“People Will Hear About This,” Says Pompeo After Cursing at Reporter. Happy to Help!

Jacquelyn Martin/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

A Friday interview between NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took a contentious turn when Kelly, who anchors the All Things Considered afternoon news show, moved from questions on Iran to some harder queries on Ukraine. After the interview wrapped up, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cursed at her and asked the reporter to identify on an unmarked map the location of Ukraine. She did.

“People will hear about this,” he then said.

As always, I am happy to help: Did you hear? Secretary of State Mike Pompeo got fussy about being asked about reports his department failed to offer protection to Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch. He was sensitive when Kelly asked about the advisor who resigned from the State Department because it didn’t “offer support to Foreign Service employees caught up in the impeachment inquiry on Ukraine.” He was mad because he thought they were there to only talk about Iran.

His request for Kelly to place a finger on the map did not go well. I wonder why?

I will be playing this game to prepare for future fits from leaders of our nation.

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate