Kim talks used to promote Pompeo
Trump pushes CIA director after secret meeting
WASHINGTON •TheWhite House is pressuring Senate Democrats to back Mike Pompeo as secretary of state, arguing that failing to do so would undercut talks with North Korea after his recent meeting with its leader.
“Mike Pompeo will go down as one of the great secretary of states,” President Donald Trump said Wednesday during a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at Trump’s Mara-Lago resort in Florida. Pompeo “had a great meeting with Kim Jong Un and got along with him really well, really great, and he’s that kind of a guy.”
“Our country really needs him,” Trump added.
On a conference call with reporters hosted by the White House, Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas said Wednesday “it would send a very bad sign, and it would set back the preparations and perhaps even the results of that upcoming summit, for the Senate Democrats to oppose, as a bloc, Mike Pompeo’s nomination to be secretary of state.”
Trump had confirmed hours earlier that he had dispatched Pompeo, who’s director of the CIA, to Pyongyang to secretly meet with Kim over the Easter weekend in advance of a summit expected for late May or early June where Trump will press the case for North Korea to give up its expanding nuclear arsenal.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is expected to vote on Pompeo’s nomination next week.
Democrats including Bob Menendez, the ranking member, have said they will oppose him, as has Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky.
Trump on Wednesday expressed optimism that Paul will reverse course and support Pompeo.
“Rand Paul is a very special guy as far as I’m concerned,” Trump said. “He’s never let me down, and I don’t think he’ll let us down again.”
Pompeo did not divulge details of the clandestine visit to Pyongyang at a confirmation hearing before the committee last week.