Secretary Mike Pompeo: Prioritizing Freedom
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Welcome to the Jason in the House podcast. I'm Jason Chaffetz. Thanks for joining us today. I think you're really going to enjoy this because we're going to be dialing up somebody who I served with in the House of Representatives. Little did I know that he would be helping to run the world as the Secretary of State. But Mike Pompeo is going to join us as we phone a friend and look forward to that conversation with him. I'm going to be talking to him about the

And find out a little bit more about how did this guy just, how did he rise to that level? I mean, and how is it that he did what he did? What was it like working with President Donald Trump? And I think, you know, usually when we do these, we learn things about people that we didn't know and what informs them and how did they, how did they get there to that point? And what is it in their core that drives them? What principles drive them? So I look forward to that. But,

We're going to start with a little riff on the news because there's a lot happening out there. And I want to start with Major League Baseball All-Star Game, Denver, Colorado. But you know what? It was originally scheduled for Atlanta. And part of the reason I bring this up is because there was a lot of fiction that went out the door about what was going on with the Georgia voting laws. And what I want you to look at is this fight continues because there's a lot of things happening with this.

you're going to see that the Democrats are not very specific about what they believe is so offensive in these laws that are passing in Georgia, the vote that's coming up in Texas and these other states.

In fact, the Supreme Court weighed in and weighed in fairly decisively and said that, you know what, when you say you're in the precinct or you're designated in a precinct, you have to actually go to that precinct. And oh, by the way, we don't like ballot harvesting. That is, you can't allow somebody else to collect your ballot and then turn it in for you. That chain of custody is really important. And it's not an undue burden.

It's not racist. It's not any of these other things. That's essentially what the Supreme Court said.

So Democrats desperately want to pass what's called H.R. 1. I wrote about it in my book. They never let a crisis go to waste. The truth about disaster liberalism. This is the core of what the Democrats want to do. They want to change the rules. They want to change the way we vote in this country so that they can have more power and more control. And we could see it coming a mile away. That's why I was able to take nearly a year putting a book together and publish it.

In advance of what happened, I've talked a lot about this. This is not something that suddenly showed up as spontaneous combustion. But that prescription that the Democrats give to solve the, quote unquote, voting rights crisis is one I think.

that they are reaching a little bit of a bridge too far. You know, you saw ads that came out during the game from some of the conservative and right-wing and Republican-oriented organizations. But as you listen to Democrats make the argument, again, I challenge you, what specifically are they opposed to? Because really what these bills are trying to do is authenticate the vote and to have an identification system

I think is realistic and I think it's the right thing to do. And it's funny how now people like Stacey Abrams have totally changed their tunes. In fact, now they're saying, you know, there was a, and it's probably best exemplified as to what Stacey Abrams did. She wrote a piece in USA Today. It was an opinion piece and,

And she was advocating that Major League Baseball move their game out of Georgia as repercussion for this Georgia voting law.

Only to sneakily, and she got caught, go back later and work with USA Today and shame on them for doing this, to try to change the op-ed so that it appears as if she didn't advocate the movement of Major League Baseball to Denver. So the game's played in Denver. Guess what?

She advocated that. She got it. Joe Biden advocated for that. He thought it was a good thing. He's on record on audio. You can hear him talking about this. I just don't think Major League Baseball, my personal opinion, would move that game from Atlanta to Denver without the tacitly being approved by the White House itself.

And so now that the game's been played, guess what? Democrats are going to have to live with the idea because you know what they did? They harmed small local businesses, many of them minority owned businesses. And that was a bridge too far. And I think that will continue to play out. I also wanted to tell you that this voting fight is not over, but how we vote, the way we vote, the very that we ever want to do is have that be a nationally federally run vote.

I just don't trust the federal government. And I think your ability to engage with your own community at the county level, it's imperative that everybody do. That's how you're going to get poll watchers. That's how you're going to make sure everything's free and done on the up and up. And I would just encourage people to get involved and engaged as best they can. All right. Now it's time to bring on the stupid.

Because you know what? There's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. Well, you don't have to look any further than Texas Democrats and their stupid stunt to get out of Texas. Look, the legislature in Texas is overwhelmingly Republican, but here it is. They're going to vote on voting rights. And instead of voting on voting rights, the Texas Democrats...

utilize the filibuster to get on a plane in Texas, fly to Washington, D.C., to encourage the federal government to overturn the filibuster to suppress Texas's right to determine exactly the parameters of how they vote in Texas and give those rights and that imperative to the federal government. That is just hypocrisy. It is dripping with irony.

And probably the thing that bugs me most about the stupidity of that little stunt, because it is just a publicity stunt, it's nothing more, is these elected people being paid for by the people of Texas with their taxpayer dollars.

Get on a plane and do what no other American is allowed to do, and that is ride on a plane without a mask. You've seen the pictures, which I've been told, I heard on Fox News, that they took down that picture, but they gleefully posted up, look at all the smiling Democrats on the plane, and you didn't see a mask in sight.

That should actually be the public policy, the idea that the FAA and the federal government is mandating that three-year-olds wear masks on airplanes when they simultaneously tell you and you listen to the announcements on these airlines, our air is circulated and it's sanitized and every two minutes you're breathing all this new fresh air.

There is no reason, if we follow the science, that you should have to be wearing a mask. And at this point in what we're dealing with COVID, people get the right to make self-determination. They get the right to actually make decisions themselves. So for this degree of stupidity and what the Democrats are doing and posting up that photo, they get first and second place this week.

for doing something stupid. All right, I want to move on now to a story from the halls of Congress. And I get a lot of questions about this because you see members of Congress moving around the world, the globe, you know, and there's two different ways that you can move. Now, this is not really one of my funny stories that I tell about some of the comedy that happens in there, but I just thought it would be fairly instructive and I'll be brief about it. But members of Congress can go on what's called a congressional delegation trip or a CODEL.

Those have to be approved at the highest levels. Now, senators deal with it different than the House, but these trips are supposed to all be bipartisan. Didn't used to be that way, but it is moving forward. And you can also join in and be able to have a pre-approved ethics approved trip by somebody like the Aspen Institute or something like that. And again, these trips are

are bipartisan in their approach. I got a lot out of them. I think members of Congress need to go out and see the literally hundreds of billions of dollars that America is spending around the world, how we're dealing with our troops, how we're dealing with U.S. foreign aid, how we're dealing with the other countries in the world. I think they're actually fairly productive, but the process in which they go through that, I think is actually pretty good. But you do govern, or you are able to access and

be able to use the assets of the United States of America to be able to travel around the world. Sometimes you fly commercially, sometimes you fly with the Air Force. And what you do as a member of Congress is you actually pick which branch of the military

that you want to work with, and they are the ones that put together the itinerary. So I was partial often to the Navy, and I'd say, I'd like to go with the Navy. And the Navy would figure out the logistics, the way to save money, those types of things, get the pilots in place, or even to just fly commercially. I get a lot of questions about that. I just thought I'd share that with you. But there's probably...

Nobody who traveled more in the world during the presidency than the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. He was the previous congressman from the state of Kansas, but I don't think he spent his entire career and life growing up in Kansas. So we want to hear about that. So there's nothing better than dialing up Mike Pompeo, former Secretary of State, former congressman. Let's dial up Mike.

Hello, this is Mike. Hey, Jason Chaffetz, Mr. Secretary, Mike Pompeo. Thanks so much for joining us. How the heck are you? It's good to talk to you again. You know, it really is fun because, you know, I got to know you when I first met you in the House of Representatives.

And little did I know that you were going to turn around and be running the world a few years later. Didn't that seem like a long time ago, Jason? Because it was, yeah. It does. I still remember just going to dinner with you and John Ratcliffe and Trey Gowdy. I don't know, Mick Mulvaney would come in in a world. And then all of a sudden Trump gets elected, and holy cow, a lot of people did some impressive stuff. Yeah.

The world changed for sure. I think that's what the American people wanted when they elected President Trump. It was really cool to be part of it, Jason. It was a lot of fun. It was an incredible privilege. I miss our times together, though. Lots of fun. I'm glad we can have this conversation today. We'll have fun with it, too.

Well, again, thanks for what you're doing in your service. Not only, you know, you were the director of the CIA, the secretary of state, but also your military career and your willingness to step up and serve. And, you know, we've gone through 4th of July and real patriotic times in this country. I just can't thank the women and men enough of who stepped up and served along the way and

And that includes you. And there's a lot of sacrifices that go on for these men and women who serve our country. But anyway, I want to thank you for that. But I want to kind of go back and better understand Mike Pompeo and how you because I mean, as a little kid, did you like grow up and say, yeah, I'd like to run the CIA? I mean, that that's probably not a dream that most six year olds had. So what was it like when you were real young? How did you grow up and get to where you're at?

Yeah, no, I mean, nobody would who would dream of the opportunities America's given me that certainly not me. Jason is that far back as I can remember, I wanted to I was good at math, even as a young kid, and I wanted to be an engineer. I just thought that was really cool to build bridges and build stuff, something I was excited about. I grew up in Southern California, I have a older sister about a year and a half older than me and a brother about the same younger sister.

So the three of us grew up in Santa Ana, California. We went to New Hope Elementary and to Fitz Junior High, to Los Amigos High School, all public schools in Southern California. We had, you know, good lives, right? Growing up, our parents took good care of us. We spent a lot of time with family. My family's all from Kansas on my mother's side. So we'd be back in Kansas on vacations at Christmas or in the summertime. We'd take the station wagon and go back.

And then I got this incredible break to get accepted into West Point when I was a senior in high school. And my life took a completely different turn then, but I could have never dreamed it when I was six or eight or 10. So, I mean, engineering, I mean, I was throwing dirt clods playing with army men and it sounds like you were actually building stuff and thinking things through. I was a little bit more of a simpleton back then. I was actually in Southern California as well as a little kid and

But did you play sports? Did you, your parents, like, did you watch a lot of television? Did your parents make you read the newspaper? I mean, how did you become kind of informed of the world too? Oh, I don't know. Goodness. No, we would, we would, we would read the newspaper as a family. My dad had asked questions about it, but mostly he was third base coach, making sure to wave us in when we were supposed to come in.

And so I did. I grew up, my brother and I both played baseball and basketball growing up. My brother was good. I was making the most limited talent that I had, but it was something our family was very involved in. We loved sports. It was an important part of our growing up for sure. We were on some good teams, some not quite as good teams. And then I was a good hitter, Jason, until kids started throwing curveballs at age 13 and it was all over.

Well, yeah, okay. Well, I understand that. But you also played some basketball, right? Weren't you like a forward on your high school team? Did I read that right? I was. I was a power forward at all of 5'10 or 5'11. Yes, I couldn't shoot for a lick. You'll get a kick out of this, Jason. So my brother's name is Mark.

And so the box score in the local paper would say M. Pompeo, 26 points, M. Pompeo, 20 or two points. And I would always tell everybody that was that first time was me. It was it was never me. Well, that's fun. I do like what lessons did you learn from sports? Because I found kind of through my business career, I was 16 years in the local business community before I ever got involved in politics and sports.

I really, I think those that are engaged in individual sports and certainly team sports, they learn a lot of lessons that maybe they don't understand or recognize when they're 13 years old, but later on in life,

they really come into play. What did you learn from sport? Yeah. You know, I learned a couple things. I learned because my dad took the time out from his work to coach. I learned, I think, that family matters, right? I watched him. He would hustle from work to make sure that the big bag of bats was out there so kids could all hit and

So I watched my dad give to us and sacrifice for us in ways that I think demonstrated to me the central nature of family as part of the American tradition. But then for me, I learned everybody's a little bit different. Even my good friends, you'd see them in different settings. You'd see them in the school hall or you'd see them on the playing field. And they were just different. And you learned how to get along and try to make friends and build out relationships together.

And then, you know, in the end, if you got it right, if you got a team that was pretty good, someone that could shoot, someone that could, you know, push someone around and knock them to the floor,

You could you could be better together. And I certainly I didn't appreciate that. I think when I was 16, 17 years old, but I can certainly see it now. Yeah, I think that's right. I played a lot of soccer, you know, Southern California, Arizona, so we could play year round. And the kids that I associated with maybe in my school or sat by and, you know, Spanish class were a whole lot different than.

than the kids that I joined on the soccer team. And it didn't really matter their socioeconomic or ethnic background. We were all together on a team, wanted to win, were having fun.

You know, there's a lot of discussion in this country about racism and, you know, is it systemically racist? I don't think it is. You go see kids playing sports. They don't really give a hoot as to what color or skin or it brings people together. Those were some of the foundational experiences. Some of the best friends I had as a little kid were playing sports and

And they weren't of the same ethnic background as I was. And I never thought hoot about it.

Yeah, it's so true. You know, Jason, the first time I saw this even more squarely when I went off to school at West Point, right? They throw 4,000 of you in a pot and everybody's just working and it didn't make a turn. You didn't know if you were sitting next to a rich kid or a kid who grew up in difficult circumstances some way. You just didn't know and you didn't care because you were trying to execute some mission. It was really hard and you needed their help because it wasn't going to happen if just one person did it. Somebody had to carry it.

The M16 tripod, right? Or the M60 tripod, right? Somebody had to do that. And it was truly telling. We had kids from every walk of life. We had men, we had women. My best buddy coming out of school was a Philippine guy named Brian Bulltow, still my best friend in the whole world. These are the things one learns in these places where you just, you're focused on a mission, you need to be part of a team, and the collective's got to deliver. It's not about your background or your race or your gender. It's about getting it done.

Yeah, no, I think that's true. So you're in high school, you're doing pretty well. You decide, hey, I want to maybe join the military. Where did that come from? I mean, was that something that your parents did, your grandparents? What attracted you and thought, yeah, the military, that's where I want to go? Yeah. So my father served in the Korean War. He enlisted during the Korean War and enlisted in the Navy. So he was in the Navy for a couple of years. But I

but I don't think that was the big influence. We would watch the army Navy football game because we just watched a lot of sports in our house. But when I was a junior, I was trying to figure out where to go to school. And I got the, the same set to the young kids listening to your podcast. I can make any sense, but I,

I got a catalog from the school library. And in the back of the catalog, you could clip a piece that said, we'll send you all the information on the school. If you had sent it in, it was free. It was postage paid. So I sent it on in. And I got this catalog that described this place called West Point. And boy, it seemed really special to me. I didn't have a clue if I could figure it out or get in. But I applied. And then in December,

In December, I guess it would have been of my senior year, get this incredible note in the mail saying that I've been accepted to the United States Military Academy at West Point. I was I knew it was a place that that was egalitarian in the truest sense. They were going to look for people who were just willing to work hard and could could make it happen. And I liked that. I wanted to go compete. And I had no idea if I'd make it through. My mother said, you know, don't worry, Mike, if you come back after six months, we'll still love you.

but got that cool opportunity. And so it all started really in my junior year when I was trying to figure out where to go to college. You know, isn't that amazing how sometimes the smallest things in your life lead to the biggest impact and they change the whole trajectory of your life. And, and,

I remember I was a junior in high school, and the vice principal of our school came to the guys on the soccer team and said, hey, we need a place kicker over here on the football team. And guess what? I was the only one to try out. So I made it. Amazing how that worked.

But you know what? I just tried a little bit something different and ended up getting a football scholarship. It brought me here to the state of Utah and then met who's now my wife and been here for 30 plus years. But if I hadn't actually taken that little step, and that's kind of amazing that you're kind of flipping through this catalog. If you don't tear out that little perforated card and fill it out, I mean, where would you be? What would you be doing?

No, it's so true, Jason. And I always remind young folks, ask often, tell me how I succeed or how I should think about moving on in life. And I always just remind them, you never know what stone is going to turn up. Pick up a lot of stones, check them out. Go be to your point. You go kick. Yeah, I'll go try. It may not work. I may just get sent back to the soccer field. So be it. Work hard, be adventurous.

Stay focused on the things that you care about and enjoy. Build your skill set up, right? It wasn't a fluke. You ultimately became very successful at kicking. You'd worked hard at that. And so I remind folks that telling truth, working hard, keeping your faith, not every day, but often good things will happen. Yeah, no, I think that's exactly right. So you get to West Point. To your point, there are hundreds of other kids, but somehow you graduate number one in your class is my understanding. What do you attribute that to?

Oh, goodness. Look, I pretty the Lord blessed me with some talents. There were others he didn't provide to me. And I'm aware of those shortcomings, too. But I was I was a good student.

But I also, I really wanted to do well. I wanted to be successful there. I wanted, there were some assignments in the Army that after about a year and a half, I knew that if I wanted to go be at this particular place in the Armored Cavalry, that I'd have to do really, really well because they assign, you get to choose your assignments based on your class rank. And so I just worked my tail off there.

I, you know, it's not, I'm not bragging. I just, I was very focused. You ask my classmates, they'll say, yeah, he wasn't as much fun as some of the others, but

But I worked really hard on every piece of it. It wasn't just academics. There were, you know, part of graduating first in your class at West Point is physical fitness and the like. I'm not a killer good athlete. But, you know, we had to do this obstacle course. You climb a rope. You climb up on a ledge. You run a couple laps. You low crawl. You jump through tires. You climb a wall and do a hand-over-hand overhead ladder exercise.

I wasn't any good at much of that, but I would just at eight o'clock at night, I'd go down to the gym and I would practice those skills until I figured out the trick or figured out how to get better at it and worked and worked and worked. And I was never the best. I was certainly never the fastest. The Westport record for the obstacle course was never endangered when I was on the course.

But, you know, I got good enough that I could get a B or a B plus. And those are the kinds of things that I think contributed to the fact that I was so fortunate to do well there. No, there's a great lot of there's a lot of great lessons in that, because I do believe that focus does determine reality. I've worked for somebody who used to say that time and time again. And

and to try to keep us focused focused focused on what the big mission really was and and i i'm also a big fan of uh rob o'neill he you i you know rob he was you know for those listening he was the guy who with his seal team went in to go take out osama bin laden he happened to be the guy that got to pull the trigger there at the end and he wrote a great book called the operator and

One of the lessons, the short, sweet lesson that I got out of that book was he writes at one point, if you want to be good at push-ups, do more push-ups. And it's such a simple, right? Duh. If you need to do something really well, you just need to do more of it until you perfect it. And it sounds like you had that same lesson by going out after guys were sure to

slowing it down for the day, maybe doing something else. And yet you're out there trying to figure out how to get through that obstacle course faster.

Yes. Desperation was one thing, too. And I finally outstripped, of course, and you get to be a civilian pretty quick. So I was highly motivated. All right. So you go through that. You're graduated now. Tell us, help me understand what happens in your career, because not only do you take off and you start going down the military career, but then at some point in your life, you say, ah, what I should really do is run for politics. Yeah.

A long way between those two things. So I graduated in summer of 86. And by fall of 1986, I was running a leading a tank platoon in what was then West Germany. We were we ran patrols 24-7 on the then East German border. It was my first real physical exposure right to a communist. You'd watch East German border guards on the other side of the fence line.

So that was the three years, my first assignment, had a second assignment at Fort Carson, Colorado. And then those sort of things led me to conclude I wanted to leave the military and went off to law school and graduated from Harvard Law School in the summer of 94, practiced law for a couple of years. And then a couple of buddies of mine, West Point classmates, still my best friends in the whole world. And I started a business and it ended up being in Kansas.

And we ran, we called it Thayer Aerospace. The founder of West Point's name is Colonel Silvanus Thayer. So we called our little company Thayer Aerospace. We built airplane parts. We did lathe work and millwork and sheet metal bending and the like. It was awesome. It was a lot of fun. Real true, hardcore blue collar, no BS manufacturing work, little tiny company. And we ran that for a while, sold the business, ran a second one for a bit. And then this was to your point,

In 2009, watched what President Obama was doing to the country, and it was affecting my business and my employees, team members at their aerospace and at Century International, a company I was then running. And I decided I would take a shot at it. I'd been around politics a little bit. My wife and I had helped a woman. You would know Matt Schlapp. Matt Schlapp's mom, Sue Schlapp, wanted to run for city council. I was her campaign manager.

and so helped her with her wichita city council race and then concluded that i would run for congress and take a shot and i was very fortunate blessed won the race in 2010 and came in with a huge class just after you'd gotten there jason yeah yeah i i was elected in 2008 so i was there for all of the obama obama years and yeah i tell you what two years in the minority um although i

Look, I was honored to be there. It was my first time there. But being in the minority with Nancy Pelosi at the Speaker's, we needed some help. So to see the cavalry come around the hill with you and a host, a big group of other people, and be swept into the majority just changed the trajectory of the country and everything else. And then ultimately led to some great things, the election of Donald Trump.

You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Secretary Mike Pompeo right after this.

When you first decided that, hey, you know, I think I'm going to run for politics, what? And then you actually got there and started doing the congressional role. How did you see that as, how different was it than you really thought it was going to be? It was different for sure. First of all, you're right, this huge, it was an interesting time, Jason, you'll remember this, right? Because we just switched leadership.

uh you know we nancy pelosi was no longer speaker which is frankly something i hope i can say in a year and a half too right uh right so she was no longer speaker there was this big transition there's this big shuffle there's a lot of uncertainty speaker bainer had just taken the gavel i was brand new i knew my i met my new my mission set i'd read the federalist papers as a cadet so i knew what i was supposed to do but to get a chance to meet these people and jason you saw it too even in even our little class of 60 or whatever the new group was

from every walk of life, right? You got Vicki Hartzler who wrote Christian novels. You had a couple of guys who were veterans. You had these people from every walk of life and it was glorious to see how America, even inside the Republican Party, had chosen this very diverse group of people to represent them. And so I was just focused on making sure I was doing everything I could for the folks of South Central Kansas

And then trying to understand how I could have a real impact, even though I was just a freshman member of Congress, have a real impact on the work that Congress was doing. Well, you know, it's funny because and I kind of joke about it, but as you meet there on the floor of the House and and

and you interacting with all these people there, it is such a cross section of America. Just to your point. I, I, I wish everybody could realize that, that it's not just a whole bunch of millionaires walking around down there on the floor. You got a lot of people from a diverse array of backgrounds. In fact, I would walk around the floor and think, man, did anybody ever meet that person? How in the world did they get elected? And,

Sure. That was just me. That was just me. It was all of that. And it was so glorious to see. And people, because of those backgrounds, Jason, you saw this, you'd come to that seat and think, well, the answer to that's pretty clear. Here's what we should do. And they would bring an entire different perspective to it. And it didn't always change your mind, but it reminded you.

that there are lots of ways to attack things, lots of ways to solve problems and lots of ways to think about the challenges that face our country. Yeah. And I think actually people would be pleasantly surprised that the animosity that gets reported is not nearly as high as as people would think it is that most people, you, me, you know,

John Ratcliffe and Trey Gowdy and others. I mean, we were regularly interacting with people on both sides of the aisle and could still be friends with them, even though we may vehemently disagree with their policy prescriptions. It was still a body that by and large got along and was friendly and nice and broke bread after work, you know, at dinner and stuff like that. Yeah.

Yeah, no, look, our modern media tends to accentuate the difference, right? Tends to highlight that. I think that misses part of the context of what really takes place. It's too bad. Yeah, yeah. So you're in Congress there, and then you had some fascinating roles. Anything in particular that you liked or didn't like or wish you got to do that you wanted to do?

You know, I had two assignments that I loved. First, I got to serve on the House Intelligence Committee, which I think was a precursor to my chance to be the Central Intelligence Agency's senior espionage guy. But I also had two years that I got to work with some great people. I got to work with Trey Gowdy and some others on the Benghazi Committee, where we were doing really important work. I got close to the families of some of those who were killed in Benghazi that night.

I know everyone thought this was political. We were working hard to figure out how the heck that happened, how we had four Americans killed that night. How could it possibly be the case that we allowed ourselves to get into that place? And how could we make sure that something like that never happened again? So it was the center of attention for a lot of Washington media. But for those of us working on it, I remember too, we had one public hearing, Jason. Everybody thinks this was this big public spectacle. We had one public hearing. I

I think Chairman Gowdy would have had zero public hearings, but Secretary Clinton wanted hers to be public. We were working behind the scenes to take facts and depositions and documents to put together a report that we think laid down the case for how the State Department and our other government agencies, where we have people at real risk,

can actually protect them and still deliver on their mission set. It was an important part of the work that I did. I was really pleased with the product that the committee put out in the separate document that Jim Jordan and I wrote as well. Yeah, no, it really is amazing the way so many try to portray that and try to compare and contrast and yell and scream at it. They still lose sight of the fact that four Americans had lost their lives and that

There was a bombing at our embassy and facility in Africa, and we were supposed to learn all these lessons about the fortification of these facilities. But somehow a lot of those lessons got lost. I mean, I was the first member of Congress to go to Libya right after that attack in Tripoli.

I went into and, you know, I worked on that for a good year and a half. And in the stonewalling and the just stiff arm that we got from the administration, that they wouldn't even admit some very basic things, let alone produce documents that we end up finding are going to be things that were destroyed and those types of things, things that aren't supposed to happen in this country when we're going to

Try to figure out what is wrong. And that shouldn't be such an adversarial type of situation. And but you're right. You people would think that we were you know, you guys were having weekly public hearings and trying to embarrass people all the time.

But don't forget, in fact, I kind of almost forgot for a moment there that it was Secretary Clinton that demanded that her hearing be public. Yeah, she wanted the show. And, you know, we're fine with that. But we were trying to be respectful and get data and facts. And that's often done in quiet places, not in the...

the circus that washington can become so you know some people are a little bit more influential and impactful right at the get-go and certainly you were there in the congress i saw that up close and personal and and the the approach and the the hard work and the tenacity that you brought to it is just so admirable but all of a sudden um you know i think we were all surprised um but for the good of the nation donald trump was elected to the president of the united states

How did that behind the scenes? What happened? How did you how did that transition? I mean, you next thing I know, you're you're the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Yeah, it all happened really fast, Jason. I literally I had never spent any time with President Trump before I interviewed with him at Trump Tower on a Wednesday. We had our interview for a couple hours.

and by friday morning at eight o'clock they had announced the three of us uh attorney general sessions uh national security advisor mike flynn and me to be nominated to be the cia director it was uh it was an absolute whirlwind i was thrilled to get a chance to serve in this way i i knew the agency a little bit from the outside having served on the house intelligence committee

And to top it all off, my son finally had to admit I was cool because I was going to be the CIA director. Very good. If there's nothing else that was accomplished, but you did accomplish some things. But, you know, I know everything is so secretive over there and rightfully so and for good reason. But culturally, can you give us some sort of insight as to

where you wanted to take it and what you wanted to have happen there. Because, you know, my limited experience traveling the world as a member of Congress, you'd go in and you'd meet with certain people who were serving to help move our nation forward in a variety of roles. But I was always amazed that we had these like just selfless Americans who would go out there in some of the toughest places in the world and

and and serve and it really was inspirational to me yeah it was amazing so i only got to do it for 18 months but i got to meet some of the most amazing young men and women that america consistently and continues to produce whenever i hear people say oh the next generation is messed up or whatever it may be i'd point to a handful of folks that i saw just out there crushing it

doing this in the dark, doing it in clandestine space, but working so, so hard trying to solve problems for America and provide the best information, the best data, right? When the President of the United States gets briefed every day on what

on what's important and what's going on in the world. A good chunk of that comes from the intelligence community, not just the CIA, but the entire intelligence community and that work that these were people really, really focused on their mission. There are a lot of veterans there, a lot of ex-military folks working in CIA. The culture is that, it's of a mindset of mission task oriented.

And I got to see some of the amazing work, things that I had no earthly idea that the United States could do. I got a chance to see it and try and help them build it. My focus was I came in after Director Brennan. He was a very risk-averse director of the CIA. I wanted to make sure we were out doing the right thing to take responsible risks in a way so that we could continue to operate in hard places.

And that just, I think I was incredibly welcomed among most of the CIA workforce. They love the fact that I had a director that was going to have their back. Because when you take risks, things break, bad things happen. And you need to be prepared to make the case for why you did it, defend it, and make sure that if anybody takes the fall for it, it's the leader, not the person who was actually just out there executing it. I was very focused on that. And I think we improved our capability. And then my successor, Director Haspel, I think built on that as well. It was an amazing opportunity to lead that organization.

Yeah, and that also started at the top of the food chain with President Trump. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I saw that up close and personal. He really, to his core, believes in America first and that he's willing to do what it takes to defend the country. And, you know, I want to take this moment and just, you know, the world was a better, safer place through those Trump years. And I look back at those four years and I think, you know,

The aversion to war, to bringing troops home, to making sure that we had the right relationships in the right place, and then doing some amazing things with Israel and the Middle East, things that nobody ever thought was going to even be possible and happening. And Jason, you hit on it.

I got to know President Trump very well. I briefed him almost every day when I was a CIA director. I did the briefing almost every time it was given when I was in town. And I got to watch him and I got to watch how he thought about America first. And so when I became Secretary of State, when he gave me that incredible opportunity, I knew how we were approaching the world. And it was incredible.

It was restrained in the sense of we didn't want to send our young kids to go fight and take risks and get injured or worse, killed. We wanted to have diplomats deliver really good outcomes and create a powerful America that could deter conflict and keep America safe. That was the model.

uh and so we were clear there were places i didn't make very many friends jason because i was out making the case for america and the things we were we were going to demand of other countries but i think we got real respect because we spoke in pretty plain language we spoke the truth about how we were thinking about things

And I think we made every institution we were part of better. I mean, look at NATO, right? $430 billion more spent by someone other than America to make NATO stronger. It's better today than it was four years ago. In Asia, we did the same thing. We built out a set of relationships with the Australians, Indians, and Japanese. We call it the Quad. We began to build out a coalition of folks who were dedicated to this too. We were gonna do our part, but we were gonna make American security interests first, push back against the Chinese Communist Party,

And then in the Middle East, we knew we had one good friend, right? One true democracy there. And then we had other countries that very much wanted to be our partner, wanted to be our ally, wanted to be our friend as well in the Gulf. And we were determined to help them achieve that.

and push back on the Iranian regime that was killing its own people and causing terror problems all around the world. I'll never forget, Jason. One day I was with the president. I was briefing him. And about the third time I talked about far off places, Yemen and Lebanon and Syria. And every time he'd say, well, who's behind it? And the answer was Iran. And he said, oh, we got to go crush that. They seem to be the central problem there. And he knew that. He intuited that

And then when he heard the facts that supported it, he understood our mission set. And so that gave me all the space to go build out what ultimately became work that Jared Kushner and Stephen Mnuchin and I spent a lot of time on. We built out these lovely agreements where these nations finally recognize Israel's right to exist. We call them the Abraham Accords.

We changed history there. And I'm really happy that we had the right leaders, President Trump, Prime Minister Netanyahu, Mohammed bin Zayed, the leadership in Bahrain and Morocco and Sudan. This was really, really good work and will make a lot of people a lot more safe and a lot more prosperous in the years ahead. Well, you know, it's interesting. Sometimes you find yourself in a seat and you have an opportunity to do something. And

yours was at the biggest, the highest level that they're, I mean, way, way up there. Right. But there, there are nurses that are working in hospitals or first responders in a situation or teachers. I think of all of these different roles that Americans take and somehow some way, all of a sudden they find themselves in this seat and they've, they've got to perform and do things and make things happen. And, and,

I'm just proud of the work you did, what you did and how you did it. That's very kind, Jason. Well, but as you kind of reflect upon that and you look at those series of events and you were kind of trying to explain to somebody, hey, here are the core things that I did and that I believed in. How would you describe that to somebody?

So I think it starts with you have to understand that if America at home is weak, if we've got an economy that's in a mess, if we've got internal strife, our ability to keep Americans safe abroad is diminished. And so we came in after eight years where President Obama had continually apologized

apologize for America and the world when in fact, everybody I met with friend and adversary alike knew they knew we were forced for good in the world. They didn't always even our friends didn't always agree to it, but they knew we were out there. We weren't doing this to grab land or we were doing this because it was moral and right. And I think that was a trajectory that we reversed. We just said we're proud of who America is. This is an amazing nation and we're going to do good things for our people. When we do, it'll be good for you, too.

Second, we had a very rational, real politic understanding of the world that said, who's got the money? Where are the power levers? How can we actually achieve the outcome? We're not going to pretend. We're not going to wish it away. We're not going to wish that the Palestinians were going to negotiate with the Israelis. It's just not going to happen. And so how can you build peace in light of the facts as they lay on the ground? So we were very realistic about how to think about it. And then finally, we had another element to the work that we did.

And we were very concerned about religious freedom and human rights around the world. And when we put those three pillars together, right, whether that was supporting the Uyghur people, a million folks in Western China that are being brutalized by the Chinese Communist Party, or the work we did in

Myanmar on human rights. And then we had big efforts on religious freedom, helping people have the capacity to worship in the way they wanted to matter. I'm an evangelical Christian, but I wanted Muslims around the world to be able to worship as well, to exercise their conscience rights. And we put those three things together. And I think it formed a cohesive doctrine, a cohesive understanding of America's place in the world.

And I hope you talk about nurses and doctors and teachers. I hope that as history moves on and time moves on, that folks will come to see that we left America in a whole lot better place than where we found it. And I think we left the world in a better place, too. Well, I see that clearly and I'm grateful for it. And I hope that history is written accurately, because if it is,

those metrics I think are, are undeniable. And, um, but I, I worry that there, there are too many subversive factors or people out there that want to rewrite history and try to paint a picture that really wasn't there at the time. But I, I ultimately believe that the American people figure these things out and that they get us back on the course and trajectory that we should be on. But I, I cannot thank you enough. And I, I,

I don't know what the future holds for you. I know some people are out there talking about you potentially running for president, and you're probably not going to break that news on the Jason in the House podcast, but there are a lot of us that do hope that people take a serious look at Mike Pompeo if he's willing and putting his hat in the ring for that capacity. So it would be fascinating to see where your future takes you.

You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Secretary Mike Pompeo right after this. But you're not going to get out of this despite how many times you practiced that obstacle course back at West Point. You're not going to get out of this podcast without answering the rapid questions, the 12 or so that I have for you. I hope that's okay. It's just great. Let's knock it out. That sounds like fun.

All right, so I've got some tougher questions than you've ever been asked, and I hope you can get through them. But you've been the world's diplomat, so we'll see how we go. All right, ready? Ready, yes, sir. All right, high school mascot. What was your high school mascot? The Los Amigos Lobos, friendly wolves. All right, all right. First concert you ever attended? First concert I ever attended, that's a good question. Tricia Yearwood.

No, that's pretty good. That's legit. That's better than most of them that I've heard. I can tell you that. What's your favorite vegetable? Not my favorite thing to eat. Favorite vegetable. Corn and vegetable? I'll go with that.

With what? How about favorite vegetable? I eat a lot of carrots. All right. That's fair enough. Every time people, if people have listened to all my podcasts, they know I say this every time. One of the first people I interviewed was Madison Cawthorn, and his was water chestnuts. Oh, there you go. I'm still laughing about that. I'm not sure that's a vegetable. We couldn't figure it out. I'm not sure either. These are broad categories. We'll go with it. Favorite fast food restaurant?

Oh, goodness. Wichita, Kansas. Freddy's Fast Food. Freddy's Burgers. That does sound good. All right. If you could be one person, dead or alive, who would it be? If I could be one person or meet one person? Just meet one. Break bread, maybe have dinner with them. Yeah, hang out with them. Easy call. I'd love to meet Abraham Lincoln.

Wouldn't that be fascinating? I mean, what that man did in the setting that he did. From nothing. Just remarkable. In the most difficult circumstances. Yeah, so that'd be just a hootenanny.

You know, Springfield, Illinois, I went and visited the Abraham Lincoln Library, the museum there. I hope people get a chance to do that. And you know what? I think there are two little rooms that are part of that that talk about, that show how the media treated

Abraham Lincoln along the way. And if any of you that are listening to this have a chance to go there, go to that room and look at how they treated Abraham Lincoln in the day. And I just think about the Trump administration. I think about you, Mike. I think about all the things that have gone through.

Oh, my goodness. Were they harsh on him yet? History. All right. I need to I need I need to go see those rooms. That's unbelievable. You really appreciate what what Abraham Lincoln was going through even that much more. So great answer. All right. If you didn't work in politics, what do you think you'd what do you think you'd be doing right now?

Oh, goodness. You know, I love I love manufacturing. I love building stuff. I talked about wanting to be an engineer as a kid. I've never lost my love for making things. So, you know, it'd be wonderful someday to get back involved in producing stuff again. I had the chance to run those two little manufacturing companies. It was truly a joy. Yeah, it is satisfying to actually have something at the end of the day. Good for you. Favorite pet you had?

Oh, goodness. My favorite dog is my dog named Patton. Great dog. Patton. Very good. You really are all in on the military. We name all our dogs. We've got Sherman, General Mercer, Patton. You got it. You got the pattern. It's like Trey Gowdy, who I know you're so friendly with. Trey's dogs, most people don't know this, but he had three dogs at one point. Judge, Jury, and Bailiff. Nice.

Nice. Very nice. Talk about a guy committed to the law. Bailiff, get over here. Come here. Sit, Bailiff. Sit. I always thought that was so funny. All right. Pat didn't follow the rules either. Last time you dressed up for Halloween, when was it? What were you?

Oh, my goodness gracious. You know, I don't it's been way too long, Jason. I don't even know the answer that it would have been as a kid. But I was I was sports. I was sports heroes. So I remember I did Steve Garvey. I grew up in Los Angeles.

And he was the Dodgers' first baseman. Yeah. Steve Garvey, I don't know. That may not have been the last one. It's the last one I can remember. I'm trying to shake all that from my mind, Jason. No, hey, look, I'm old enough to remember Steve Garvey. But he was a great first baseman. When the Dodgers were, yeah, that's good. Who was your favorite teacher, and what did they teach you? My favorite teacher was my teacher, a woman named Mrs. Zettler.

And she was always so kind. And I was struggling. I had some eye issues. And she was just always so kind and was trying to do everything she could to make sure I got that all figured out between she and my mom. I just remember as I was struggling, she was always just there to say, that's okay, we'll figure this thing out and we'll get it right. She was a really special woman. It's amazing how I think about growing up and the various teachers I had and

It's not that they taught me one specific thing or that sort of thing, but it is sort of their attitude and approach. And I, for me, it was Mr. Kobayashi and Mr. Kobayashi there in the fifth grade. And I, I, I wish I could spend some time with him now and reminisce and thank him and,

But, yeah, there are teachers that are impactful, and then there are teachers that really make a difference. And anyway, I wish I had an opportunity to thank him for what he did and how he did it. It's not even one specific thing. So I think you're right. All right. Unique talent nobody knows about.

Goodness, I was employee of the month twice at Baskin Robbins. I was as good as the perfect scoop of ice cream. Killer good. Wow, that is quite a talent. I never took advantage of that. I got to remember that next time I'm with you. It's not much of a hidden talent, but it's mine, darn it.

Well, you know, I think next time when we're out and about, maybe we can stop in at, I don't know how many Baskin Robbins are left, but I'm going to ask if the secretary can go behind and maybe scoop it for ourselves. I think that would be good. I will knock it out. I'm sure I've lost a little talent, but I'll pick it up again, I bet. We'll have to do another podcast. Is it in the wrist? Is that the secret? I mean, we'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. Pineapple on pizza, yes or no?

Absolutely not. Judges love that answer. Good answer. All right. Just three other quick questions. What is that other thing for Mike Pompeo? So when I say other thing, it,

When you want to get out, clear your head, go out and just, you know, be who you want to be, do what you want to do. For me, I like to going out and doing wildlife photography, chasing bears and elk and moose and trying to photograph them. That's what I like. That clears my head. When you want to get out and clear your head, do something and just step away from it all. What's that other thing that you like to do?

I just so enjoy music, Jason. So I'll just find myself, lock myself up someplace and just flip through some music I haven't listened to in a long time. All kinds of things. I'm

I'm a country music fan. That's what I listen to most often during the day, but I'll go pick up old stuff, Count Basie, all kinds of different things that I don't ordinarily listen to. And I love, too, to listen to them in their original recordings, right, the original mixes, because that sound is so different than what we often get today. So I'm a bit of a music aficionado, and I can get lost in it for hours.

Good for you. You know, my son's the same way. He just loves vinyl. So he's got a turntable and an old school turntable.

record player and he just loves hunting for records that um just the way they're mixed and the sound is so different so i can i'll have to take you my i'll have to take you my acdc album to play because i haven't been able i don't have a turntable i need to get that back on he's got a good old school one that's probably even older than acdc so all right best james bond sean connery

That's the most common answer. By the way, a great story. I got nominated to be CIA director.

The very next day, get a letter from the head of MI6, and it's signed with a little green C, right, from the movies? Yeah. Like the coolest thing, right? So I take a picture, I send it to my son, and my son says, you got a letter from James Bond. And so maybe that'd be my coolest. James Bond was my MI6 counterpart. All right. That is pretty cool. Yeah. You got a letter.

That is, it would be funny to really get like you having been the director of the CIA have been the secretary of state, uh,

It's like when I go, I talk to Rob O'Neill. We talked about him earlier, you know, Navy SEAL, and he watches these movies and he just giggles like, oh my gosh, we would never do that. But it'd be fascinating to kind of have you say that doesn't happen or, oh yeah, we could do that even better than that. That would be fun. That would be fun. The perspective that you would bring to that. All right. Last question. Who's your favorite oversight and government chairman from Utah's third congressional district?

Oh, Jason, bless you. Thanks for having me on the show. You did amazing work when you were serving as well, my friend. Oh, well, thank you. I had to qualify that question because when I said who, I wasn't always winning the question when I said favorite oversight chairman. So if I qualify from Utah's third congressional district, then, you know, since I'm the only one, sort of like when I tried out for place kicking, I was the only one who tried out. He who makes the rules gets the right answer. So good for you.

That's right. Listen, Mike Pompeo, Secretary Pompeo, Director Pompeo, and who knows what other titles you'll achieve along the way, cannot thank you enough for your service to our country in the military, in the CIA, in the State Department, for the Trump administration and

Somebody with a good heart, with the smarts to go behind it, and cares and loves this country. Can't ask for more than that. So thank you for your service. And thanks for joining us today. Really do appreciate it. Thanks, Jason. Bless you. So long.

I cannot thank Mike Pompeo, Secretary Pompeo, Congressman Pompeo enough for his public service and for joining us on the Jason in the House podcast. I hope you got something out of it. He's an amazing human being. I just think he's the kind of person that we need in public office at the highest of levels. He's just a great guy. And as we close out today, I just want to give a prediction.

I don't think this is a wild prediction. I don't think this is way out there. But I really do believe that law and order, violence in America, is going to be one of the top five issues for voters and perhaps the tipping point on which direction the House and the Senate goes.

I think the Democrats have overstepped their hand. I don't think they understand the core of America. I don't think they understand that, you know, as Kamala Harris said, well, you know, they don't have Xerox machines and Kinkos in the heartland. Like, it's going to be really hard to make photocopies. I just don't think they get that.

I think they're on the record clearly on defunding the police and certainly their approach to border security and dealing with people that are here illegally, particularly the deportation of people who are here illegally committed a crime and that they didn't deport them. You know, when I was in Congress, we had hearings about this. Ron DeSantis, for instance, was very involved in this. Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan,

We were very involved in this because there were more than 60,000 instances, 60,000 times that somebody was here illegally, was ordered by a federal judge to leave. They got engaged in the legal system here. And instead of deporting them as the judge had ordered, guess what? The Obama administration just released them back out into our homeland. You can't keep doing that, being soft on crime, wanting to get rid of ICE officers.

making sure that ICE can't go after certain people, having a lax border, advocating to defund the police, trying to put prosecutors in place that don't go after these so-called petty crimes. Guess what? When you're a victim of crime, you're a victim. And why the Democrats don't advocate for victims, victims' rights, and for law and order, there probably is no bigger contrast going into the 2022 election.

That will be the tipping point. It'll be the reason that conservatives, Republicans are swept back into office and we'll see a more balanced government going forward. That's my prediction. We'll see how it plays out. 2022 is a long ways away. Well, we want to thank you for listening to the Jason in the House podcast. I need you to check those stars and give it a good rating. We'd really appreciate it. You can head over to foxnewspodcast.com if you want to find...

other similar type of podcasts. There's a lot of good ones out there. But Jason in the House, wherever you listen to podcasts, I really do appreciate you listening to the show today. We'll be back next week with more and another great interview. I'm Jason Chaffetz. This has been Jason in the House.

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