By Kristina Wong Jan 9, 2021 | Original here.
Secretary of State Michael Pompeo delivered a message to former Trump administration officials walking away from President Donald Trump, during a meeting with top Republican lawmakers and senior congressional staffers on Friday evening, Breitbart News learned exclusively.
he said in remarks.
"I am proud of what we’ve accomplished — not just in the national security, foreign policy space, which I’ve worked with, but the things that we’ve done with families, the pro-life work that we have done. These are things that will truly be historic. I think history will remember us very well for these things when the books are written"
Pompeo’s remarks were made at the end of a private day-long meeting by the Republican Study Committee, the largest conservative caucus within the House chaired by Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN). Lawmakers and aides discussed the conservative moment and where it goes next.
Pompeo’s message was a stark contrast to that from Trump’s former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, who told Republican National Committee members during a closed door speech on Thursday that Trump “will be judged harshly by history.”
It was also a stark contrast to two Trump cabinet secretaries who have resigned in recent days — Betsy DeVos and Elaine Chao — after thousands of the president’s supporters protested at the Capitol and some entered and engaged in violence or vandalism. Pompeo said what happened was tragic but that those walking away from the president were “not listening to the American people.”
Pompeo said:
"While I think we all think the violence that took place in the place where you all work in the Capitol was tragic, I’ve watched people walk away from this president already. And they are not listening to the American people. We watched eight years of the foreign policy of the previous administration that was fantasy. Fantasy. They would enter into agreements and arrangements that weren’t based on anything with the potential to be lasting, and if America First in foreign policy means anything, it means being realistic."
Pompeo also discussed the administration’s foreign policy successes, and contrasted it with eight years under the Obama administration:
"It means this deep recognition that our sole responsibility is to protect the American people. When we do that, I am very confident we will increase security for people all around the world, we will raise others up as well. But our mission set, everyday, is to say, ‘How do we make sure that everything we do secures freedom for America?’ and it’s gotten us to walk away from a whole bunch of things. We’ve walked away from the World Health Organization. We walked away from the UN Human Rights Commission. We walked away from some of the central understandings of the World Trade Organization.
Each of these things was detrimental to the American people, their prosperity, their security. We were right to do that. It’s a sensibility that I think 75 million people still understand and understood in November of this year. They haven’t stopped understanding, I promise you that."
He said on the threat from China, “We not only got it right, and frankly, I think there is some bipartisan basis, I hope, that we can continue to get this right.”
Pompeo also noted that despite the Trump administration being criticized for hurting alliances around the world, it worked successfully to build an “enormous coalition” with the Indians, Australians, Japanese, the South Koreans, in some parts of Europe, to counter China. He touted that 120 international telecommunications companies that have forsworn any Chinese technology in their system.
In the Middle East, Pompeo said the Trump administration worked to realistically meet the challenges there.
He said while it would have been “delightful” to solve the problem between Israel and the Palestinians it was not likely to happen and they “ought not wait to deal with other countries in the region to get them to accept Israel as a nation they wanted to be a party with, and not throw Molotov cocktails at.”
He added that they also acknowledged “facts on the ground” in Israel, such as moving to recognize Israeli settlements in Golan Heights and Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. “President Trump did it, and he did this in the face of enormous stated risk,” he said.
In the Western hemisphere, he said, “We did really good work.”
“I spent more time on Western hemisphere issues than any secretary of state in about 60 years. So whether it was the work we did with our Brazilian friends, the effort we made to oust Maduro — which have not yet been successful, the policy we chose with respect to the regime in Cuba, each of these made America safer,” he said.
He also touted the relationship the U.S. built with Mexico. “We ultimately got the Mexicans to do really good work to acknowledge it was reasonable for them to secure their own border in a way that protected the United States from illegal immigration as well.”
Pompeo’s remarks also come as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has been trying to pressure Vice President Mike Pence and cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Trump from the presidency.
Amid reports that some of Trump’s cabinet members were discussing doing so, Pompeo tweeted out a photo of himself, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, and White House National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien in a sign that he was not abandoning the president under Democratic pressure.
Honored to work alongside @DNI_Ratcliffe and @WHNSC Robert O’Brien. Great patriots who work every day to make America and the world safer and more prosperous. pic.twitter.com/xkE154Vn2b
— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) January 8, 2021