We've got the Mike Pompeo, the former Secretary of State,
former CIA director, Fox News contributor joining us now.
Always enjoy having him on as much for his service
to this country.
It's just the fact that at least an Italian American,
we like to see that continue.
Secretary, great to see you.
Let me ask you a little bit about this No
Labels thing.
I know you like to skew politics,
all of that, but but
obviously the entrant of 1/3 Canada or third candidate team,
if you will, complicates the picture here.
But Joe Lieberman says it's on and they are going
to get all the state ballots,
even if they don't have candidates yet for those state
ballots.
But what do you make of it?
Well, look, in the end,
the political party system we've had for a long time
has put every,
every president in office for decades.
I I suspect this won't be any different.
One of the reasons I suspect they're having trouble getting
folks to step forward is because it's it's not likely
to be a successful outcome at either at either getting
the presidency or frankly reshaping how Americans are thinking about
the political process.
And so you know in the end it's a Yep,
yet you can't win with nothing,
Neil. You got to have a candidate.
They sounds like they don't have one yet and I
suspect
it will be President Trump or President Biden that is
ultimately elected.
There's more focus this time than even there was back
in 2016 when Donald Trump first ran and won for
the presidency on who he picks to be with him.
Your name does come up.
Are are you interested in that
When you look it's flattering that my name comes up
that they had a chance to serve for four years
and and didn't completely blow it.
So people still think hey it might be possible he'd
get he'd get another he'd get another swing.
You know I I don't often comment on jobs I've
not been offered.
But Neil, you, you know me long enough to know
that if I get a chance to serve and think
that I can make a difference,
I'm almost I'm almost certainly going to say yes to
that opportunity to try and deliver on behalf of the
American people.
Do you think it would be different in a second
Trump administration that is,
you know, returning to the Oval Office,
recruiting people he had at at some time some difficulty
with early picks for Secretary of State,
defense, etcetera. You know that far better than I.
And that he might be scaring off people who would
otherwise be honored to be part of the White House
senior staff and Cabinet.
You know, Neil, there were,
there were folks who didn't want to serve in the
last Trump administration,
too, or folks who came in and then punched their
ticket in and went on and and left pretty quickly.
I I'm confident that when President Trump is ultimately successful
and is back in the White House in January,
that he will be able to field an incredibly capable
group of people who are patriots working to deliver on
the things he promised the American people he would deliver
on the border, on national security,
to get the economy backtracking.
I'm confident he'll find a good group of men and
women who will want to serve in that way.
You know, he demands what we're told,
intense loyalty, that the one reason why he thinks he
had some of the
mistakes that he had in some hires was that they
were not loyal.
What do you make of that?
Oh, goodness. You know, I think every administration wants to
have people that are delivering against what they said they
would do.
So call it what you might call it loyalty,
Call it mission focus. That's how I thought about it.
I was laser focused every day on whether I was
at CIA or State Department trying to say what,
What is it? The president told the American people,
we do what? What's the ask and how do we
execute that?
How do you actually implement that as a practitioner,
not a not someone who's not giving speeches or pontificating
in a classroom?
We we had to actually get it done.
I'm confident President Trump will be looking for people who
will faithfully execute what it is he asked them to
do.
I think as a president you should always want that
from everyone.
I must say, as Secretary of State,
I certainly wanted my team to do what I was
asking them to do and was enormously frustrated when I
found that I couldn't get him to do that.
Your take on the the the
Donald Trump has raised some eyebrows,
particularly in Europe, with his criticism,
in NATO, in those countries that don't pay up.
It might have been exaggeration,
but even offered in one speech for Russia to go
ahead and invade that country that doesn't keep a minimum
of 2%
for defense.
What do you make of that and and and whether
a Trump administration if it were to return would even
be loyal to NATO.
You know Neil, I think the best predictor of future
performance is kind of a financial idea right?
Is past performance. It's not always indicative but often tells
you a lot about at least the ideas that will
animate how someone investor in the case of a president
how they'll deliver. And I look at what we did
for those four years.
We made a lot of European countries uncomfortable and as
a result of that they did the right thing what
they should have done without being made uncomfortable.
I think Secretary General Stoltenberg,
the, the General Secretary of NATO still to this day
would say that some $400 billion flowed into
NATO's defense operations because of what President Trump and our
team did.
I have every expectation that the fact that,
you know, it was the
Javelin missiles that the Trump administration provided to Ukraine that
actually saved Kiev in the moment.
I'm confident that the next Trump administration will do the
right thing for America and NATO will be a central
part of that.
And I hope the Europeans will take up their responsibility
and do it well and do it right.
I think President Trump will ask for that too.
Do you think he'll be as keen on being supportive
of Ukraine?
You know, what we always had in mind was make
sure we get it right for America,
right. They've got short handed as America first.
When when we, when we did that.
Well, when we did the things that matter to America.
It was often the case that while we,
we didn't send a lot of American troops to far
off places to risk their lives.
We often found the American power tool right.
The the capacity to deliver American economic power,
the capacity to get trade rules right,
those those things were really good for these countries.
And I'm confident that the things that we did for
Ukraine in those four years would continue under Trump administration
in the second term as well.
Secretary, always good seeing you.
Thank you very much.