Mike Pompeo receives ‘rock star’ reception at CPAC in possible 2024 campaign preview
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took the stage to blaring guitars and a standing ovation from thousands of conservative activists Friday for a speech that could be a preview of a future presidential candidacy.
Pompeo was one of several Trump administration figures to address the American Conservative Union’s annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland, an essential stop for Republicans with White House aspirations since the days of Ronald Reagan.
While it is not unusual for cabinet secretaries to address the conference, it is rare for a sitting secretary of state to speak. The appearance of the Wichita Republican, who passed up a run for retiring Republican Sen. Pat Roberts’ Senate seat in Kansas, is likely to fuel a fresh round of speculation about his future .
Pompeo told the crowd that in his role as secretary of state he’s spent time negotiating with people who have American blood on their hands and that he’s hugged by children in every corner of the world.
“And they know that America with President Trump means business and they know that America is a force for good,” Pompeo said.
“I can assure that wherever I go, working for President Trump, people tug on my sleeve. They want to meet me. They want to meet not because I’m Mike from Kansas but because I represent the greatest country in the history of civilization,” Pompeo said, prompting chants of, “USA! USA!”
Before Pompeo took the stage his wife, Susan Pompeo, provided a sentimental introduction, starting with his military experience through his first congressional run and ascent to Trump’s administration, but also sprinkling in lesser-known factoids about Pompeo’s family life., including his meatball-making skills.
“Our whole family teases him about being a diplomat and I think it’s because they see him as more of a DOD [Department of Defense] guy, a tank commander,” she said, noting earlier that Pompeo’s favorite job was being a soldier in Germany near the end of the Cold War.
In his speech, Pompeo touted Trump’s decision to launch the airstrike that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani last month, a move he said that administration’s critics warned would set off World War III but had “actually made our world much safer.”
He rattled off a list of terrorist leaders killed since Trump took office. “Can we all agree that the world is a better place because these people are gone?” he said to uproarious applause.
It was a line that resonated with Evy Stieglitz, 34, the president of the New York chapter of Young Jewish Conservatives.
“Everyone in the audience stood up. That’s what it is to be a proud American. That’s peace through strength,” she said.
“He’s like a rock star. He’s rock solid,” said Stieglitz, who said Pompeo should consider a presidential run.
Before attending CPAC, Pompeo testified on Iran and Iraq policy at the House Foreign Affairs Committee – a hearing first called two months ago in response to Soleimani’s killing.
It was a testy two-hour affair with Democratic lawmakers, who repeatedly questioned why the secretary had given them so little time to explain the targeted U.S. strike before rushing off to a political event.
In his opening remarks at the hearing, the secretary referred to Iran as “the world’s largest state sponsor of antisemitism” over its pledges to wipe Israel off the map – a common theme from Pompeo as he increasingly focuses his attention on pro-Israel policies popular with the Republican political base.
In suburban Maryland hours later, Pompeo told the CPAC crowd that he spent the morning meeting with House members who considered Trump’s foreign policy a failure. They are also the same critics, he said, who doubted the administration’s ability to defeat ISIS in the Middle East and who opposed moving the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
On Monday, Pompeo plans to address the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual conference. While he is not the first secretary of state to do so, he will be the first to promote a plan for a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that endorses Israeli annexation of significant territory in the West Bank, where Palestinians hope to found a sovereign state.
It is a plan popular with Republican megadonors, including Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, who attended the White House announcement ceremony for the administration’s “peace vision” in January.
One month before, Pompeo reached out to the Adelsons – the party’s largest donors – to “gauge support” for a potential run for Senate in Kansas this year, three sources told McClatchy at the time.
While Pompeo has repeatedly said he’s ruled out a Senate run, Trump has not necessarily ruled out asking Pompeo to jump in the race, according to White House sources.
Trump “likes winners, and doesn’t like losers,” said one White House official, asked whether the president had confidence in the ability of former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the GOP’s unsuccessful 2018 nominee for governor, to win statewide if he were the Republican nominee.
The official said that Trump sees no benefit in endorsing either Rep. Roger Marshall or Kobach at this stage, and noted that, with name I.D. as strong as Pompeo’s, he could still enter the race as late as the June 1 filing deadline if necessary to prevent a competitive election there.
Trump has never walked back his comments to Fox News in the fall of last year, when he said that Pompeo should run if the party believed the Republican seat were imperiled. The president remains keenly interested in the race, receiving updates and internal polling figures on a regular basis, aides say.
But Pompeo’s conversations with donors, his focus on foreign policy matters popular with the party base, and his speeches to groups like CPAC and AIPAC might reflect ambitions greater than a Kansas Senate seat – such as the Republican nomination for the presidency in 2024.
Eleven days before Pompeo’s CPAC speech, the State Department posted a President’s Day trivia question on Twitter about the first secretary of state to be elected president, Thomas Jefferson. The State Department also used Twitter to promote Pompeo’s speech Friday.
Other figures from the Trump administration widely expected to pursue runs for president in 2024, Vice President Mike Pence and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, addressed the conference earlier in the week.
Another Midwestern Republican who might also run for president, Sen. Josh Hawley, addressed the conference Friday morning.
The Missouri Republican shared the stage with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-California, and Donald Trump, Jr., for a discussion about the tech industry, which the president’s oldest son called a top issue for conservatives.
This story was originally published February 28, 2020 at 3:42 PM.
