Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Friday he will not seek the GOP nomination for president in 2024.
“I have made a decision,” he said on Fox News’s Special Report. “[We] have prayerfully come to the conclusion we are not going to join the race in 2024. While we care deeply about America and the issues I’ve been talking about for the past year-and-half — and frankly for decades — matter an awful lot, this isn’t our moment.”
Pompeo was asked if the presence of Trump in the race mattered. “No, not at all” he lied. “It wasn’t about what this would look like. And frankly, this race, I hope, isn’t about people. I hope it’s about these ideas.”
Pompeo represented the 4th district in Kansas before being named director of the CIA in 2017 and then secretary of state in 2018. As a graduate of West Point and a successful businessman, Pompeo had a lot going for him. Pompeo cited America’s growing military weakness and the two- trillion-dollar deficit as resons why he considered running.
“These are things that I care about. We were thinking about, can we impact them? Is this the right time for us to go seek the presidency, to go try and work on this? And we just simply came to the conclusion this wasn’t this wasn’t the moment for us.”
Pompeo’s decision came after months of private deliberation with his family and public assertions that his former boss would not play a role in his decision to seek the presidency. In a Cabinet that was known for staffing drama and turnover, Pompeo gained a reputation as one of Trump’s most loyal foot soldiers. But in the Fox interview, Pompeo said that he will “see how the primary plays out” before making a decision on any endorsement, and that he might not support Trump.
“I think Americans are thirsting for people making arguments, not just tweets,” said Pompeo, when asked if he thinks anyone can beat Trump, who currently leads in polling.
In many ways, Pompeo was an old-fashioned establishment Republican, belieiving in intervention, and was a strong voice for confronting China. But he was also an able diplomat who helped craft the Abraham Accords and was able to bring many nations on board when Trump reimposed sanctions on Iran.
Pompeo played a key role in the Abraham Accords, a peace agreement between the United Arab Emirates, Israel and Bahrain, and as an evangelical Christian he frequently touted the administration’s decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. He backed Trump’s decision to pull out of the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal and the administration’s subsequent sanctions pressure campaign.
Pompeo is not without gifts and could be an asset to the Republican nominee — as an advisor, nothing more. Perhaps if Trump wins, he could name Pompeo a kind of “roving ambassador” to visit places that required an American presence.
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