Earlier, Daily Kos’ Jen Hayden wrote about Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo getting backed into a corner during an interview with NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly on Morning Edition. Pompeo lost his cool after Kelly asked him to speak about the lack of support State Department officials said they felt from the Trump administration. Kelly was referring to specific statements by Pompeo’s senior adviser Michael McKinley concerning former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who was publicly slandered and undermined by the Trump administration. When Kelly pressed Pompeo to “point me toward your remarks where you have defended Marie Yovanovitch,” the interview came to an abrupt halt.
Now, further reports have surfaced that Pompeo berated Kelly after the mics were off. CNN’s Daniel Dale reports that Kelly said she was taken to Pompeo’s “private living room,” where he proceeded to shout at her for the “same amount of time as the interview itself.” He reportedly dropped an f-bomb, then asked her if she really believed “Americans care about Ukraine?” This was followed by him having a staffer bring in a map, and asking Kelly to prove to him that she knew where Ukraine was. (Spoiler: she did.)
This isn’t the first time Pompeo has freaked out when asked a question that is a touch more challenging than “What’s your favorite color?” Back in October 2019, Pompeo got pissed off at KMUV in Wichita as well as a reporter at the Wichita Eagle, calling their very serious and reasonable questions concerning disparaging statements President Trump and Vice President Pence had made about State Department personnel, “insane.” This was just two weeks after he went off on a local reporter in Nashville.
All of these Trump administration snowflakes: so emotional!
The full interview between Pompeo and Kelly has now been transcribed and posted on NPR.