14:04.270 — 00:14:04.750 · Peter Mallouk
Right.

00:14:05.230 — 00:14:09.710 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
Amen, brother. Um. Uh, look,

00:14:10.830 — 00:14:36.039 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
we've talked about Russia and Iran. Um, the singular threat to the United States of America. External threat to the United States of America is the Chinese Communist Party. Now, Russia can't, in the short run, can't change the way we live. The Iranians will contain the Chinese Communist Party is at scale, very capable, not just a not just a big army, Navy, air force, huge space program, a massive nuclear stockpile, but

00:14:37.040 — 00:14:56.360 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
a massive information campaign against all of us here in the United States right now. The Chinese Communist Party is talking to your children and grandchildren on their phones as you sit here today. And here's what I don't know what they're saying precisely, but I know what they're not saying. They're not saying America is great in China sucks.

00:14:57.400 — 00:15:48.380 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
They are telling a story about American decline, American decay, the Chinese communist puddle model working. Uh, you should be more like us, and your life would be better. I worry deeply that the next generation will have absorbed that information through their capacity to reach them. Without parents telling a different narrative and teachers telling a different narrative.

That's the real threat. It's not. So there'll be military confrontations. We've had them right. The Chinese rammed a boat off the Philippines last week. They circled the Vietnamese oil rig a few weeks before that. Um, they've, they've done exercises that have blockaded Taiwan just for a little bit, just proving that they can, uh, but it's not the military confrontation that I fear the most.

It is. It is a story of decline and decay that the Chinese Communist Party teaches us and we accept.

00:15:49.020 — 00:16:00.060 · Peter Mallouk
You set up a few alliances, quad and aukus, like you maybe could share with the audience about those that seem to be maybe decaying a little bit in recent years. Would you agree with that? Uh.

00:16:01.340 — 00:16:48.830 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
Goodness. You know, it's interesting. President Biden actually did very good work, um, with the Australians and the Brits on that particular set of relationship. We called it cuz it was, uh, three of us working together. You can't achieve what America needs without friends in the world. Um, it's literally we don't have the resources.

Capacity, uh, political, half diplomatic power. You have to have partners all across the world. Uh, by the way, those partners have to be trusted and worthy of your trust. But we have to build them. Uh, and that requires. That's hard work. So we did. We built that. As President Biden actually expanded, it made it better.

So, uh, credit to him. We then built out a set of relationships called the quad with the Indians and the Japanese and us. Uh.

00:16:51.030 — 00:17:44.120 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
It was an attempt. It was an attempt to protect America by finding force multipliers around the world, people who could bear a piece of the burden that is necessary. We were prepared to lead, but we needed. We needed those partners. And the other thing I'll say about each of those is each of them had, uh, what we've not really talked about much yet, which is each of them had a huge economic component to them as well.

The the most powerful tool for me as a secretary of state wasn't the United States military. By the way, I've got to have a military. I want it to be kick butt. Um, I wanted it to be the biggest, most capable. And it is today. That's great. The most powerful tool was the American economy. Every world leader.

I'd land in that beautiful white over blue airplane. Right? By the way. Thank you. It was great. Um, I'm back on southwest this afternoon, so, uh, all good. The American way.

00:17:44.480 — 00:17:47.800 · Peter Mallouk
Uh, your six Secret Service people, like, take all the seats right around you.

00:17:47.960 — 00:17:50.560 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
Oh, we'll be fine. We'll we'll be fine. The, uh.

00:17:51.680 — 00:18:36.940 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
The American. Every world leader wanted to see Mike Pompeo, right? They want to see the American secretary of state because he could unlock America's innovation, America's natural gas, American creativity, American businesses where they could come and invest here. The most powerful piece of leverage I had with most of the nations in the world was access to the American economy, and it was glorious.

And so I'm counting on you all to go out there and be good, solid, greedy capitalists and, uh, and continue to deliver the most exceptional economy in the world. That is a multiple presidents have done a lot of things, but nobody seems to be able to break this economy. And if we can get inflation to the right place, I'm confident we'll get another another good run as well.

00:18:36.980 — 00:18:49.460 · Peter Mallouk
Yeah, inflation is a big deal. So you touched on Venezuela a little bit earlier. Tell me about what that conflict was really about. And you said problems aren't solved. What was the what's the ultimate goal. And is it is it going to play out.

00:18:49.660 — 00:20:21.710 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
Oh my goodness. So one of the one of my failures was we didn't spend enough time in our own hemisphere working on these problems. We worked with Colombia on counter trafficking and narcotics. We worked with the Mexican government stopping illegal migration across our border. And we were pretty good at that.

But we we just didn't make it to the top of my stack as much as it should have. Secretary Rubio and in his in this term and President Trump have taken a much more aggressive posture. And the central thesis is we want more freedom there so we can have more set of economic relationships and less risk. Uh, and when I say less risk, you should know that in Venezuela, Maduro was nominally in charge, but he was a Russian Chinese client.

Massive Russian and Chinese operations inside of Venezuela, so very close to the United States. And the same would be true for Cuba. And credit to President Trump in this term, he has now put the Chinese and the Russians on their back foot all throughout South America. It's not over. The Chinese still have deep water port in South America, so there's a lot of work to do.

But what he did in the Panama Canal early on in his first term to move the Chinese off the two shoulders, and now in Venezuela, has made it much more difficult for the Chinese to do the things they're trying to do here inside of our country. So I don't know how it plays out. I hope they'll have an election in Venezuela, and then I hope they will become a producer of 5 to 7 million barrels of crude today, mostly refined in America, and port and ports in in the Gulf and Houston and to the east be a great thing for the American economy if we can get that going.

00:20:21.770 — 00:20:33.730 · Peter Mallouk
Do you think that if there's a problem anywhere in the world, that if the leadership was different or the country was run different, it would be better for America? That military intervention should be the solution.

00:20:34.650 — 00:20:36.610 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
You mean should we conduct coups?

00:20:36.690 — 00:20:46.210 · Peter Mallouk
Yes. But not the not the way we used to. That was the right direction. The more more your thing is the CIA director the old way versus. So you know.

00:20:46.770 — 00:20:47.170 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
Yeah, I.

00:20:47.170 — 00:20:48.570 · Peter Mallouk
Can either straight out military.

00:20:48.650 — 00:22:04.660 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
I ever conducted a coup. So, uh, look, in the end, people are going to decide who their leaders are going to be. Even in even in authoritarian regimes, people have the capacity over time to change it. We saw that when the Soviet Union collapsed. Um, we've seen it throughout Central Europe. Um, but these have long swings and long arcs, and it often takes American leadership to try and help them get to a better place.

Um, I'm not a big fan of of doing much that interferes with the country's internal own politics until they're impacting us, at which point I'm a big fan of impacting it. Uh, so I would always say, um, to, uh, we had many partners that I worked with who were communist, and they would always say, Mike, you know, you always talk about that communism thing.

And I would say, you know, the truth is, you all get to govern your country the way you choose. Right. Um, but once it impacts me in America, then I'm going to come try and make sure that it's not adversely impacting us domestically. Want to have a monarchy? Sounds good to me. Um, what I care about is making sure that America has a partner that we trust and know, and we can work with and isn't trying to undermine the way we live our lives in the United States.

00:22:05.220 — 00:22:19.030 · Peter Mallouk
All right, so you brought up the UFOs earlier. I got a lot of people when you were coming that emailed me to ask you about that. So you you opened the door. Oh, goodness. It feels like it's a headline. Every time there's something bad happens, we're going to release files about UFOs. So.

00:22:19.070 — 00:22:21.830 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
Yeah. Uh, there's not much to see.

00:22:21.870 — 00:22:22.270 · Peter Mallouk
Right.

00:22:23.230 — 00:22:28.230 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
My my son, when I became CIA director, his best buddy, uh, who still lives in Wichita. Uh,

00:22:29.310 — 00:22:44.870 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
they they called me the very day that I was nominated, and they're like, uh, Mr. Pompeo is somebody like I've known him for, you know, 35 years. Mr.. Pop, since he was two. Mr. Pompeo, when you become CIA director, we know you can't tell us. But like the next time you see me, just, like, nod your head or shake your head and, uh,

00:22:46.790 — 00:23:14.670 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
uh, you gotta love Steven Stevens, a great kid. Uh, you know, there's not there's not much to say, but you've seen some of the stuff that's been released. There are things that are unidentified that fly, and they are objects. Uh, the best way to answer it? The best. The best way to answer this. And I wish I could.

You'll never believe I'm telling you everything. You're like, oh, he's still hiding things. So it's a circular argument for a spy director or former CIA director. The best way to do to answer this for you is we have bigger problems.

00:23:15.710 — 00:23:20.450 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
Like. this is this is not something that I view as something we should spend a lot of time.

00:23:20.490 — 00:23:23.330 · Peter Mallouk
All right. It's a world war against. We have enough wars. We don't need to find.

00:23:23.730 — 00:23:26.850 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
Plenty of work to do in Overland Park and in Wichita. Yes.

00:23:26.850 — 00:23:30.970 · Peter Mallouk
Exactly right. What did your son say when you became CIA director?

00:23:31.010 — 00:23:42.850 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
Oh my gosh. Um, what did he say? Well, first of all, it's crazy. So those of you who are from Kansas would know that I campaigned all across Kansas on behalf of Marco Rubio. You can see I was very ineffective. Uh,

00:23:43.970 — 00:23:51.490 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
President Trump crushed. Crushed us. Um, by the way, he would remind me of that all the time. Oh, yeah. You're the Rubio guy. Um,

00:23:53.410 — 00:23:56.970 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
I got reelected to my fourth term in Congress on a Tuesday. Uh,

00:23:58.570 — 00:24:44.740 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
we were we were. My wife and I were in Washington and, uh, out of nowhere get a call from Vice President Pence. And I find myself on Wednesday of that week, uh, right after the election. So, uh, eight days after I'd been reelected at Trump Tower, interviewing with President Trump, who I had never met. And I assumed he was interviewing 20 people.

Right. It was very courteous. Nice to say I had never met President Trump before in my life. Uh, by Thursday he called me and said, this is very funny. I was with a group of constituents from Kansas in my office. Phone rings. I'd in six years, I had never interrupted a meeting with constituents for a phone call.

Not once. And this was a 212 call. Had been a weird week. I'm like, I'm going to take that. So I stepped into my little closet and it goes exactly like this. Hi, Mike, this is the Donald. You want to be my CIA director?

00:24:49.060 — 00:24:53.100 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
The conversation continues. Yes, sir. It would be an honor. Great. Someone will call you. Click.

00:24:54.660 — 00:25:33.910 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
I'll. I'll never forget it. We. At this point, we told our son, like, hey, we think we're going to be nominated to be the CIA director. Um, it happened so fast. And then on Friday morning, um, they announced the nomination, uh, an hour later into my office on Capitol Hill to the Rayburn House Office Building walks the British Ambassador to the United States with a sealed envelope.

And I opened it up. And it is a letter from the head of MI6. Right, James Bond and it is. It is signed with green ink. See, just like in the movie. And I couldn't help myself. I took a picture, sent it to my son, who calls me six minutes later and says, for 20 years I wasn't buying it, dad. But it turns out you are cool.

00:25:37.070 — 00:25:42.030 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
Yeah, I by the way, you should know all your dads out there. That lasted about 15 minutes.

00:25:42.350 — 00:25:43.790 · Peter Mallouk
Yeah, yeah. I'm sure.

00:25:43.830 — 00:25:44.430 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
Yeah.

00:25:45.630 — 00:25:50.070 · Peter Mallouk
So. So who's running the world? Is it the president or is it the CIA?

00:25:50.350 — 00:25:52.390 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
Oh, goodness. No. You all are running the world.

00:25:52.510 — 00:25:52.990 · Peter Mallouk
Yeah.

00:25:53.030 — 00:26:42.610 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
No, no, most of the things that happen in the world don't happen because of presidents or CIA directors or senators or congressmen. They they happen because several billion people make a set of decisions on every given day. And you can see that that's what's playing out in these wars. It's what's playing out all across America in our economy.

but as between the two. The president said, director, I can only speak for one term for my time. President Trump was clearly in charge. I was doing my best to try to help him and deliver. For those 18 months, I got the incredible privilege to serve in that role. I was trying to help him make good decisions. Uh, and, uh, it was it was a it was for very long years, as you can tell, like the pictures of me at the very end.

It's like that dude needs to tap out like he's done. But I wouldn't trade a single second of it.

00:26:42.890 — 00:26:56.090 · Peter Mallouk
We've got the first election coming up in a couple of years. In 12 years without President Trump on the ballot. You campaigned for Rubio before. It looks like he's interested. How do you see all of this unfolding?

00:26:56.930 — 00:27:41.660 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
Oh, I, I try not to do predictions. Um, but I will tell you what I hope so. By the way, on the Republican side, there'll be a bunch of folks choose to run, I think. I think there'll be more than just, uh. I think Vice President Vance is pretty determined. I think Secretary Rubio is trying to figure out if it's the right thing for him, for the country and for his family.

But I think Senator Cruz has made pretty clear he's going. So I think there'll be a bunch of folks on our side and on the Democrat side. Katie, bar the door, folks. Um, there are going to be 20 people. Um, go. Go chase it. Um, here's what I hope we will do as a country. I hope that the, uh, the campaign will be about argument and reason and not about who does the best memes.

I really do. Uh.

00:27:44.580 — 00:27:45.500 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
And, uh,

00:27:46.940 — 00:29:15.810 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
by the way, full disclosure, there's video of me behaving badly as a member of Congress. Like where I behaved in a way that my mother would not have been proud of. Um, but I tried not to do that as best I could. And most days, I think. I think I pulled that off. I think, I think I delivered in a way that my mother would have been pleased the way she raised me.

But, man, I just see it. The noise is staggering. It's. It's not Partizan. It's everywhere. By the way, voters tend to respond to that. And you see that today. Um, that's I think that's incredibly dangerous. I think our founders would have viewed that as incredibly dangerous. They they wanted people to make good, strong arguments, vigorous arguments, and go win the arguments and convince people that, no, that's the right vision, the right.

It's this is the right thing to take our nation to war. This is the right time not to. This is the right set of regulatory rules that we should have in place to go make arguments and explain why you're doing something. And by the way, when you when you've been elected and you explain something and your, your constituents don't buy it, they should turn around and vote you out of office.

Right. This is but what you shouldn't do is go scream and rail and say, this person's a, you know, terrible person. Um, by the way, there are terrible people who run for office. We've seen bad behavior in office. We should call that out to wherever we find it. If they're in our own party or or in the other one.

Um, but I hope, I hope this campaign will proceed in a way that your mothers would have been proud of. And if we can pull that off, I. Who knows who knows what America will be ready for?

00:29:15.930 — 00:29:27.450 · Peter Mallouk
We talked about conflicts all over the world. You sat in two of the most powerful seats that exist with your worldview. What gives you hope for the next generation?

00:29:27.490 — 00:29:44.770 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
Oh, um, I've talked about that already. Uh, I placed little faith in presidents of the United States. And what I mean by that is, um, we'll elect good ones. We'll elect bad ones. We'll disagree about which is which. Uh.

00:29:47.090 — 00:29:50.930 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
My my my my faith. My hope comes from, uh,

00:29:52.130 — 00:32:40.690 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
two things. One, as a Christian, uh, I'm convinced that, um, the Lord has a vision for humanity. Not just for the United States, but for for all people. Um, but as a pragmatist, as someone who had to live it every day. Uh, I know that the world is depending on two things. They're depending on American leadership.

And so it doesn't matter if somebody from Greenland complains it it doesn't matter if somebody's angry at us one day in Canada, um, they are all counting on the United States of America to lead. Absent the United States leadership. This world is a brutal, nasty, nasty place. And so they are counting on America not to fall away from its willingness to do that leadership.

And, you know, I'll speak for the Republican Party that I that that I am a part of too many in my party count the costs and only the costs. That leadership is expensive. We lose lives. Um, you know, I went to Dover Air Force Base when we had the remains of Americans returned. Um, even as I say that right now, it's incredibly emotional.

I was involved in the some of the decisions that resulted in those folks not going back to be with their children and their families. This is serious business and it's very costly. And it costs money. It costs treasure. Um, but the United States has received more benefits from the post-World War II order than any nation has ever received from us, from a relative peace of peace ever in the history of civilization.

Right? We we have a standard of living that is unequaled anyplace else in the world. We have more freedom than just about anyplace else in the world. Um, so we shouldn't forget to rack up the benefits as well. And the rest of the world knows that. And they're prepared to give us those benefits so long as we're prepared to take on the costs as well.

And I think we'll I think we'll get there. But what gives me the hope? The hope comes from the fact that, um, when I'm out and about living my daily life, I'm in the business world now, like, I was, uh, for most of my adult life before I lost my mind. I ran for Congress in 2010. Uh, is you all. So you all will come here today on a Saturday afternoon to hear people talk about happiness and trouble and good things.

And you'll learn, and you'll take it back, and you'll go do the hard work to build your business, to take care of your families. To go to your synagogue, to your church, to your mosque, wherever it may be, and contribute. And you will go on Wednesday. You'll cook the chili dinner at church, or you'll your company will give 500 bucks to the Little League team so they can get new uniforms.

Those are the things that I see that remind me that America is still locked in. It's not the noise in Washington, D.C. that can be depressing. You talked about CNN and Fox News. I'm on Fox News, so I have to be a little bit careful, but I watch relatively little of that. Um,

00:32:42.690 — 00:33:20.500 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
what gives me hope is you all. You all came out here today to be part of this. You're going to go back tonight. You'll turn on your favorite college football game. Uh, and we'll be about the things that really matter in life. And the last thing I'll say on this is I get asked a lot from mostly young people who, like, are really ambitious.

I want to be a member of Congress or I want to go, you know, work for a senator. And I tell them two things. First thing I tell them is, hey, get a job. Like, because I think it's I think it's proven useful to have gotten your head kicked in and have to figure out how to make payroll. When you're trying to decide how much of someone else's money you ought to take and how it ought to be spent as well.

And then second.

00:33:23.620 — 00:33:42.140 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
And then. And then second, I remind them, no, instead of running for Congress, why don't you run for school board or city council? By the way, I would urge you all like someone in here. I hope you'll today you'll hear me and you'll go, you know, I'm going to run for school board. You talk about impacting, by the way.

Better idea for you. Find a friend and have them run for school board. Like

00:33:43.180 — 00:34:42.040 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
that's the. That's the right answer. Sally, it's over to you. Here we go. Um, you could really impact lives. As a member of the city council in Overland Park. You can really impact lives as a member of the school board of USD 259, in Wichita, Kansas. Sedgwick County, Kansas. Um, you can change young people's trajectory.

Pretty hard to do. As a member of Congress. Uh, and so I still see people fired up ready to go do that? I'm ready to go do the things that make the United States truly unique. I can't remember, I went to 100 countries or so, uh, during my my time, it would have been more. But Covid slowed things down. Um, for the last year, uh, no other nation in the world does the kind of things that I describe has the sense of small community and neighborhood and family in the way that the United States does.

And so long as we don't destroy that, then I, I'm, I'm bullish that we're going to get into the 250 good years to well that agree.

00:34:46.240 — 00:34:49.520 · Peter Mallouk
And I think that's a perfect way for us to end. Thank you Secretary.

00:34:49.560 — 00:34:50.679 · Sec. Mike Pompeo
Thank you all. Thanks. Let me be here.

00:34:50.800 — 00:34:51.399 · Peter Mallouk
Fantastic.

00:34:52.440 — 00:34:53.000 · Peter Mallouk
Thank you.

00:34:53.080 — 00:34:54.520 · Peter Mallouk
Thank you. Thank you. Steve.

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