Pompeo poised to be top diplomat of US

Mike Pompeo may fail to win approval from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to be the next secretary of state. It would be an unprecedented slight, but it might not matter.

With Republican Rand Paul and Democrats on the panel opposed to making the CIA director the top U.S. diplomat, the committee may vote narrowly against President Donald Trump’s nominee on Monday evening.

But Republican leaders have vowed to bring the nomination before the full Senate, where Pompeo appears to have enough support to become the 70th secretary of state by week’s end.

Some lawmakers question whether Pompeo, a hard-liner who came to Washington as a Tea Party congressman, has the temperament for diplomacy, but he has one significant advantage -Trump’s confidence in him.

Unlike his fired predecessor Rex Tillerson, Pompeo can be expected to convey the president’s messages to the world, and he may be able to get Trump to heed sometimes unwelcome messages from other world leaders and lawmakers.

“The most important thing for a secretary of state is to be perceived as speaking for the president,” said Jon Alterman, a senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies .

“This is all about: Do you have the president’s trust, and can you demonstrate you have his trust?”