Pompeo Attacks NPR Reporter

From this article:

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo launched into a profanity-laced rant against an NPR reporter after an interview, the news organization says, apparently frustrated by questions he had been asked about Ukraine and former U.S. ambassador Marie Yovanovitch.

During an interview with NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly that aired Friday, Pompeo refused to say whether he owed an apology to Yovanovitch, whose firing has featured prominently in President Trump’s impeachment inquiry. An aide ended the interview after Kelly pressed Pompeo for a response.

Kelly recounted what happened next in a report that accompanied her interview. She said a staffer brought her to Pompeo’s private sitting room, where he was waiting for her. Even though she was not allowed to bring her recording equipment into the room, she said there was no request that she keep the exchange off the record, and she would not have agreed to a conversation if it was off the record.

“He shouted at me for about the same amount of time as the interview itself had lasted,” Kelly reported.

“He asked me, ‘Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?’ ” she continued. “He used the f-word in that sentence and many others. He asked if I could find Ukraine on a map. I said yes; he called out for his aides to bring him a map of the world with no writing, no countries marked. I pointed to Ukraine; he put the map away. He said, ‘People will hear about this.’ ”

Holy cats, you’re goddamn right people will hear about this. In fact, there are two core reactions that most Americans are having to this:

The first is a good belly-laugh at what a moron the Secretary of State is. Challenging Mary Louise Kelly, one of the nation’s top news journalists, to identify Ukraine on a globe? Is he going to challenge Neil deGrasse Tyson to identify Mars on a map of our solar system? What a fool.

More importantly, one has to be angry that an ostensible “public servant” is furious that he’s being asked about some major point of public policy. Mike, sweetheart, that’s your job. You work for us.

Btw, it’s this latter point that defines the cesspool that is the current administration. This is not a monarchy; this is a democratic republic, which means, last I checked, a “thing of the people.” It’s the only that separates us from North Korea.

marcopolo says:

January 26, 2020 at 12:54 am

Craig,

Where do you get off writing a gratuitously offensive abuse laden observation about the alleged behavior of the US Secretary of State?

The only basis of your tirade is no better information than a second hand version of an alleged conversion between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and a notoriously anti-Trump NPR reporter.

Did you bother to verify the allegation? Did you perform any form of diligence? Were you present during the interview?

The trouble with being permanently “outraged” and a parrot for anti-Trump propagandists is their lies and distortions become your lies and distortions once you stop thinking for yourself and conducting your own research.

If they fail and are proven less than truthful, it damages your credibility even more, as it becomes obvious you would believe anything as long as it suits your prejudices.

Pompeo Attacks NPR Reporter

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