Former Trump administration Secretary of State and CIA Director Mike Pompeo has suggested 45th President Donald Trump, his former boss, is not a “true” conservative due to his administration’s spending.
Shannon Bream began the line of questioning by asking Pompeo whether he would be a better president than Trump when it comes to spending and the deficit.
Pompeo said his hypothetical presidency – “or any other conservative president” – will “do better than we did during the four years of the Trump administration,” or any other recent president.
Bream immediately asked Pompeo to clarify whether he was suggesting Trump is not a “true conservative leader” due to his administration’s spending.
The politician seemed to double down, replying “Six trillion dollars more in debt, that’s never the right direction for the country.”
Pompeo previously used his CPAC speech to chastise Trump for his Covid-19 era spending, describing the Trump administration as “deeply unconservative.”
“[The] Trump administration, the administration I served, added $8 trillion in new debt. This is indecent and can’t continue,” complained Pompeo. “Earning back that trust will be hard work, it won’t just be a campaign speech.”
Pompeo is a foreign policy hawk who has been vocally critical of Russia and supportive of Ukraine since he entered Congress in 2011.
Widely speculated to be plotting his own path to the White House, Pompeo switched his support from Sen. Marco Rubio to Trump late in the 2016 presidential race.
After Trump was elected, Pompeo was tapped to lead the CIA. After a short stent, Trump made Pompeo his Secretary of State. Pompeo spent the entire four years of the Trump administration working for Trump, and stayed with the administration after the events of January 6.
It was recently asserted by Rudy Giuliani that Pompeo ignored the Hunter Biden laptop when he brought it to the then-Secretary of State in 2019, alongside Fox News host Sean Hannity and Just The News founder John Solomon.
Last year, Pompeo has positioned himself as a fierce cheerleader for Ukraine.
In a 2022 speech to the neoconservative Hudson Institute, Pompeo declared that Ukraine has found its [President George] Washington” before adding, “His name is Volodymyr Zelensky.”
Pompeo urged the United States to provide unwavering and unlimited support to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, which he described as the world’s “lighthouses for liberty.”
This news and commentary by Tom Pappert originally appeared on Valiant News.
