Life After Trump: Mike Pompeo in Conversation

thank you hi guys good afternoon I'm Heidi heitkamp and as the IOP marks his 10th anniversary some of you may have heard I've taken over as the new director of The Institute of politics for David Axelrod I previously served on the board um of the IOP and before that my previous life did a lot of things in politics including representing North Dakota and the United States Senate and also serving as North Dakota's Tax Commissioner which is elected and North Dakota's attorney general and so I just want to tell you how grateful I am for this opportunity and how grateful I am for all of you who attend programs like this because it takes a lot of effort for the IOP to put them on and and we're we're so grateful for people like the former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who are willing to come and engage students and so today's event is a conversation between former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and IOP executive director before one of our students formally introduces Our Guest I have to do all the housekeeping stuff I want to mention a couple upcoming events at the IOP on Thursday January 19th Federal Reserve Vice chairman Leia Barnard will be in conversation with journalist Bethany McLean for a conversation about inflation and the economy that event will take place at 12 at the Harper Center at booth on Tuesday January 24th we'll host a an event featuring former Congressman Tim Ryan who recently was not successful in his campaign in Ohio to become a United States Senator and the Paulson Institute Damien ma exploring China the United States and economics and that'll take place at the Ida noise auditorium at 5 30. so I hope that you mark your calendar um so before today's moderated discussion we'll open the floor to take questions for after our moderated discussion we'll open the floor to take questions from you and the audience please remain in your seats and raise your hand there will be microphones that will be roving around the staff will be uh handing them to you and you'll be called on of course we always give first priority to our students so before we start make sure your phones are on silent and now we will hear a formal introduction of our speakers and our moderator from Kenza Bustamante a third year in the college please in welcome Kenza to the stage good afternoon and welcome to life after Trump Mike Pompeo in conversation my name is Kenzie Bustamante my hometown is Eldon Missouri and I'm a third year in the college majoring in biology and public policy I'm a staff writer for the Chicago thinker our campuses right of Center Student News publication a board member of college Republicans and an active and active in our University's students for Life chapter secretary Pompeo has led a life dedicated to Public Service born in Orange County California in 1963 he graduated first in his class at West Point United States Military Academy in 1986 and went on to serve his five years or for five years in the U.S army rising to the rank of Captain after his service secretary Pompeo graduated from Harvard Law School and worked for Williams and Conley in Washington DC before moving to Kansas to start his aircraft part manufacturing company they are Aerospace in 2006 he became president of century International and oilfield equipment manufacturer and from 2011 to 2017 he served as Kansas's fourth District representative in 2017 secretary Pompeo became the CIA director he provided critical intelligence that shaped the Trump administration's actions and policies towards Syria Iraq North Korea and China in 2018 he began his tenure as the 70th Secretary of State he prioritized religious freedom as the grounding for human rights and established the ministerial to advance religious freedom he brokered peace in the Middle East and accomplished the long promised task of relocating the U.S embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem he negotiated the Abraham Accords and thereby repair diplomatic relations between Israel the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain moderating today's discussion is IOP executive director zenat Rahman who previously served as the state department at the state department as a special advisor on global youth issues to secretaries Hillary Clinton and John Kerry she also served as director of the center for faith-based and Community initiatives at the U.S agency of inter for International Development and director of policy at Interfaith Youth Corps please join me in welcoming to the University of Chicago the only person to ever serve as both the head of the CIA and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo [Applause] thank you Kenzie and welcome secretary Pompeo to the University of Chicago We're extremely excited to have you great to be here thank you um so you were first in your class at West Point you were on the law review at Harvard when you would Harvard were at Harvard lots of important committee assignments in Congress private sector director of the CIA how did all of those experiences inform your point of view of how you governed at this at the Department of State when you were Secretary of State oh goodness first of all thank you thanks for joining me today uh see I'm not sure how to answer that uh either I sort of formed before that in some ways all those things shape me um but my my parents taught me to work hard and stay at it uh the other people that were around me other mentors in my life um helped shape me too but each of those institutions were places where I just had this incredible opportunity to learn and to grow I became I learned about small unit leadership when I was a young Lieutenant as a tank platoon leader in law school my writing became significantly better than it was before that as well each of those built and then I you know had this chance to run a couple hundred person machine shop in Wichita Kansas for years which really gave me the exposure to you know what it takes for a small business owner how it is you drive value how you build teams in the private sector and create the right incentives and how you keep customers happy we made airplane parts that was a really machine shop that served uh Boeing and Gulf Stream and Lockheed uh how you keep customers happy in the face of incredible competition as well so each of them were different shapes uh but the thing that prepared me most to be the secretary of state is that I taught fifth grade Sunday School uh for a number more about that and uh if you can keep fifth grade boys in their seat you can manage the Department of State for sure do you interview on foreign policy interventionist or isolationist you know I'll let others put the label on it but we were we were deeply focused on maintaining deterrence with a model that didn't require sending five or ten or forty thousand American Service members someplace abroad it was uh would have been inconsistent with what president Trump had campaigned on and so we had to create a model of deterrence that delivered the security and prosperity that we were tasked with delivering for America without having the uh the the marine magtap or the 82nd Airborne head off someplace and it is it is harder to do the American Military provided an enormous amount of capacity for me as Secretary of State having that at my back um but if you look at the record uh we withdrew from about fifteen thousand to twenty five hundred in Afghanistan we reduced the foot the American footprint in other parts of the Middle East as well um we when we needed to take decisive action we did that but we didn't start any new Wars you should know when I became the CI director everybody said Donald Trump's going to start World War III uh and on multiple occasions we took actions that everybody thought would start World War Three think of uh the movement of our Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and as the American Embassy everybody said if you do that I think secretary Kerry said there's no way you can create peace without solving the Palestinian problem well we did uh create four peace agreements without solving the Palestinian problem I wish we would have solved that as well so the model was one that was uh pretty different from previous presidents and previous Secretary of State regardless of party so this is not a partisan thing so the model was how do you create peace through strength with everyone acknowledging that your president isn't about to start doing what President Bush had done in Iraq or other presidents had done it wasn't it wasn't in his plan so I mean he campaigned on America First and oftentimes America First was perceived as America alone so as you met with other diplomats heads of states around the world did that hamper the work that you were trying to get done at the state department yeah no I I remember it well I mean it's just look the the media narrative was in America alone but nothing could be further from the truth about what we did we were on Ambiguously about making sure we did our task which was serving you all the American people right uh we were we were when I meet with the prime minister of Bangladesh I would remind that prime minister that they should put Bangladesh first uh right every every leader has a first responsibility to the people that put them in power or the structure that put them in power in their own country but it was anything but America alone and in this game because look we were trying to convince uh NATO countries European countries to spend more money on their own security I frankly wish we'd been more successful at that but it wasn't about what about withdrawing from NATO it was about guys you gotta you you're Germany you're a wealthy country you can't spend less than one percent of your GDP on your own security it will end badly and we can now see we can now see the impacts of them not taking this post-cold war opportunity to go reinforce their security whether in Asia we built that deep alliances we called one of them we built the quad uh secretary blinken who I think will be here next week has has built on the quad um he's taken the model that we had built out with the quad and they've now had a quad Summit to help us counter the threat from the Chinese Communist party so it was anything but America alone but we were we certainly knew there was an expectation in the world that America would lead and we wanted to make sure we did in a way that everybody did their fair share do you think you succeeded in moving people other countries to taking that more seriously I do I'm going to talk about Ukraine I have a couple more questions about diplomacy in Europe in Europe just the simple math Secretary General stoltenberg still the uh uh the uh supreme leader of NATO said that we generated roughly 480 billion dollars worth of increased investment by 20 plus European countries uh into NATO over about a five-year period so yes I think we were successful uh but they're they still NATO still under invests in its own security right and I regret that we weren't able to convince them it was in their best interest to do it because you're not you're not going to convince them to do it because America tells you to do it they're you're going to convince them because they concluded in their own National Sovereign best interest to actually do that we made some progress we did the same in Asia this week the Japanese have announced they're going to double they're about of their defensive Investments to to support the mission set that we were talking to the South Koreans the Japanese the Australians the Vietnamese all over the Philippines all of the the Australians uh so now Japan's gonna double its defense output those are all good things and I'm I'm proud actually there that we while we began it the by demonstration has followed that same trajectory and understanding you know America can do an awful lot but we've got to have partners and friends to actually deliver security for the West so the title of your book forthcoming I think next week is called never give an inch and presumably about your time at the state department and I wanted to square that idea of never give an inch with what the essence of diplomacy is which is you know compromise and meeting halfway and so how did you strike that balance yeah um and if I have a two-part question what will people learn about you in the book that they don't already know oh goodness um so I'll I'll take the first one first the title's never given answer it's a little bit tongue-in-cheek but but only a little bit uh you know my son Nick when he wanted to go to bed at 8 30 and I thought he should be in bed at eight we'd settle on 8 15 it's just fine totally fine but on the things that really matter on protecting human dignity and religious freedom and uh preserving the the rules-based consensus so that we can continue to take the next billion people out of massive Feud food insecurity on those things that really matter you just you can't round the there's no there's no rounding of the corners it is an unambiguous good that nations are more religiously free around the world is an unambiguous good that you can have property rights so that grain producers around the world can move their product on rail cars and sell under contracts best if it's dollar denominated because that will create the best lowest friction transactions there's just there's it's not like you can say well how many particles of CO2 do you want to hear there's no there's no place to compromise on those It Isn't So we were absolutely Relentless when it came to those things so that's how I Square them on on the details or the actual implementation there's lots of places one can find common ground but on the core ideas the things that have made our nation so exceptional the things that make America a place that so many people want to be and the place that nearly every nation in the world counts on for their own security and prosperity we weren't going to give an inch uh what what we learn about me in the book you'll see some great stories uh about the the work that I did for four years uh you'll see the successes you'll see the failures I talk about each of them uh the things that we should have done better or differently as well the things that we think we accomplished and you'll get to see the context you you worked at the state department you'll get to see uh behind the machine as well and then anybody who likes a good spy story uh I have some great stories for my time at CIA most of which survive the review process and actually made it into the book and there's some great stories not about me but about these young men and women who work at the Central Intelligence Agency and every day save the lives of countless Americans doing work in the darkest most difficult places in the world I want to come back to religious freedom and human rights but um first take us to Ukraine and so we are coming up on February will be I think one year of this most latest Uh Russian incursion and Ukrainian territory but if you think about it um Crimea was eight years before that so nine years um of you know Russian long game I think of trying to do this takeover of Ukraine I'm sure you spent a lot of time with Putin when you were Secretary of State I'm sure you studied him a lot where when you were a CIA director um where is his head right now and how do you think this will end goodness um there's no reason to think that Vladimir Putin has changed like in spite of the incredibly incredible strategic blunder that they're now suffering from uh he believed uh before he believed when I met him and he continues to believe today in the theory of Greater Russia if you if you ask him if you asked him today I'm confident because we had these conversations uh here's the best way to think about I'm from Kansas if you ask me is Kansas part of America I would think your question odd but I'd say yeah sure and then you'd say explain it and I'd begin to tell a story like you know the Civil War thing and it came in anyway if you asked Vladimir Putin is Ukraine part of Russia he would think this he would feel very much the same way he would feel as though like why are you asking me this this is this is obvious it's part of Russia he believes that and he believes that for greater parts of Europe as well so he he hasn't changed uh you know you spoke about Crimea I the most frequent question I get from groups is would this have happened if you all were still there and I I don't answer that question because it's unknowable if president Trump were here I know what he's saying he'd say no there's no way it would have happened um but but here's what I can say for sure it didn't happen on our watch this is factually true Vladimir Putin took a fifth of Ukraine when President Obama was in power he did not move on Europe for four years and within months of our departure he went back at his lifelong mission of restoring the Soviet Union you can argue it's coincidence I don't believe that for a second I I literally and this is important I believe he understood our model of deterrence believed that there was a space there we sanctioned people after scurple we provided we were the first Administration to provide defensive weapon systems to Ukraine when President Obama and President Biden had rejected it flatly uh he would have seen me as CI director in the southeast part of Ukraine multiple occasions training what are now the Ukrainian special operators so you all should take some level of credit for the success of the Ukrainian Special Operations as this but I think he understood the turns and I think when the administration changed and President Biden talked about a minor incursion and began to send wavering messages I think he felt like it was the what's the what's the old Southwest Airlines line he felt free to move about the cabin and it was an incredible strategic blunder but the people who are suffering most of the Ukrainian civilians today so if you were Secretary of State today you know or president what do you think the U.S role should be in Ukraine right now it's hard to put deterrence back in the box once you lose it it's very difficult to get back we we began to lose it in Iran we can talk about that and got it back it is hard work if I was a secretary of state today I would be advocating for providing every single weapon system as quickly as we possibly can to support the ukrainians and I applaud the bite Administration for continuing to do that they've been slow and late in my judgment uh for for reasons that I think just don't don't hold Merit but every day that this goes on there will be more destruction of Ukraine there will be more political disruption inside of Ukraine there'll be more Ukrainian civilians that are absconded to Russia it is time to go give the ukrainians what they need to be successful and when you do that you also hasten the day that the conflict ends I think half measures and a few new weapons here and a handful of high Mars and a couple of rockets I think those are sufficient to wear down the Russian military but not sufficient to convince Vladimir Putin that for at least a moment he needs to back off on his lifelong dream I mean I think our support has surpassed 110 billion dollars at this point I think that's the commitment I think you actually have some 19 or 20 billion dollars that have been spent and it's worth noting uh by the way this is inside of my party there are big debates this is not a partisan issue no no there are many Republicans who would disagree with what I I just said um uh the biggest chunk of that money has gone to U.S defense contractors okay creating jobs and wealth this is not why one does it but when one when the public narrative becomes one of just a bunch of large large s being squandered in Ukraine that's fundamentally not what the money has been spent on it has been spent uh providing uh mostly U.S manufactured weapon systems to help the ukrainians defend themselves do you think that case is not being made to the American people yeah uh President should be in the Oval Office at least once a month making the case about why this matters to America why does it matter to America or to Americans I could go on for an awfully a long time we can all see it still go on for a long time we can all we can all see it we can all see it in so many ways uh we haven't talked about China but I promise you Xi Jinping is watching closely what happens in Ukraine to see if the West loses heart over time uh every world leader who's thinking about attacking something that is in America's interest is watching whether we're honest and sincere about the things we said we would do so we should deliver against the set of commitments a second there's long-standing set of rules that we just we we are we are when when you have aggression in Europe it ends badly if the United States doesn't provide the tools and support and it ends badly not just for the Europeans it ends bad for America and America itself and then the third one is uh much more Market driven we can all see what what impact there have been what impact there's been on Supply chains broadly speaking Kansas farmers had a really good year in 2022 because there were very high wheat prices in 2023 they will struggle to put crops in the field because of the cost of fertilizer all of this driven by the second greatest wheat belt is not is not in the United States but rather in that territory that's being fought over in Ukraine uh there are a handful of other reasons but it it matters to every family in America that we support the ukrainians in their effort do you think those are compelling Arguments for people in your party like Marjorie Taylor green who you know advocate for not yeah our party's always had the Pat Buchanan Wing yeah right I mean this is it's a legitimate part of the conservative movement a more isolationist idea I just happen to think that's a mistake so it's not new to have Republicans saying take care of things home at first it's not new I've heard Senator Sanders say this right how many times we should take care of America at home first and I I get that sentiment I was a congressional leader I had to go home and explain why we were spending so much money on the Department of Defense I think the case for creating American Prosperity deeply depends on American leadership around the world I agree so I want to this past Sunday in Brazil we watched supporters of President bolsonaro's storm the country's Congress the presidential Palace the Supreme Court um because the rioters refused to accept bolsonaro's electoral defeat which was obviously for us many ways reminiscent of the scenes that we saw play out on January 6th um how significant do you think the events of January 6 were to embolden this International movement oh I don't think they were significant at all really oh I can't tell you how many protests there were all around long before January 6th there's a long history of people protesting and coups countries around the world you know I mean these anti-democratic are sharing what thoughts ideas these movements you you would State these movements have existed for hundreds of years trying to overthrow governments there's nothing unique or new about this uh you you could argue it followed the same pattern fair enough you could argue that some of them were being supported by that may also be true but no one needed America's January 6th to decide that they were going to try and overthrow duly elected governments we could we could in 20 minutes that we could come up with 50 of them amongst the group assembled so do you think what happened in Brazil had nothing to do with the example that we sent across the world well I hope I hope this part uh on January 6th we uh certified an election yeah and we began a transition of leadership I hope the Brazilians are able to do the same thing can you talk us through where you like what you were doing on January 6 and what you know Secretary of State I'm fascinated sure I was in Washington um we can um I'll be honest with you I I don't think that's remotely relevant to the most important things that happened during our Administration I know CNN would tell you differently and MSNBC would tell you differently I don't put that in the top 40 things but I think it was an important day for our country yeah we we got through it and were you getting calls that day from um other diplomats oh you can read about this in my book a little bit um I've talked about it before I was at the state department I literally uh if you go look at the work that we finished in the last three and a half weeks uh the January time period and the end of December time period very busy I learned about what was going on at the Capitol late that afternoon so 1 32 o'clock 2 30. flipped on the TV shortly thereafter I actually called a vice president who I had known from my time in Congress yeah a couple weeks ago yeah and so called the vice president uh I think I got 30 as Chief of Staff Mark short uh and just so you guys okay everything good anything I can do to help they said nope we think we think we've got it figured out um and uh I went back to my day there was much to do you were getting ready for transition we were full-on in transition we'd been in transition for uh six or seven weeks at that point in time but we weren't just getting ready to do Transition we made the Declaration on genocide we straightened out American policy on Taiwan we shored up our defenses in the Middle East there was still a lot of work going on even in those last 10 12 14 days and as uh your boss president Trump was alleging that the election was stolen do you believe that the election was told no okay good yeah no no okay yeah yeah all right look I I get that there's deep there's there's lots of people that want to talk about January 6 2021 and I I I understand that um I'll give you a different story about a different January 6th if you've got me two minutes a January 6 2017 I was a member of Congress from South Central Kansas uh I was also the nominee to BCI director and I was asked to come to Trump Tower for a briefing that was going to be given to the president-elect of the United States of America and in that room where director Comey of the FBI director Clapper the dni and John Brennan the then director of the CIA they briefed the president of the United States that day on a on the Steele dossier which we now know to be a complete hoax and they essentially told an incoming president of the United States that the intelligence Community believed the president United States to be a Russian asset take a deep breath about what that means if you're a former real estate guy from New York now president-elect of the United States and the intelligence services are telling you wrongly and we now knowingly wrongly telling you that you are akin to a Russian asset this is a disaster for the United States of America and it burdened our Administration for two and a half years and they knew it and it was underwritten by folks associated with the DNC and it was a Calamity for American National Security that's the January sticks that I actually think had the most impact on the United States of America because it prevented us from doing so many of the things that I think would have served this country incredibly well can we stand foreign policy for a little bit um and talk about it that's foreign policy no no I know that's deeply foreign policy when you have told the president United States he is a Russian asset because some knucklehead paid for by the DNC says that he went to Iraq to Moscow and played with hookers right this is this is the story and we we should not forget that for two and a half years on every major Network in America this was the narrative and we ultimately had a president impeached as a result of this um that that really mattered and by the way you should know I don't mean this in a partisan sense the risk is that this will happen again and I don't know who the president will be I don't know who that whether it'll be a Democrat or Republican president we have to have and we have to have Services law enforcement agencies that are actually functioning in a way that is not partisan and based on true facts not on things and stories they want to go tell so how do we do that good leadership from the top and holding those accountable you now have a fellow he may come speak here you may have uh Mr McCabe come speak here Mr McCabe was lied lied to the American people director Comey lied lied to the American people and they are still running around telling stories as if the problem set was President Trump and his actions before he took office it's just not true so I want to talk about Afghanistan you were involved in negotiating with the Taliban um and looking at the situation countless hours in the country right now particularly that women can't go to school they can't go to work how would you define the legacy of our measure of our mission in Afghanistan oh goodness it's mixed for sure uh for any of you who served in Afghanistan some of I've met countless folks who did uh bless you for what you did um as CI director I saw the work that was done uh we saved scores of American lives by our presence there in Afghanistan for 20 years and so I want to personally thank you all for the work that you did to keep us all so safe I I can't talk about the terror plots that were taken down but you should all know everyone should know there were dozens and dozens and dozens that were taken down so there it is an unambiguous good that we saved American lives as a result of our activity there um president Trump campaigned on getting out of Afghanistan and the American people wanted them out yeah President Biden campaign saying he would do the same and American people were done tired exhausted from this pick a descriptor so for uh my entire time the agency had a big footprint there and so even when I see a director uh the president was pressing to get out faster to get us get us out more quickly but we were pretty clear with him that we couldn't do it that we that we we couldn't get everyone out and so we went from fifteen thousand or so uniformed U.S military personnel to about 2500 over the four years um but the president I'd walk in the president say Mike you're not getting out fast enough and I would remind him that if we got took the last 2500 out if we took the the final stick out of the Jenga stack that bad things would happen and uh they did when President Biden made that choice right he made the choice to set a date certain and pull out and that end was devastatingly bad bad for morale in our military bad for American Security you should know our friends don't trust us as much as they did the day before that and our adversaries do not fear us as much and I'm well I cannot prove it I am convinced that Vladimir Putin's moves in Europe were at least in part his observations on how President Biden handled the departure from Afghanistan when you were working with the Taliban or speaking to not working with speaking with the talban to facilitate the peace process did they ever um did you ever consider asking president ghani to step down uh well he would think that I did but I I didn't I was incredibly frustrated with president ghani it took us to step in and finally get all the Afghans to the negotiating table this is an effort that President Obama had tried to undertake even a little bit before that just to get conversations going and we ultimately achieved it and president was against that he didn't want to do that he'd just been quote reelected end of quote uh he stole the election just more effective than his competitor uh at stealing votes uh and so he was against it he was very upset that the United States had convened with the Taliban but if you go if you go look at that meeting it was a fact it was fascinating it was probably my I don't know fourth or fifth meeting with Taliban uh senior leadership um these were tough meetings the deputy that I met with almost certainly killed a friend of mine that's hard stuff to walk into a room negotiating with someone that you think killed someone that you loved but it mattered for America to try and get that right if we were gonna wind down you had to get some kind of understanding amongst all the various Afghan entities so if you go look at that meeting uh we had every group we had the Northern Alliance there we had women's rights groups there we had human rights groups there we had everyone sitting around the table when we were we were probably in for a five-year 10-year negotiation these processes after big Wars a historic achievement would be to pull off a peace agreement in three years or five years and we were hopeful that we had begun to head down that road and but it was going to take it was going to take some American presence there to do it and uh president ghani uh wasn't up for that didn't want to participate in it and that was most unfortunate because in the end you see what happens unlike zielinski who chose to stay president ghani hops on an airplane and heads to some place to go live a very nice peaceful life while there's so many people suffering Afghanistan uh the Abraham Accords are something that you see as like a signature I think achievement of your time at Department of State um when you look at kind of this this new Israeli government do you think that they can be an effective Ally for the United States um and what do you think the future is of the Abraham Accords yeah so I know prime minister Netanyahu very well I think he's now the six-time prime minister um yeah I mean the nation of Israel will be a good partner of ours governments come for much of our time that government Israel was pretty unstable um but governments come governments go the the relationship with the United States and Israel uh will remain yeah they'll be a good partner it is um it is hard to imagine the Abraham Accords expanding when the administration is negotiating with the Iranians if you if you stare at how the Abraham Accords came to be it wasn't that we had dreamed this up and said let's go do this it evolved through our theory of the case in the Middle East which was friend and partner in Israel full-throated support for them second the Iranians are the world's largest state sponsor of Terror crush them and those two things in combination gave the gulf Arab states the Muslim states in the region the Sunni Muslim states in the region confidence sufficient that said we can now recognize Israel's right to exist and those things all came together to create the Abraham Accords and when you pull that out when you now say well no we're going to go sit and potentially give the Iranians a clear pathway to a nuclear weapon there's no Arab leader that is going to sign up for a deal with Israel that might cause the street in this country to blow up because they don't think that America will have their back So speaking of Iran and we've seen this kind of popular protest movement that's happening um after the death of Masa amini the hands of the Bradley police what do you think the U.S I mean do you think there should be regime change I think I know your answer um and how do you think we should go about that yes the regime what is the U.S government you know what's the U.S government's role yeah the the report that regime so the the regime must change I'll leave to the Iranian people the methodology and the how of to do that it's not our place but we should put an enormous amount of pressure on that regime giving the Iranian people the opportunity to to restore the great traditions in that country but so what is our role uh it is to deny wealth and resources to the Iranians to prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon and to support the Iranian people in their efforts to reconstitute a government that is not a kleptocracy and not a theocracy and not a global State sponsor of Terror intent a nuclear annihilation of Israel and United States it's pretty simple I'm laughing I'm gonna take us domestic which last week we saw Kevin McCarthy um attain the speakership after a bruising 15 rounds and you know your former boss Donald Trump is instrumental in delivering the speakership um what is this whole process as we saw it play out I know you in the Green Room said you didn't really watch it you were busy but I'm sure you've read about it since what does it say about the future of the Republican party and its ability to work in coalition the Republican party is rambunctious if I find a point in history when it wasn't I'll give you all day no it's always had we've got lots of different groups you've got Republicans from the Northeast you've got conservative Republicans from the Heartland you have Libertarians to your point you have those that have very different foreign policy views I I view this as a manifestation of that and you have just like in any government when you have a slim majority you allow those with views that are at one end or other of the political Spectrum to have uh an increase in the capacity for power think think Joe manchin's power in the Democrat Party for in the last term right most powerful Democrat on Capitol Hill wasn't the most liberal Democrat he may have been amongst the most conservative Democrats the same phenomenon takes place here so they'll be fine they'll find their way through I'm untroubled by it I'm I was untroubled by the 15 votes too uh this is it's consistent with our history in the nation wait people go they represent their district and when people of the district get tired of them they'll kick them out you said that you were going to make a decision about running for office in the spring and I know we didn't still winter we didn't deliver good weather today this is Chicago spring um where are you on that are you planning to run for office ah I don't know I I've been very kind about we're getting ready we my wife and I team getting ready uh but to make the decision to run for president United States is a both deeply personal and frankly kind of arrogant right to think that you ought to be the leader of the Free World and one really needs to be thoughtful and serious about that and not only believe that this is the moment that you should put yourself forward believe that you can actually deliver on the things that you intend to campaign on so it's one thing to campaign and tell folks you're going to do X or Y it's another thing to have a theory of the case about where America finds itself today to think you can actually deliver on those you should only promise the things that you believe you have a reasonable chance of delivering and so you need to be so we're being we're doing our best to be prayerful and patient and thoughtful as we deliberate if this is the the right moment for the pompeo's to go to Iowa and make our case sure I appreciate your you know humility and I think transparency and really you know trying to decide when you're gonna um maybe make that decision or feel called to to that um if you were to run for office what do you think what sets you apart from your former boss what sets you apart from you know fantas who's a front-runner oh goodness ah I compare myself to any of them you uh you know the the story with President Trump is I had never met him until I went to Trump Tower to be interviewed to be CIA director never crossed paths with them uh by disposition it's hard to find two people more different but we developed a working relationship that was highly functional for the American people and so I am deeply grateful for the opportunity he gave me I mean we were unique right it was a very unique Administration uh you will not I say that I'm proud of our uniqueness I ran a machine shop in Wichita Kansas you will not have another machine shop owner in Secretary of State you can write it down I don't care how young you are in your lifetime that's unlikely to happen we came from this diverse set of backgrounds and I think the policies that we delivered were pretty darn good I'm gonna go to q a in a in about a minute or so um so get your questions ready and there'll be people running with Mike Stills over there in the corner um which job did you enjoy more CIA director or Secretary of State remember I said I wouldn't answer everything yeah yeah uh very different jobs uh the the job of CI director is pretty cool uh and pretty fun and uh you have a Workforce that is amazing and uh and deeply patriotic uh and so that was that was fun you also when you travel I was joking earlier it's I mean seriously when you travel see I director the media is not with you and that is glorious [Laughter] uh the the job of secretary of state has a lot more scope and a lot more capacity to shape we we shape religious freedom around the world um I think we reshape the way America thinks about the threat from the Chinese Communist party you can't do that as a CI director you're the just the facts person okay that's a very diplomatic answer yeah yeah um you know on any given day uh I I it's much more joyous to be in your own little space there there's my answer okay still a little like um okay Joel go ahead yep oh I can go hey how you doing my name is John I currently go to the hair school public policy here at uchicago thank you very much for being here today I have a little bit of a lengthier question but um in the last weeks of the Trump Administration you guys made some decisions as you guys alluded to and one of those was designating Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism and one of the reasons was for the refusal to return asada sakur to prison in the U.S so I'm sure you're aware that in her trial which took place during a time that was not particularly kind to Black Liberation Fighters like herself she was convicted by an all-white jury and she was proven to have been anatomically unable to pull the trigger due to a severed median nerve so despite all this I'm just wondering what made you believe so strongly in asada's conviction that you listed this is one of the main reasons to be to list Cuba as only the fourth country in the world as a state sponsor of terrorism yeah I I can't answer that question because some of the information that I know I just can't share with you but I am I remain confident that our decision to make that designation was uh both constructive and appropriate for for that for for many reasons you talked about it being one of a handful of reasons we cited yes sir thanks for the question hi I am I'm curious okay hold it they should send it you should stand up um hi there Annie Henderson also from the Harris School um January 6th I think a lot of people think that a lot of things went wrong with intelligence and law enforcement I'm curious although I know it's a little bit outside of your peer review given um that it's domestic do you see January 6 as an intelligence and law enforcement failure and if so what kind of lessons should we be learning about it so that that doesn't happen again in the future that's a that's a good question um I I only know about sort of the intelligence pieces would have been domestic intelligence so I only know about that really from what I've read I don't have any true inside knowledge but it certainly looks to me like uh the FBI who would have had primary Federal responsibility for that new a fair amount about what was what was in the works probably no complete lay down but a fair amount and then yes I think it was absolutely a law enforcement failure and I hope hope will continue to figure that out those Capitol Hill Police protected me when I was a member of Congress I loved them I counted on them and that day they didn't execute they weren't able to protect the people inside of that building that is almost by definition a failure uh I don't I don't know enough to assign responsibility to know precisely what the failures were but we should absolutely be staring at not just that but but because the capital does matter it is a unique place but we should be staring at all of the things that prevented a duly empowered law enforcement agency from actually executing the defense that it needed to keep it safe think about all the other Federal facilities Courthouse Federal courthouses in places like Chicago I think there's a fundamental reevaluation needs to be done to make sure are we are we prepared to actually confront the things that are now possible given given all that we know about the threats that are facing our country from inside of the country as well Jen thank you my name is I'm also from the highest School of public policy and first of all I would like to give you a personal thank you for your support for Religious Freedom especially those from China I myself my family that I came to from China because of the persecution of following Gom uh but my questions regarding Taiwan I'd like to hear your thoughts on what would be the US best action if Chinese Communist Party decide to take a military actions against Taiwan and how would you compare that regarding the current U.S actions to the Russians Invasion to Ukraine I thank you before I answer the question what should we do with China attacks we should all be mindful the time to do the work is before that right the time to stop the Russians from invading Ukraine was before they invaded and one of my core critiques of President Biden's efforts is that in September now uh a year and a half ago almost they knew the intelligence agencies knew he was planning an invasion indeed uh director Burns went around the world telling our allies that that was the case but they failed in the core Mission so they got through the first step of the 12-step program we have a problem but didn't get to like how do you prevent the problem so when I think about Taiwan in at its Center this is the moment we should be providing all of the work that reduces the chance that Xi Jinping will decide to use military power to take over to take over Taiwan so allies Partners friends equipment that they need all of those things that one can do to create risk so Xi Jinping will think I might get in just as much hot water as Vladimir Putin did in Ukraine finally it I actually and I disagree with many of my Republican friends here I I actually think XI xingping won't invade because I don't think he believes he needs to I absolutely believe he's intent on bringing them under the mainland China communist party umbrella but I think it'll look more like Hong Kong one of one of the things that breaks my heart from my time as secretary of state is that we didn't do more to help the people of Hong Kong I uh you know I talked in my book about things we succeeded on things we failed on I put this in the in the we didn't get it done bucket I don't know that we could have ever stopped it but we could have done more to create more space more freedom more rule of law there and maybe provided more sustainable model along with the United Kingdom there we should do those same things to help the Taiwanese people create that space so that when she begins to do the kinds of things he did in Hong Kong uh take over the police use military power propaganda efforts maybe blockade and a smaller Island when he begins to to tighten down there is more resiliency there and that's those are the things we should be thinking about today to deter him oh God hi um my name is Spencer Dalton I'm a first year and undergraduate here at the University um my question concerns uh following the events of January 6 2021 there was briefly some discussion of invoking section 4 of the 25th Amendment uh as a principal officer of an executive agency at the time would you have signed on to a cabinet level effort to remove president Trump from Office under section four no yeah anything else it was it wasn't a close call you can go read my testimony before the January 6th committee if you want a a bit of a fuller explanation but if you go read section I mean what this was we're 14 days out um there's all this talk about whether secretary mnuchin I spoke about the 25th Amendment and and there's a phone call between myself and then Secretary of Labor Scalia where he called he wanted to grab a cabinet meeting um I knew what needed to be done the next 14 days to keep America safe and secure and so from my perspective it was never something that I remotely thought we had cabinet members quit right we had Captain members leave the office I never thought about resigning for a single second I I tear state like who gets to be the Secretary of State and I had a lot of work to do and so everybody thinks about January 6th I was thinking about January 20th like how am I gonna get all this important work completed and so uh for me this was not something that I ever it didn't even really remotely pass my mind it was next gen do you have someone right hi my name is Chandler James I'm a PhD candidate in the political science department I study presidential norms and I'm interested in talking to Elite actors who have been a part of that so according to the literature and newspaper Outlets president Trump broke a lot of presidential Norms how did his Norm violating Behavior affect your ability to do your job as Secretary of State and CIA uh and lead the CIA and how do you think his non-violating behavior uh affected Americans in their trust and belief in the American government tell me which Norms you're speaking to um say a lot of norms so he I think that's by the way I think that's true I think I think your predicate is right I think he did break a bunch of numbers but which ones in particular is there anything ones that come to mind that we've discussed a lot today is refusing to facilitate a peaceful transfer of power refusing to release his tax returns um attacking his political opponents uh leading chance of locker up to uh for his political enemies yeah and using government agencies to attack his political enemies well if you want to talk about government agents attacking political enemies we're living it we're living it right now so one shouldn't throw Too Many Stones when one's in a glass house um no President should use the power of the United States government to attack their political enemies for example President Obama should not have used his IRS to make sure that conservative groups couldn't get their proper 501c3 tax preparation there's a long history of this in America so when you say breaking Norms I just ask you to expand your Universe of reading and history because many presidents break lots of norms I can think about scores of norms that were broken by President Roosevelt he threatened to pack the court this is everyone wants to just focus on the last 20 minutes when in fact what's really important here and and I'll get to your very first question you said how did it impact me it impacted me an awful lot uh sometimes in good ways think about this uh one of the Norms the folks talk about is the way he communicated right he used his Twitter account I I can I can do the greatest hits the Twitter account uh the fact that he when he tweeted uh about uh North Korea he tweeted my button is bigger than your button and fire and fury yeah you all you all laugh enormously important for America's most senior diplomat because chairman Kim took note of that and knew two things one he we could bring fire and fury and our red button is bigger than his and he had a present that he didn't know right he didn't know how this person would behave and that gave me enormous capacity to actually shape our diplomacy in that place we're ultimately not successful getting his nuclear weapons out of his hands and so it kind of cuts both ways there were other days it made my job more difficult more complicated I had to go reassure allies on certain things so that's certainly the case you mentioned a couple others uh I I believe in these institutions I uh when you when you read the book I hope you will I hope you'll grab it if you don't want to pay 25 bucks for go to library and grab one uh I'm not trying to sell books here but when you go read it you will see that these institutions matter they have to be profoundly trustworthy they the senior leaders need to speak about those institutions in ways that are respectful you don't need to be inaccurate when the state department behaves poorly one should call it out when the irsbas poorly one should call it out but these institutions really matter our our Republic depends on that and when um when the American people begin to lose faith and confidence those institutions are Republicans at risk there is no doubt about I think that's really where your question was going and so I hope leaders everywhere and here I'm not just thinking about presidents and senators and congressmen I'm thinking about school board members I'm thinking about Business Leaders I'm thinking about uh rabbis in synagogues When leaders refuse to acknowledge that this is the greatest nation in the history of civilization there's some risks that someday it won't be and so we all need to be mindful of that and do our best and I fail from time to time too you can go look at a few times when I was a member of Congress when I had a bad day and I'm not proud of that but we need serious leaders in every Walk of Life from the business Community to Faith Community everywhere to recognize that we get lots of challenges here in America but there ain't nothing like this place and so we can't tear down these institutions we need to work to fix them where we can and build them and make them fit for function informed so that they are focused on their mission and not something else I hope that answers it at least we have time for at least important one more question probably yeah go ahead hi actually I'm going to ask a question my name is Kate um I'm an intern at IOP and a second year in the college um I am taking a class right now called The Secret side of international politics it's all on hidden diplomacy I'm just got a book in on cyber warfare and I know that uh under from my understanding under the Trump Administration you all sort of deployed a strategy of offensive cyber warfare I'm wondering your thoughts on that and going forward is it strategic for the US to be ahead of the game on attacking your adversaries in cyber warfare or should we focus on deterrence and security when it comes to our adversaries attacking us thank you it's a fantastic question I can only say just a little bit about that because as you said a bunch of this is in fact hidden but but it is it is this is a fair point uh we should all do everything we can to secure our infrastructure to secure our energy oh Financial infrastructure defense matters we should spend resources time uh getting defense right but in that space in cyberspace defense is incredibly hard to play though a bad guy only has to be successful once and they are hard at it and so we have a model for deterrence in the conventional World a conventional military world we have a model for deterrence in the nuclear World long-range nuclear missile world uh strategic weapon systems we do not have a highly defined deterrence model in the Cyber in cyberspace and it is I don't mean that because people haven't been thinking about it but because people a lot smarter than me on this struggle to try and figure it out it is the case that in our Administration we believe that there were effective ways that that uh that didn't create too much risk to actually use our tools to push back against known Bad actors in ways that imposed real costs on them you can call it defensive I we thought about it as counter-offensive um because when one just lets it Go and responds by issuing a dimash a statement to the country you get no deterrence we wanted to impose real costs on the primary actors that were connected to those cyber actions and so we did uh we did broaden the way we thought about using America's cyber capabilities to actually impose costs on uh on dangerous cyber actors around the world that that is certainly true and I think we need to do more of that and we need to think through the last piece I'll say is the reason there is resistance to doing that is twofold once you use one of those tools it's out there can create second order impacts the boomerang effect is real and second a lot of these are one-time use things and so once you use it you're kind of done using it and so those who have created that capability want to make sure you're only using it in the most important instances I think we can accomplish both at the same time and we should be less concerned about blowback we should instead prepare for the potential blowback and then in post costs I think we can reduce the total amount of cyber harm that comes to really it's our private sector here in the United States Secretary Pompeo you're sitting in front of an audience of young people who are interested in politics and public service what is your advice call to action in like 30 seconds because we're off past goodness there are so many ways to serve to do Public Service I I felt like when I ran a little machine shop in Wichita and employed a couple of a couple hundred people I was serving my community so I don't limit my concept of public service to just entering government having said that if you get a chance and you find a place where you think you can make a difference running for city council running for school board uh serving on a governmental commission you should take some point in your life everybody has Cycles we raise our families find some point in your life to go give back to this amazing place and you will both personally benefit from that and we the American people will benefit from that as well and so that would be my admonition um the second thing I tell folks who have the political bug is go do something productive first um I found that and it's not always the case the most productive people that I served with in Congress had been out in the world doing something they didn't they did they didn't come from being on the committee staff and then go back and work for a state senator and then they they often had a pretty government-centric view of the world and I always appreciated folks who had been out there whether they were they had been missionaries or they'd served in bit they worked in business I always found that that experience set added an awful lot to the political process and so my encouragement would be if you have the political bug and you're about to graduate you're thinking about running for office hold that thought and then if you still got it two years or three years or five years down the road then go at it with all your heart thank you thank you for your service thank you for being here today please join me and thank you all very much [Applause]

Channel: UChicago Institute of Politics

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Length: 58min 57sec (3537 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 12 2023