Mike Pompeo Goes Postal on NPR Reporter

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Now here’s a story. NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly interviewed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo yesterday. After asking a bunch of questions about Iran, she switched subjects to Ukraine. Pompeo got pissed off even though his staff had agreed that Ukraine could be part of the interview. Kelly asked Pompeo if he thought he owed an apology to Marie Yovanovitch, the ambassador to Ukraine who was fired last year for not being helpful enough with President Trump’s scheme to extort an investigation of Hunter Biden. Pompeo was not happy with the question. Kelly persisted: Should he have defended Yovanovitch? Pompeo said he defended everyone at the State Department. Kelly asked if he could point to remarks where he had defended Yovanovitch. Pompeo abruptly cut off the interview and stalked off.

But wait! There’s more:


Pompeo took out a map and asked Kelly to point to Ukraine! With F-bombs! What a dick. But today there’s even yet more:

So Pompeo accused Kelly of lying twice: first in breaking an agreement to confine the interview to Iran, and second in breaking an agreement to allow Pompeo to have his temper tantrum off the record. Then he implies that Kelly pointed to Bangladesh and thought it was Ukraine.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Pompeo is the one lying about all this stuff. Kelly set up her interview properly. She was asked to leave behind her recording equipment for Pompeo’s tirade, but not told it was off the record. And she knows perfectly well where Ukraine is.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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