Pompeo, Mattis defend Trump’s Russia summit
Secretary of State calls it ‘an incredibly important meeting’
STANFORD >> Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis defended President Trump’s relationship with Russia and had a tough message for the Iranian government while speaking at Stanford University on Tuesday morning.
After meeting with Australian officials here for the past two days, the secretaries were greeted by protesters whose chants were faintly audible as they spoke to reporters.
Their visit comes amid a rollercoaster week and a half of diplomacy for the Trump administration, from the uproar over the president’s Helsinki summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, when he appeared to call into question whether Russia interfered in U.S. elections, to his all-caps tweet Sunday night threatening dire “consequences” for Iran.
On Tuesday, Pompeo offered a strong defense for Trump after criticism from both sides of the aisle over his performance in Helsinki. He described the summit as “an incredibly important meeting between President Trump and President Putin, one that I think the world will have benefited from when history is written.” And Pompeo, who will testify to Congress Wednesday about the summit, declared that the administration’s determination to push back against Russia is “unequaled in the history of the United States” since the Cold War.
Despite the friendly meeting between Putin and Trump and their talk of potential military coordination in Syria, Mattis said that the U.S. military would not “be doing anything additional” to synchronize with Russian forces until further discussions with Putin’s government.
The officials also echoed Trump’s hard line on Iran. Pompeo spoke at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley on Sunday, outlining the administration’s case against the Iranian government and declaring that “the regime in Iran has been a nightmare for the Iranian people.”
Mattis kept up that pressure at Tuesday’s press conference, saying that “it’s time for Iran to shape up and show responsibility” instead of “fomenting violence” in the Middle East.
“The president was making very clear that they’re on the wrong track,” he said.
Pompeo and Mattis, who have been meeting with Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop and Minister for Defense Marise Payne at Stanford over the last few days, talked up the strength of the relationship between the two countries — or “mateship,” as the Australian officials put it.
Trump has had rocky relations with Australia before, hanging up on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on a bilateral phone call eight days into his presidency. But the two leaders have patched things up. Bishop said Tuesday that “we don’t always agree with the U.S. and the U.S. doesn’t always agree with us,” but “the relationship is so deep and so enduring that changes in the White House” don’t affect it.
The leaders all stressed the importance of a “free
and open Indo-Pacific,” veiled language aimed at growing Chinese influence in the South China Sea. Pompeo said that “certainly China poses concerns” by building military installations in the sea, and stressed that the U.S. was committed to defending its values in the region.
On North Korea, Pompeo said that satellite images showing the rogue state beginning to deconstruct a missile test site were “entirely consistent with the commitment” made by leader Kim Jong-Un, and that he had pushed for inspectors on the ground. The Australian officials said they were heartened by the Trump administration’s diplomatic efforts to engage with Pyongyang, and were hoping for help from the U.S. to retrieve the remains of missing Australian servicemembers who are presumed dead in North Korea.
Pompeo also promised that the U.S. would help hold Russia accountable for the downing of the MH17 flight over Ukraine in July 2014, a disaster that killed 27 Australians.
About 40 people protested outside the press conference at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, blowing up an inflatable balloon depicting Trump as a chicken and chanting “no more racism” and “no more corruption.” After the event ended, they yelled at what they believed to be Pompeo and Mattis’ passing motorcade.
“We can’t just be in bed with Russia and act like nothing’s happening,” said Lisa Liddle, 56, a Saratoga resident who showed up with a handwritten sign denouncing “traitor Trump.”
Only a few members of Trump’s cabinet have been to the Bay Area in the first year and a half of his administration. Former EPA secretary Scott Pruitt briefly visited San Francisco last month, while Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue went to farms near Gilroy in February. Trump himself came to San Diego to review construction on border wall prototypes earlier this year, but skipped Northern California.
“We’ve had very little chance to protest directly at any Trump cabinet members,” said Steve Rapport, a Taekwondo instructor from Pacifica and an activist with the anti-Trump group Indivisible. “I felt like we needed to express the fact that they’re complicit with the Trump foreign policy — we want to say it’s not right to alienate our allies and coddle foreign dictators and tyrants.”