President Trump says Rand Paul ‘never let me down’ despite Pompeo opposition

“I hope our colleagues will remember these qualities in the days ahead, and I hope Director Pompeo will be confirmed on the floor in short order”. Already, she says, the Trump administration is giving Kim Jong Un a boost.

On Wednesday, the committee’s ranking Democrat, Sen.

Mr. Paul, a libertarian-leaning Republican, has fretted that Mr. Pompeo will lead Mr. Trump toward a more interventionist foreign policy. Rand Paul of Kentucky, opposed — the committee may have few other options when it convenes as soon as next week.

‘His previous roles are fundamentally different from that of Secretary of State, who represents American values around the world, ‘ she said.

Heitkamp, Sen. Joe Manchin or West Virginia and Sen. All but one of the committee’s Democrats, Senator Chris Coons of DE, have said they will vote against him. In a telephone interview coordinated by the Trump administration, former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger said that a committee vote against confirmation “will wound him”.

Since Pompeo has begun on arguably the most hard diplomatic endeavor of the Trump presidency, the Senate may be hesitant to disrupt whatever progress he made.

In a Republican-controlled Senate, however, Pompeo is likely to squeak by with enough votes to get the job. “Many senators and foreign policy experts have raised concern that if Pompeo is confirmed, he would become part of a broader Trump “war cabinet” that will increase the risk of Trump starting a war with Iran, North Korea, or elsewhere”.

But other Republicans were less conciliatory, warning in a series of public messages that opposition to Pompeo would jeopardize the potential success of a U.S. Then, as things looked like they could derail, news dropped that Pompeo was sent on a secret diplomatic mission to North Korea and met with leader Kim Jong Un over Easter. Should they lose more Republicans, more Democrats would be needed to get the nomination across the finish line.

“I think Mike Pompeo is going to go down as one of the great secretary of states”, Trump said.

Pompeo, however, has proven incapable of either seeing the world though any lens but his own or embracing the power of diplomacy on the world stage. “I am legitimately undecided”, the Maine senator, who sits as an independent but caucuses with the Democrats, told CNN this morning.

In addition to Pompeo’s past defense of so-called “enhanced interrogation methods”, Democrats also took issue with his controversial statements on Islam and homosexuality.

Pompeo’s skills are precisely why the president nominated him to be the next Secretary of State-and why it’s so absurd that Democrats are reluctant to confirm him. In the hearing, the Central Intelligence Agency director walked back past comments about Iran and North Korea that critics say proved him a hard-liner. Pompeo could be the first secretary of state to not receive a positive vote out of the overseeing committee on foreign relations, which wouldn’t kill his nomination but could be a black mark on his tenure as secretary out of the gate.

Republicans countered this narrative, saying his surprise visit to Pyongyang was further evidence that the Senate needs to confirm him quickly and could put those who oppose him in a bind.