Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, apparently angered by a reporter’s questions in regards to the Trump administration’s firing of the USA ambassador
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, apparently angered by a reporter’s questions in regards to the Trump administration’s firing of the USA ambassador to Ukraine, lashed out at her after the interview, cursing and difficult her to seek out Ukraine on a map, based on the reporter.
Mr. Pompeo, who is thought for his bombast, occasional skinny pores and skin and contentious relationship with many within the State Division press corps, had declined to say throughout the interview whether or not he owed an apology to the ambassador, Marie L. Yovanovitch.
“I’ve defended each single individual on this group,” Mr. Pompeo stated in the interview with the reporter, Mary Louise Kelly of NPR, which was recorded Friday morning. “I’ve carried out what’s proper for each single individual on this group.”
Requested whether or not he might level to particular remarks through which he defended Ms. Yovanovitch, Mr. Pompeo stated: “I’ve stated all I’m going to say as we speak. Thanks. Thanks for the repeated alternative to take action. I respect that.”
Quickly after that, Ms. Kelly stated, an aide to Mr. Pompeo ended the roughly nine-minute interview, and Mr. Pompeo glared at her and left the room — hardly an uncommon response in hurly-burly Washington.
However in a broadcast in a while NPR, Ms. Kelly described what occurred subsequent.
She stated the aide who had stopped the interview reappeared and requested her to return together with her, with no recorder. Ms. Kelly stated she was taken to Mr. Pompeo’s personal lounge, the place he was ready, and “the place he shouted at me for about the identical period of time because the interview itself had lasted.”
“He was not pleased to have been questioned about Ukraine,” Ms. Kelly stated on NPR. “He requested, ‘Do you suppose Individuals care about Ukraine?’ He used the f-word in that sentence, and lots of others.”
Mr. Pompeo requested Ms. Kelly if she might discover Ukraine on a map, and Ms. Kelly, whose reporting has taken her all over the world — to Russia, North Korea and different nations — stated, “Sure.”
“He referred to as out for his aides to carry him a map of the world with no writing, no nations marked,” Ms. Kelly stated. “I pointed to Ukraine. He put the map away. He stated, ‘Individuals will hear about this.’”
Ms. Kelly stated that when Mr. Pompeo’s aide had summoned her to the room, the aide by no means requested that the assembly with Mr. Pompeo be stored off the file — nor would she have agreed to such an association.
Ms. Kelly additionally stated she advised the State Division afterward that she deliberate to report on Mr. Pompeo’s tirade, and had not heard again.
The State Division didn’t reply to a request for touch upon Friday. A spokeswoman for NPR stated Ms. Kelly, a co-host of “All Issues Thought-about,” was not obtainable for additional remark.
On NPR, Ms. Kelly stated she had confirmed with the secretary’s aides earlier than the interview that she deliberate to ask him about Iran and Ukraine, so the subject was not a shock. However Mr. Pompeo nonetheless bristled at Ms. Kelly’s questions on Ms. Yovanovitch.
“I simply don’t have the rest to say about that this morning,” he stated at one level.
Ms. Yovanovitch was abruptly recalled from Ukraine final Could and has grow to be a key determine within the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump after she testified final 12 months that she was the goal of a smear marketing campaign by the president’s private lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani and two of his associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman. The 2 have since been indicted in a scheme to violate marketing campaign finance legal guidelines.
Ms. Yovanovitch testified final 12 months that she felt “threatened” by Mr. Trump after it emerged that he advised the Ukrainian president she would “undergo some issues.” Mr. Trump has additionally disparaged Ms. Yovanovitch, a embellished 33-year veteran diplomat, on Twitter.
David E. Sanger contributed reporting.