Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appeared on Breitbart News Saturday and blasted both former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, who allegedly attempted to oust former Vice President Mike Pence and take his role during the Trump administration, and former Senior National Security Advisor John Bolton for releasing sensitive policy details, in his tell-all book after leaving the administration.
In his book, Love, Pompeo wrote that he learned from then-White House chief of staff Gen. John Kelly that Haley had attempted to angle her way into the vice presidency, which would have pushed former Vice President Mike Pence aside and made her second-in-line to the Oval Office.
Haley has refuted the claims as “lies and gossip,” as Politico noted.
Former U.N. Ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley speaks during an event sponsored by Turning Point USA at Clemson University on Tuesday, November 29, 2022, in Clemson, South Carolina. (AP Photo/Meg Kinnard)
When Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle asked Pompeo about the allegation Saturday, Pompeo noted former senior adviser Kellyanne Conway “said the same thing” about Haley’s move for the vice presidency and highlighted its importance.
“Here’s why it’s important, Matt, you watched the Trump administration try to upend decades of Washington, DC, establishment policy, and you watched people get chewed up by the media, and you watched people decide to quit. They couldn’t take it,” Pompeo said.
“And so there’s people telling us all of that, ‘run away, get out before your reputation is destroyed,’ and too many people quit, and too many people weren’t on the team,” he added.
“And so the note I have in there about Ambassador Haley is less about that particular moment and more about, for a handful of us, who were there for all four years, working on American security alongside President Trump, we weren’t about to give an inch, we weren’t about to quit,” he continued. “I became enormously frustrated with those who came in, punched their ticket, and went on and did something different or those who just had other missions that were somehow about themselves and not about delivering for the United States of America.”
He added that he “intentionally ” included that story in “because it is an exemplar of people who came into the administration who weren’t focused on delivering for President Trump, who was the duly elected president of the United States.”
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Pompeo, who also served as a congressman from Kansas and Trump’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director for a time, drew a stark dichotomy with how he delivered for the 45th president.
“They didn’t understand that we could have big arguments inside; President Trump and I did. I tell a story in the book about when he told me to shut the heck up about China … but once the decision is made, you got to go deliver for the president, and you can’t be trying to undermine, you can’t be trying to be cute, you can’t try to use your power to benefit yourself, you go to do it for America. And that’s why I told that … because there were too many people who had important roles, or thought they had important roles in the administration, and then after twelve months, sixteen months, two years said, ‘No thanks, can’t take it anymore, I’m going to go on my way and stop fighting for America.’”
After focusing on Haley, Boyle asked Pompeo about his comments on Bolton, who he refers to in his book as a “scumbag loser” and “self-serving,” as Business Insider noted. He even wrote, “I hope I can one day testify at a criminal trial as a witness for the prosecution.”
John Bolton. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)
“So I’ve known John a long time. This was as disappointing for me as probably any other personal interaction,” Pompeo told Boyle. “He and I think about America largely the same way, but he had a falling out with the president, and that’s fine too, but then he decides that he’s going to write a book while President Trump is still the Commander-in-Chief of the United States of America, making my job really, really hard.”
“He writes a book telling insider stories of what happened in the White House and how President Trump thinks about America and 50 different policy positions, and then I’m out traveling the world, and these foreign leaders are saying, ‘Hey can I talk to you? If I share something with you are you going to write a book while your boss is still in charge?’” Pompeo said. “I don’t think that’s ever happened before that a senior national security adviser has written a book while his boss was still in office. And that’s just nutty. It didn’t go through the complete clearance process adequately, and he had information in there that a federal district court judge said he thought was likely classified.”
“That’s just not what senior officials are supposed to do,” added Pompeo. “We’re supposed to do the work for the American people and not decide to try and go vindicate your departure from the Trump administration with a tell-all book while that president is still in office. “
Both Haley and Bolton are considering a run for the presidency, and on Saturday, Trump stated that he had talked to Haley about her potential run, as CNN reported.
“I talked to her for a little while, I said, ‘Look, you know, go by your heart if you want to run,’” Trump said. “She’s publicly said that ‘I would never run against my president, he was a great president.’”
He added that he encouraged her to enter the race.
Pompeo is also mulling whether he would enter the race and told Boyle that he and his wife would come to a decision in the forthcoming months.
“My wife Susan and I, we’re trying to figure our way through this in the coming months, so we’re not far off,” said Pompeo. “We’ll conclude whether this is our time — whether we think this is the place to go serve America as I did as a young lieutenant and then had the privilege to do in Congress and working in the Trump administration.”
Pompeo emphasized that he is “very confident” he would back whoever ends up being the GOP nominee, noting, “We can’t have four more years of Joe Biden, or worse yet, Gavin Newsom or someone of his ilk.”
Breitbart News Saturday airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Eastern.
