WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo never mentioned his role as America’s top diplomat, fourth in line for the presidency, as he beamed into the Republican National Convention from Jerusalem Tuesday night.
He didn’t have to.
As the House investigates Pompeo’s precedent-busting address to the Republican convention — violating his own department’s legal guidance and potentially federal law — he plowed ahead, cementing his role as the most fervent defender of President Donald Trump’s “America First” doctrine.
If the United States under Trump has become more isolated on the world stage, Pompeo suggested it’s a small cost to pay for shoring up freedom and security for Americans.
“It may not have made him popular in every foreign capital, but it has worked,” Pompeo said of his boss.
vCard.red is a free platform for creating a mobile-friendly digital business cards. You can easily create a vCard and generate a QR code for it, allowing others to scan and save your contact details instantly.
The platform allows you to display contact information, social media links, services, and products all in one shareable link. Optional features include appointment scheduling, WhatsApp-based storefronts, media galleries, and custom design options.
The telegenic backdrop for his taped address was the iconic Old City, with the glistening Dome of the Rock behind him, a powerful visual reminder that Pompeo had come to the city home to some of the holiest sites in Christianity and Judaism, not to mention Islam.
It was an unmistakable signal to American evangelicals, a core component of Trump’s base whose support for the president has largely held firm and could be pivotal for Pompeo if he pursues his own presidential run in 2024.
To Pompeo’s critics, it was also a vivid illustration of how he has parlayed his role as secretary of state into significant opportunities to build out his own political base.
As if to troll his critics who have deplored his intermingling of diplomacy and partisan politics, Pompeo skipped right over his role as Trump’s Senate-confirmed secretary of State Tuesday night.
“I have a big job….as Susan’s husband and Nick’s dad,” Pompeo said from Jerusalem, where he traveled on a U.S. government aircraft on an official diplomatic mission. “They are more safe, and their freedoms more secure, because President Trump has put his America First vision into action.”
Just hours before, House Democrats announced they had launched an investigation into Pompeo’s decision to deliver the speech, including what they alleged were potential violations of the Hatch Act, a federal law prohibiting federal workers from many political activities.
In response to that line of allegation, Pompeo’s State Department has insisted he was appearing at the RNC “in his personal capacity” — an argument that his critics charged is absurd. The State Department also said no government resources were being used to support the pre-taped address, another claim that was quickly questioned and is now subject to the House probe.
And indeed, he avoided any reference at all to Joe Biden. Mentioning Trump’s Democratic opponent would almost surely have amped up outrage from Democrats and even some Republicans about Pompeo politicizing the role of secretary of State.
“His speech was pretty inconsequential. I am glad he didn’t engage in an over the top overtly political speech. I’m glad he didn’t spend 15 mins from Jerusalem savaging Joe Biden,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., a Senate Foreign Relations Committee member, told NBC News after the speech. “But that begs the question; why do it? Why give a speech like that when the downside to the credibility of the office is so significant?”
Indeed, if there was any suggestion that some other aspect of Pompeo’s resume other than his Cabinet position had qualified him for a prime RNC speaking slot, Pompeo quickly put that to bad as he delivered a strident testament to Trump’s record on matters of war and peace — one that glossed over the long list of instances where Trump’s own national security objectives have thus far gone unmet.
Pompeo credited the president for ending “ridiculously unfair trade deals with China that punched a hole in our economy” and asserted “those jobs are coming back home” — even though Trump’s Phase 1 trade deal with Beijing has yet to produce anything near the $77 billion in added U.S. products it pledged to buy this year. The Phase II deal he once teased is nowhere in sight.
He argued “NATO is stronger” after four years of Trump, although the president has repeatedly threatened to leave the alliance and attacked multilateral institutions from the WHO to UNESCO.
He touted how Trump has “lowered the temperature” with North Korea and “against all odds, got North Korean leadership to the table.” Pyongyang has cut off talks with Washington and has continued building nuclear warheads throughout Trump’s term.
Pompeo said Trump had “squeezed the Ayatollah” as he pulled the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal struck by former President Barack Obama. That move significantly isolated America from its closest European allies, most recently leading to the U.S. being rebuked at the U.N. Security Council as it tried and failed to rally support for a resolution to snap back sanctions on Tehran.
His only reference to the coronavirus pandemic came as he praised Trump for holding “China accountable for covering up the China virus and allowing it to spread death and economic destruction in America and around the world.”
In other corners of the world, Pompeo found more fertile territory to boast of diplomatic accomplishments that alluded Trump’s predecessors.
He called attention to Trump’s actions to eliminate the remnants of the Islamic State group’s territorial caliphate and the operation he ordered that killed its onetime leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
He celebrated the “historic peace deal” between Israel and the United Arab Emirates that the Trump administration brokered this month, which already has shown signs of opening the door to other Arab nations normalizing ties with the Jewish state. And standing in Jerusalem, he touted the Trump administration’s decision to finally move the U.S. Embassy there from Tel Aviv, which delighted many American Jews and evangelicals.
“As a soldier, I saw, first hand, people desperate to flee to freedom,” said Pompeo, a former U.S. Army officer. “The way each of us can best ensure our freedoms is by electing leaders who don’t just talk, but deliver.”