Mike Pompeo, who served as secretary of state under former President Donald Trump, said Sunday on Fox News that his ex-boss isn’t a true conservative. (Watch the video below.)
Pompeo, who is weighing a bid for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination against Trump, was asked by Shannon Bream on “Fox News Sunday”: “Would a President Pompeo do a better job managing the deficit and debt than a President Trump did?”
Replied Pompeo: “I think a President Pompeo or any conservative president will do better than not only we did during the four years in the Trump administration, Barack Obama, George Bush. The list is long, Shannon, of folks who come to Washington on one theory and aren’t prepared to stand up and explain to the American people how we’re actually going to get that right. ... It’s going to take a true conservative leader, Shannon.”
An intrigued Bream pressed: “Are you saying that former President Trump wasn’t a true conservative leader?”
Pompeo, who took veiled swipes at Trump’s reliance on celebrity and “identity politics” without naming him at last week’s Conservative Political Action Committee conference, didn’t flinch in response.
“$6 trillion more in debt,” Pompeo answered. “That’s never the right direction for the country, Shannon.”
The federal debt rose by almost $8 trillion in the Trump administration, according to ProPublica and The Washington Post. (The national debt climbed to the legal borrowing limit of $31.4 trillion in January, putting Democrats and Republicans at odds over raising the ceiling.)
While Trump and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley are among the prominent names who have officially declared their candidacies for the Republican nomination, Pompeo and others, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former Vice President Mike Pence, continue de-facto campaigning.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the national debt reached $31.4 billion instead of $31.4 trillion.
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