A Trump Cabinet secretary might find himself on a primary debate stage with the president under whom he served.
Mike Pompeo, who was secretary of state in the administration of President Donald Trump, revealed he’s considering a 2024 presidential campaign during a visit to the United Kingdom this month.
“Oh, goodness, we’ll make that decision after November, sometime this year,” Pompeo told The Times of London during a trip that also included a Q-and-A with the Policy Exchange think tank on July 4.
“I say ‘we,’ Susan and me, we’ll make this decision wholly independent of who else decides to get in the race or who doesn’t,” he said, referring to his wife.
Pompeo’s remarks suggested a willingness to run for president even if Trump announces a comeback bid for the White House, as many expect.
“And if we conclude it’s the right place for us to be and we think that this is the right time for us to go serve, we’ll go at it and we’ll go make the case as best we can,” he said.
“And then we’ll see what the good people of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina think,” the former secretary of state said in a nod to the earliest primary states.
He visited Iowa last year.
Should Pompeo run?
Pompeo tried to walk the line when speaking about the 2020 election, endorsing Trump’s legal fight against alleged voter fraud while also speaking positively of Vice President Mike Pence’s refusal to reject the Electoral College slate.
“It was appropriate to litigate it as the president did,” he told the Times. “The vice president then ultimately made the right decision to certify the election.”
Pompeo, who graduated first in his class from West Point in 1986, served as CIA director before becoming Trump’s secretary of state in April 2018.
Before that, he represented Kansas as a Republican member of Congress.
Pompeo surprised some observers with a dramatic weight loss after leaving the State Department.
Huge shoutout to @mikepompeo for all the weight loss in the last year. Awesome to see people getting healthy ?? pic.twitter.com/nyOEDse5gV
— Caleb Hull (@CalebJHull) January 4, 2022
2024 GOP primary polling consistently shows Trump with a considerable lead over his competition.
Pompeo has been included in some early primary polling, but his support pales in comparison with some other Trump alternatives, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Some polls even show Trump with an outright majority of support, which would all but guarantee the former president the nomination.
Junior was asked if Mike Pompeo strongly opposing Trump in the PA Senate race is a sign he will run against him in 2024: “He’s a smart enough guy to probably know he shouldn’t or wouldn’t run against Donald Trump.”
(I did not speed this up) pic.twitter.com/WUvsmXoyHS— Ron Filipkowski ?? (@RonFilipkowski) May 13, 2022
Trump supporters have dismissed Pompeo’s chances in a presidential campaign against his old boss, with Donald Trump Jr. describing the former secretary of state as “a smart enough guy to probably know he shouldn’t or wouldn’t run against Donald Trump.”
