Pompeo adept at rubbing elbows, but still rubs some the wrong way
Given their differences, it’s hard to believe that Mike Pompeo, the CIA director and secretary of state nominee whose Senate confirmation hearing was Thursday, and Rex Tillerson, who was fired last month, were both chosen by President Donald Trump.
Tillerson, the former CEO of Exxonmobil, left a legacy as the worst secretary of state in modern memory by cutting the department’s budget, forcing out scores of senior diplomats and marginalizing those who remained, leaving many top jobs vacant and cloistering himself with a small coterie of aides unfamiliar with the institution.
He focused too much time on bureaucratic restructuring rather than addressing the job’s core mission — handling international crises and representing the United States on the world stage. In the process, he, along with Trump, weakened democracy and human rights as elements of U.S. diplomacy and undermined the nation’s global leadership role.
Pompeo, a former Tea Party congressman from Kansas, described, over several hours before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday, an approach that would repudiate much of what Tillerson had done. He said his first priority was to ensure that State Department employees, demoralized under Tillerson, were empowered and had a clear understanding of Trump’s goals.
He pledged to fill vacant posts, support diversity in hiring, obtain much-needed resources and spend that money as Congress directs — which Tillerson sometimes refused to do. Demonstrating political astuteness, he consulted recent secretaries of state, including Hillary Clinton, and other diplomats in preparation for the hearing.
Pompeo sounded far less isolationist and less comfortable with authoritarianism than the president he plans to serve, saying that “if we do not lead the calls for democracy, prosperity and human rights around the world, who will?”
But Pompeo’s comments on other matters raised alarm bells. For instance, while he claimed to honor and respect people regardless of gender, race or religion, he reiterated his opposition to same-sex marriage and refused to say whether he contin- ues to believe being gay is a “perversion,” as he seemed to suggest in 2015.
Pompeo’s views on Muslims are also deeply disturbing. His record there dates in part to the aftermath of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, when on the House floor he denounced American Muslim leaders for their response to the terrorist attack. Muslim Americans have a “special obligation” to speak up, he said, arguing that their “silence has made these Islamic leaders across America potentially complicit in these acts.”
Under grilling Thursday by Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., Pompeo suggested he meant only that Muslims had an “opportunity” to combat terrorism — a weak explanation that could make it harder for him to have credible relations with the Muslim world.
Pompeo acknowledged that Russia interfered in the 2016 election and promised to press a tougher line against Moscow, which Trump, outraged by the investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller into ties between the president’s campaign and the Kremlin, has been loath to do. But despite a strong statement about the importance of the rule of law, Pompeo repeatedly refused to criticize Trump’s disparaging statements about the legitimacy of Mueller’s inquiry and said he would not resign if the president fired Mueller.
Nor did Pompeo erase concerns about his war-making views. While he talked about the importance of diplomacy, he refused to rule out a first strike against North Korea, whose leader Trump is supposed to soon meet, or to say whether he would try to persuade the president not to rip up the Iran nuclear deal. And while he agreed that Congress should have a role in declaring war, he said Trump would not need legislative approval to strike Syria.
Senators made clear their interest in having Pompeo serve as a check on Trump’s worst instincts. Pompeo said that as CIA director, he “was able to persuade” the president when they disagreed on policy, and that he would try to keep using his influence in such a way. If confirmed, Pompeo, with his relaxed, confident demeanor, would certainly have more clout than Tillerson. But there are many reasons to be concerned about the policy advice he would dispense.