Mike Pompeo speaks at Canada Strong and Free Conference – May 7, 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgVZLZumRNc
TRANSCRIP
Everybody,
everyone's wondering how I lost 100 pounds. Yeah, I was going to ask you. Exactly. I know. Believe me,
I'm in great shape. You're in great shape. Better eating, less stress. Yeah, definitely. All of the above. All of the above. Yes.
Uh, well, listen, just backstage, you had mentioned a little bit about your own connection to Canada, a romantic connection to Canada.
Uh, yeah. Yeah. So, um, I ran an oil field and gas company, and so I spent time in all the great places. I love Calgary, but Regina Medicine hat all the
all the wonderful oil patch here in Canada. But then I was also engaged and um at B at Lake Louise Hotel. So yeah,
26 years ago almost exactly. Yeah, she's still hanging around with me too. So all good reasons, but we're all grateful.
That's wonderful news.
But that means that you know a lot about our continent, our country, our potential. Um, and so let me kick this
off by asking you the the first question about what the topic that's the headline here today, North America and particularly fortress North America.
When you see the alignments that are occurring in trade relationships and the trading architecture between our two countries, what's your observations of
that today? Oh goodness. Um, well, so you know, I think when I think about, by the way, in trade negotiations in
particular, there are no angels. I I I was a part of a number of them,
including the USMCA, the the previous agreement uh between United States and Mexico and and Canada. These are hard fought uh and and sometimes for good
reason, right? There are particular things that you want to do and preserve and um all fine as a as a guy who ran as a Tea Party congressman from South
Central Kansas, no trade barriers or no no uh no no non-tariff barriers. Like,
let's all go compete. That should be the model. It's very difficult to get to.
And um and today when you see and I I hear all the noise between the United States and Canada um but it's great to be here because you all get it right you
all get that all right strong and free and that value set underpins the relationship. So you know we had Prime
Minister Trudeau during my time one of your favorite people in the world clearly.
Yes. I won't live as long but it's okay.
Prime Ministers come and go. Presidents come and go, but this relationship is is underpinned by a deep understanding. You know, I was I I was I was part of the
effort to make sure that we got it right on a security where we have NORAD, we have all the stuff that we do together on the military side. Um we we worked
hard to get uh the two Michaels Freed uh when they were being held by the Chinese government during my time.
Uh and and those th those are evergreen.
And so in spite of the noise, and I get it. I I work I worked for President Trump, so I I get it. Um, I mean, like I would wake up every morning, check my
phone, make sure I had a job, and and then go and then go and then go into the office. No, I mean, think about it. I was the 70th Secretary of State. He's
the 45th president. I know how my successor got booted. Like, okay, I get I get the joke. Um, by the way, he would always remind me, Michael, how many how many electoral votes did you get, sir?
Zero. Okay, just remember that. Like, I I got 270. Um, and so I I I I get the noise that surrounds that, but I would
just urge um I would urge everyone, but especially the relationship in the United States and Canada, just watch the through lines that have existed over
decades, and the, you know, the the relationships will end up in a really good and important place. Um, Canada is important to the United States. We are
incredibly important to Canada, and we should all work to to to round the hard points and do our level best because the real problems aren't along our border.
They're the ones that you spoke about in your opening. The the uh uh the rise of these thiefs, these authoritarians is real and threatens all of us who believe
in basic human dignity and property rights.
I appreciate that. Now, let's talk exactly right.
Let's talk about Fortress North America and that potential because in the roles that you've held, you've been able to see how great power competition is
forcing spheres of influence to be responded to. um and much of your incredible diplomacy actually helped pre precipitate the realignments that we've
needed across the western world. But when you think of our hemisphere of North America, of South America, what's your um what's your observation of
what's been happening in the last couple of years?
You know, it's interesting in South America, the I think it's the last six elections now, the governments have moved in a strong free market direction,
right? So, I'll call them centerright uh centerright governments. Um I'm counting on yours to do the same. uh here in
Canada. Uh I don't get involved in other people's politics. I've I've done enough election interference in my life. Uh
so I'm now out of the business. Uh that's a joke for any of the media in the back of the room. That's a joke. The media don't understand you.
I appreciate that. Yeah. I I I always kid that like if I watched the BBC, like I'd hate America, too.
Anyway, we have the CBC. It's Yeah, the CBC would be the same. So would So would CNN. We all have our We all have our crosses to be.
Ours is worse, I'm sure, of it. But carry on.
Uh, look, we we we we should not take for granted that as as the world changes and conflicts evolve that the importance of neighborhoods does really matter.
It's not I I'm not arguing I don't I don't believe in the the concept of spheres of influence. I I I want the Chinese Communist Party to have a sphere of influence that is exactly zero. Like
I want I want Xiinping to control the palace.
But but having said that, we we all need allies and partners and the best ones are the ones that share a common set of understandings about civilization and
those that have close geographic pro proximity and and what you're watching these conflicts, right? The way the the way these very low dollar uh very
sophisticated weapons now can truly impact um we we do need to do the hard work to protect and preserve not just our not we think of sovereignty as a
political immigration issue. Um, but it is a it is a pretty dodgy world when a terrorist group can get uh 5,000 Shahed drones, put them in the back of a truck,
and drive them somewhere inside of one of our countries. And that's going to require lots of cooperation between Canada, the United States, uh, and I
hope our partners in in Mexico and South America as well. Well, let's talk about this because I think you've put your finger on the on the issue right away,
which is Beijing. And what we've noticed particularly in the last 10 years is how they've weaponized commerce. Typically commercial relationships were left a little independent from national
security considerations. But in the globalized world we've inherited all of these decisions that Beijing makes affects our supply chains, our economic
security, the resilience of market democracies. Um here in North America,
what can we do to participate in securing those economic supply chains and uh the resilience of our economies?
Oh goodness. So of I sometimes get asked what I'm most proud of. Uh, and I seldom answer it, but I but if you really if
really pressed, um, I can I I was at the center of and President Trump did the heavy lifting, but and and so did some
of the other seniors. Um, we changed America's policy. For 40 years, our policy had been go sell more stuff into
China, they'll become more like us. And I had this debate with Dr. Kissinger um,
before he passed so many times, and he thought I was all wet. I when you disagree with Dr. Kissinger in America, that's like a bad place to be usually.
uh so much smarter than I could ever be.
But he was just he was just wrong for our time um of all. So I met with I think I met with every nasty leader in
the world. I met with the Taliban. I met with Putin. I met with Chairman Kim. I was with him for like 12 hours total.
I'll never get that time back. Um by the way, I'm the American record holder having pass Dennis Rodman who was the previous the previous record holder.
It's a fun it's a very funny story for the bar tonight. You're contemplating tattoos clearly.
Yeah. No, no tattoos yet. Exactly. The nose ring is missing as well. The uh but the only one of them that can actually
change the way we live is the Chinese Communist Party under Xiinping that can actually change the very nature of the countries that we all love so much. So
what what do you do about that? So you have these deep supply chain commercial ties. We're not going to we're not going to decouple.
Um, I just it it's neither practical nor nor do I think frankly it's in anyone's best interest. Um, if they want to make beach balls and sell them at, you know,
Walmart in America, knock yourself out.
But when it comes to anything that is remotely related to technology and security, we should be, and I would include pharmaceuticals, uh, biochem
stuff, when you start to talk about the things that really are civilizationally important, um, we should make sure that we're making them in friendly places. So
whether it's America or Canada or uh even even our friends in India, right,
partner places, South Korea, we we should have friends that have enough of that resource and capability that we never find ourselves in a place where we
did during COVID where we just didn't have stuff that we needed. Uh so that'd be step one. Step two, um I you when we talk about China, we talk about Taiwan a
lot like are they going to invade Taiwan?
Practical matter. I don't think that they will, but I'm very worried that that doesn't matter because they'll take it over through political force, right?
Through winning an election. U and so when I think about that, we have to do the hard work to use our peace through
strength model to deter them from doing that. But I'm much less worried about Taiwan than I am about Denver, Colorado,
or Los Angeles or Phoenix or Ottawa or Toronto. Um the Chinese Communist Party is hard at work inside the gates here,
right where we're sitting today. I'll bet can't see very much out there. Um,
but I will bet you that there are Chinese Communist Party affiliated people in this room today.
And by the way, they they they look like me, like they're white Italian dudes,
like right um but they're working for this mission set and they're not spies in the quintessential sense. They're in our university systems in the United
States. There is not a single university in the United States that isn't deeply tied to Chinese money. Chinese students in our country. They pay full full
student tuition and then we they come give money to our labs so that they can you know steal our stuff. They are inside the gates in ways that I think we
have just we've been very naive about this risk and what that means to us. And so we should adopt a model that is on on the inside the gates problem. We should adopt a model that's really simple.
Reciprocity.
You want to buy farmland um near Fort Riley, Kansas. we'd like to buy some land near your military facility in western China. Good luck, right? It's
not going to happen. And yet, we somehow just missed the mark here. Uh and you want to go study at a Chinese university, you can probably do that. If
you want to study like science or art or literature, but if you want to study uh hyperscaling physics,
they're not they they're smarter than that. Um and they don't let that happen.
And we all in the west have have let that happen. Uh the last thing to say is and I I alluded to this. Um this is best told by example about how deep they are
and the scale of it. When I was the secretary when I was a CI director, I learned of an espionage operation being
conducted against the United States. It was being conducted out of the Chinese consulate in Houston, Texas of all places. It was, as I best I could tell,
the largest spying operation ever conducted inside the United States that we're aware of. And we'd allowed it to go on for years because we were afraid
that if we shut it down, they would do something bad to us, right? It was this fear of escalation, if you will, diplomatic in that sense, escalation.
So, the State Department always, it was against it. The good news was I became Secretary of State. That's not a state.
So, myself and Director Ray at the FBI uh spent four and a half months putting together an operation. We closed the Chinese consulate in Houston, Texas,
which is a a great story just in how it came about. So, I invited the Chinese ambassador in. My team's like, "Oh, you can't meet with him." Like, secretaries
don't meet with ambassadors, right? I'm like, "No, no. I I got this one." Like, you you only get so much fun in life.
Told them they were spying and they had to be out in 72 hours. Within less than an hour, the entire consulate was on fire. They were burning everything
there. And within two days, we had identified hundreds of Chinese agents operating in the United States, most of
which we were unaware of. They started getting tickets to fly out. You could just see the network light up. And not not me, but the our our internal
security folks, the FBI mostly, did really remarkable work. And I remember meeting with Director Ray shortly thereafter. We were pretty proud of ourselves for having pulled this off.
And then like we took a breath like, "Oh my gosh, what do we still not know?" And I would just I would be very mindful as you are, many of you are in the business world. They are inside your companies.
They're trying to get inside your security systems. Um, this is a full-on effort to undermine Western civilization. It's not just about stealing intellectual property. It's about shaping the minds of Canadians.
And as we sit here, many of you are young, some of you have on your phone or your children and grandchildren have on your phone basically the Chinese
Communist Party messaging team and they're telling your kids things and you can't disintermediate it. and they're telling them Canada sucks and you people
are decadent and the west is in decline and if Canada's bad, America is really bad. Uh be be very mindful that they are
working very hard to shape the next generation to undermine the things that we care most about. So if you said Mike what do you do? I would start in our schools and with parents making sure
they understood this Chinese global campaign to convince us that your point was earlier that were the evil actors and we can never let that happen.
Well said. Well said.
And they obviously ally with ally themselves with voices in Canada who are also persuaded that we are the evil actors and that we need to apologize for
our history, our traditions and our contributions to the world rather than learn from them.
Let me pick up on a lot of what you just said here because I think that's relevant and germaine to what we're dealing with in Canada. Prime Minister Carney had gone to Beijing and then
Davos to deliver a speech about um essentially American rupture. He didn't say the word American, but he said rupture. The only country he mentioned
in his speech, well the the only country he meant in his speech that he mentioned in his speech was Beijing and China.
Um in the last months although in the campaign he had articulated China as a greatest threat to Canadian national security and the Canadian economy and
Canadian way of life. He has gone on a full tilt campaign to deeply partner with Beijing. He has not provided Taiwan uh air airflight access to Canada, but
he sped a deal forward for a Chinese air air company. My colleague Adam Chambers mentioned that in the House of Commons today. Interesting.
Um, decision after decision have se has seen Prime Minister Carney tilt toward Beijing and uh now more recently toward
Europe. In this era of geopolitical rivalry with China being the threat that it is with its capacity to deceive to
with its ability to commercially influence and to buy. Um, what would be your advice to Canadians about that
threat and the direction that this government is going?
Yeah. Um it's really pretty straightforward. Um this history does come back around. Um this
this effort to undermine the central thesis of what we all care about the the the western idea. Um there have been
many have tried. These folks are closer today than ever. And so you have to return to to basic principles, right?
The very reason that you all came to this conference to be part of this,
right? these ideas that we hold so dearly are antithetical to what the Chinese communist I mean they're literally they're they're completely
polar opposites and so when I see someone like Prime Minister Carney or the leadership in Spain or whatever who who would say gosh we're really mad at
Donald Trump or we're really mad because of America and then they say but and we're gonna go choose the Chinese Communist Party as
our counterparty because of that that is I try to be kind that. Hang on. I can't misguided.
I'm trying to be kind. It's Yeah, it's misguided. Thank you. It's it's it's very shortsighted because they will they will they will
sell your nation's values down the river in two seconds. Think about this just to just to put it in perspective.
In uh late 2019, early 2020, it became very
clear to the United States government that the virus that spread across the world had come from a Chinese lab. We
were it was I don't know as a CI director, you have to we had high confidence uh that that was the case. We had good evidence.
I I don't fault Xi Jinping for that. It was a lab air. I guess I fault them for not having good security at their level four bolab. Um, but it wasn't
intentional. He didn't he didn't spread this with he didn't he didn't get it out of the lab so he could go kill 10 million people and destroy economies.
But when he learned about it, he took every action that demonstrated absolute reckless negligence, gross negligence
with respect to human life. He put people on airplanes and sent them to Europe. He knew what he was doing then.
So in America, our system that'd be murder one of 10 million people and Xi Jinping hasn't lost one moment of sleep
as a result of that. And so when I when we begin to talk about these leaders sort of like, oh, we're going to hedge with China. No, you're going to get your
head handed to you and um and they will do it slowly and with a smile and you'll get a nice dinner and they'll roll out
the red carpet and they will some of you will make a lot of money from it. They will bribe you until they no longer need you. I some of you would tell me, Mike,
we own a facility in China. You own nothing. You are a squatter.
Uh and they will take it away from you the moment they think it's useful. Uh I I here you go. How many of you lawyers have actually tried a case in a Chinese court,
right? You have to laugh because there's there's no capacity to enforce basic contract and property rights. The central thesis of conservatism, right,
is that the way you build is these ideas of property right and human dignity and the fact that we work and create value for ourselves and our families. None of
that is part of their law or their culture. And so my my my my
urging to them was uh move move past the irritation and remember who the people are that share your values.
Thank you.
Uh and if you do that, you'll you'll get it right. And off. And by the way, the here's the good news on this side. That sounds a little depressing. Here's the good news. Threearters of the world's GDP sits on our side of the line today.
Maybe it's only twothirds, depends on how you count it and how you you value different currencies. But the vast majority, you put India, South Korea,
Japan, uh most of the rest of Asia, exchina, Australia, you take Europe,
most of them sit on the side that shares a fundamental belief about life in the same way we do. Um, we should make sure we're all working on uh team decency.
Team decency. Yeah. Now,
while authoritarians um have different forms of expression,
they tend to talk to each other. And you've worked in this space by dealing with them head-on. Uh Xi Jinping's China had built Russia and the Kremlin into a
gas station essentially to supply the rise of the Middle Kingdom. uh and his forays into the Middle East uh saw him
fuel and partner with uh the clerical military dictatorship in Iran. And when you see what kind of to the tune of
billions of dollars in Belt and Road initiative support, technological trade,
uh, shadow fleet, discounted energy deals, um, in the last 3 years, October 7th, as we've all been horrified with,
uh, not just unleashed war upon, uh, the Jewish people in the state of Israel,
but war upon the Jewish world well beyond. uh when you're looking at what's happening in the Middle East today and
you see what um Israel has been able to accomplish over the last two and a half years today now in the midst of this
next generation of going after the heart of the hydra beast which is uh the regime itself. Uh what do you see has
shifted in the Middle East in the last three years as it relates to China and to how Iran has been threatening its neighbors?
Yeah. So, post October 7th, the the the u if one wants to point to something and say something good came from this, and
that's hard to think about. Um it is the case that the Russians and the Iranians and the Chinese have a less significantly smaller grip on anything
in the Middle East than they've had in the last 17 or 18 years when they really began to collectively build out their um
the Russians have lost nearly every everything, right? Their puppet in in Damascus is gone. Hezbollah greatly diminished. Hamas weaker but not gone.
Uh and of course their their launching pad, both of them was Thrron. Um now in a a very difficult position. Um they
also made a strategic decision to uh fire ballistic missiles at their Muslim brothers, not just at Aluded air base or
at al-Assad in Iraq. Uh and not just frankly even at energy infrastructure.
They fired at hotels and civilians. Uh in fact in the Emirates twothirds of the attacks were at purely civilian targets.
Think residences, schools, uh mosques,
uh nothing to do with uh any uh infrastructure, energy, commerce or or military targets.
They they get the joke in ways that they knew and they're now counting on all of us not to lose the beat. Right. what they what they really worried about is
that President Trump will make a decision to say I'm halfway over the fence and I'm not going to finish the task. U and and we we we have to do
that. If we do, you will have another you'll have 30 to 50 years where Iran is contained in a way that is fundamentally
different. I don't know if the regime will change um but the regime won't have the capacity to extort in the way that it has um for the time that it built out this proxy network across the world. Uh,
and so I know there's folks that think, you know, this was a war of choice. Um,
that's just that's that's a fraudulent presentation. My my regret actually is u is that we didn't do it when I was in
the administration seven years ago. And that's not because I wanted to be credited for it. But think about this.
Seven years ago, had the United States taken this action or four years ago or 11, there wouldn't have been one Shahed drone.
There would not have been a ballistic missile as recently as 2018, 2017, 2018 with over 500 kilometers range.
Imagine had President Trump not done this where we'd be seven years from now.
You just it's it's hard. Everybody's like, "Well, you didn't have to do it on Wednesday."
Okay, that may be true, but at some point um a nuclear armed Iran with a conventional system around it that would have precluded us doing what we're doing
today in the same way that it's hard to imagine doing what we're doing on North Korea. Mhm.
Um because they have such a conventional system that can destroy soul in a handful of hours. Um this was this was not only proper but necessary. And now
the task is to build out a Middle East that has shares commercial ties. The Abraham Accords was a piece of this. Let me say congratulations on on the most
important it was a diplomatic award in the last Thank you. I I take I take a little piece of credit for it. There were so
many hands, Secretary Minutuchin, Jared Kushner. We had two great ambassadors,
David Freriedman and John Rakula who was our ambassador in the Emirates and then the three leaders Muhammad bin Zed U
Prime Minister Netanyah and President Trump. They all took risks uh to put that foundational piece in place. And by the way, Muhammad bin Salad and Saudi
Arabia while he didn't sign the accords none of this would have happened without him saying okay let's go do this and so I credit those leaders who took a lot of
risk and I think we're seeing the benefits of that today um but um it is it is a moment and the task is not
complete uh and so um I hope we'll get help from our European friends it looks pretty scarce but um always welcome you
know you're looking at um and our Canadian friends too come on let's We we're trying.
Do you um staying staying on the Middle East just a little bit further, do you think it's possible to demilitarize Hamas?
Yes.
Yeah, you can absolutely do it. And when I say that, you're not going to get every hand grenade and every rifle, but you can you can decapitate the the
regime, the Hamas leadership in a way that doesn't permit them to organize and build out any infrastructure capable of doing what they did on October 7th or
anything that approximates that. Uh it is not an easy task and it is years in the making. Uh it's not next week or
next month. They're they are not going to line up and hand their weapons over in exchange for, you know, 50 bucks. Um so this is a long process and the
Israelis will stay at it uh and continue to be deeply involved in Gaza until such time as it occurs that they're not going
to there's there's by the way this is not about Prime Minister Netanyahu. I hear people mostly from the left but some in my party saying, "Oh, the
problem is Netanyahu." There is not a prime minister of Israel who has any chance of getting elected, who would not do almost precisely what Prime Minister
Netanyahu has done to date and will continue to do. Whoever their next leader is, whatever it is, you should never predict BB losing. That's like a you'll lose a lot of money. Um,
so yeah, so it's a hard problem and that's a Hezbollah is equally difficult if not more so. But when you cut off the master in Thrron, the the pay master in
Thran, you now increase the probability that the Lebanese armed forces can take on Hezbollah and you can build out something through whatever mechanism,
the border peace or whatever mechanism you can build out something in Gaza that uh provides sufficient sovereignty and security for Israel to give them a
chance to self-govern. you have um the IRGC is failing to meet payroll and
provide bonuses uh to their brutal uh uh repression and the instruments of it. Um
they were able to pay bonuses after they killed over 40,000 Iranians back in January 8 and N. Um their energy is now
starting to uh find no home. The shadow fleet and the deals that they had made with China, the teapot refineries that have been sanctioned by the United
States are al seems to be choking the regime financially.
Unpack this for us. Yeah. Uh it is it's absolutely choking them. But you you know you've seen regimes like this in your in history. They survive an awfully
long time, right? Uh because they starve the people and feed themselves. That's what Jeremy Kim does in North Korea,
right? 27 million North Koreans, 25 and a half million of which are in destitute poverty. billion and a half of which have pretty decent life. Um, so they can
they can last a while. It's not going to happen in days or even weeks. Um, but I am mindful when I hear some talking about, "Oh my gosh, it's been a failure and well the regime will never change.
They're going to stick around forever."
Those same people said that about the Soviet Union.
And I was I was a soldier uh in Germany patrolling the East German border from 1986 until October of 1989. I was young
lieutenant. It was a great job. By the way, I if you want a good beer hall in Munich, I'm your man. And and I I I know
them all. Uh when I left, no one thought that the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse or that the East German Wall
was going to come down. And eight days later, it did. When I say no one, they at least didn't inform Lieutenant Pompeo. But I don't think the captain's
majors, colonels, or generals knew either. These things have a way of looking incredibly strong until they break because they become fragile. and
the work that's been done, not only the economic work that's been done, um, but the defense that the Iranian people saw of their military that told them, "No,
we can protect ourselves and watched all of the destruction that took place." And then, you know, they're all having dinner and the person next to him works for MSAD for goodness sake, right? Um,
they they can see that. And so, I suspect it is a lot more difficult today and a lot more fragile than the West actually perceives. Uh but it doesn't mean this is quick and easy.
Never has been.
Ne and never and never will be. Um but if we stay at it and we're determined,
uh we will we will get a lot better life for the 80 million people who live there, the 85 million folks who live in Iran. And more importantly for as an
American, the risk that an American has to go there and risk their lives 5, 10,
15, 20 years from now will decrease dramatically.
Well, you're already seeing um peace negotiations between Israel and Lebanon as a result of Hezbollah being weakened.
Uh you're seeing Iron Dome being deployed in the United Arab Emirates uh as a result of Iranian aggression.
You're seeing um an end to OPEC and perhaps the permanent disruption of GCC.
These new alignments are fascinating in the region and for the world. What does it mean for North America?
It means we should be part of that. All of us, right? Those those alignments are going to work. They're not just going to work. We think about that. We think about the Middle East as a as to your
point about as a gas station, right? As an energy supplier. They are and many many businesses have thought of them as capital suppliers as well, right? As a
result of their uh resource wealth. Um but these are really good partners for us in North America. Um they're good
trade partners. They're they can be fantastic military partners for us. They have demonstrated that when I was the CI director, they were fantastic
intelligence partners as well, by the way, as was the Canadian intelligence services. Um um I worked with two of them. They were, you should know, your intelligence services are world class.
Um they're really, really good. And they're not political. Um in the same way that the CIA is not political, they just, you know, they just do their freaking job. And uh and you should be
incredibly proud of that. And so uh so we ought we ought to go build them. And then we should we should we should encourage when you when you start to
move to the Middle East, we should encourage Asia, Central Asia in particular to connect with them as well.
And you're starting to see some of these pipelines move uh energy and u not just energy but goods across that corridor as
well. That will create a connectivity that lets Central Asia come to the west and not be so dependent in the east as they have been for the last 35 or 40
years. So, Central Asia, Ukraine, even uh going further into Europe. Uh one of the things I find fascinating about this
conflict in the Middle East is also how uh Ukrainian technologies inter and interceptors have created new relationships across the Gulf region,
which has typically been a bit agnostic about the war in Ukraine. Um that's very polite. You could be a diplomat.
I'm not very That's the first time somebody called me diplomat. I'll take you. Um what I would also say is uh Ukraine has now in the last two weeks uh undertaken bombing Russian uh ports,
Russian energy port facilities that have been supplying into uh other other parts of the world. Uh in many ways the
Ukrainians are making Russian the sanctions imposed on Russian gas and Russian oil a bit more permanent.
Uh we haven't seen anything from the White House on that in the last couple of weeks. What's your interpretation of how that's being perceived? So, it's interesting. Um,
I have been critical of President Biden's approach in Ukraine and President Trump's. Um, in my view,
neither of them did the necessary uh to battle the evil that is Vladimir Putin to give the Ukrainians the capacity to do what you're seeing them now begin to
do. A full disclosure, I'm an adviser to a company called Fireport in Ukraine. It makes an amazing cruise missile. Many of
the strikes you're referring to are a missile called the Flamingo. They build it. Um, it's really a fun name. It's It's Yeah. Yeah. Long long.
Did you play a role in that? I did not play a role in that. Uh,
what's interesting is the Biden administration would have had this would have told them to stop.
And at the very least, this White House has said, "I don't know what you're talking about." Right? Um, that is a good thing. Imagine that we told the
Israelis that they couldn't attack into Gaza. That all they could do was just use their Iron Dome to defend their own nation.
Some did. That That's what President Biden told the Ukrainians. You cannot use an American or Western tool outside of your own border. So, they can park
two tank divisions right on the border and you are not permitted to strike them. That's just nuts, right? It's it's nuts from an American perspective. Um,
right. securing the freedom for peoples of Eastern Europe is important. We all we all know the history and so um I I'm
encouraged by what the Ukrainians have been able to do. They I've been I I probably go to Kev I don't know half a dozen times a year. Um I've been a
little bit out to the east. I haven't been all the way to the front line. But when you see pictures of the front line,
nobody's going to move along that thing for a long time. Uh and that that sets the conditions for Ukraine being able to continue at least to defend that which
they have defended to date. Um, I suspect a year from now it won't be terribly different than it is today,
which it breaks my heart. It's not right. The the Russians are having about a thousand casualties a day. Uh, the Ukrainians something less than that, but
still very significant. Um, I I hope there's a path forward, but in the end,
this turns on, can we inflict enough pain on Vladimir Putin to convince him to give up the game? And to date,
neither Europe nor the United States has been prepared to provide sufficient support to permit that to happen.
In the conservative debate around the world across when it engages issues of the Middle East or issues of u this war
in Europe by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, you have um in the past and I grew up in this time because I was in
Iraq and Afghanistan in 2005 to 10. You have in the past that debate between the more values imbued conservatives and the
more interestbased conservative the more realist conservatives. It was a period of neoonservatives that had taken us into the adventures of the last wars in
the region. But today when you look at modern conservatism there is a different uh break that's happening in terms of
how to assess the facts of the Middle East and how to assess the facts of Vladimir Putin and what they're doing in Ukraine. Uh, I'm not interested in
naming names or talking about individual platform people, but more about our conservative movement and this conservative moment. It requires a sense
of, I think, both moral clarity, but also the ability to not condescend and actually persuade people who are
rightfully skeptical of foreign adventurism. How do you respond to this uh moment in conservatism where trust
has been broken over so long and now information is so disagregated you're not quite sure where the right place is to get the best information? How do you Yeah.
How do you help unify conservatives in in in thinking about confronting the rivals of our age?
So, I'll answer that, but but I do want to begin with one caveat. Some of the folks who have self-identified to say they're part of this movement, this
conservative movement, if if you go down the line and give them 20 questions,
they feel like Bernie Sanders. Um, and by so it's not just isolated to foreign policy. If you ask about their economic ideas, it's like, well, we should have a
bigger government. We should spend more money. And so be very careful about a handful of these folks who who now sit they would identify themselves as part
of the conservative movement. They're not part of any conservative movement that I've ever read about or have understood. Nor nor are they part of a
conservative movement that I that I experienced. So, while I'm in business now, I'm still hanging around the political hoop helping candidates. I
hope we do better than the world thinks we're going to do in November. Um, it'll be it'll be a slog. Um, but trying to help candidates raise money. So, but so
I I engage with citizens who are just out there making a living, taking care of their families, going to church,
doing the things we all do. Um, they want none of that. They still understand the world as a dangerous place and that evil roams it. Uh and so the vast
majority uh get that peace through strength is the right answer. You know,
I I I I would have said that I was someone who was a restrainer, but now I feel like they just outrestrained me. I I I'm pretty practical when it comes to the things that we are capable of doing,
the things that we aren't, and that we have to choose. But never that never should that choice be made by
misunderstanding the nastiness of our adversary. We can't always fix them all and we certainly can't always fix them all at any given time. But we should
never say yeah the problem it turns out is Ukraine. Now you your question gets one level deeper like how do you
confront that? So, I've spent a fair amount of time on Capitol Hill talking to my fellow uh former House members um
who were skeptical and they would always put they would have reasons. And so, the answer is not to your point about not be condescending, not diminish the things
that concern them. Um acknowledge them when they're true. Is there corruption in Ukraine? Answer, yes. Right. And so,
they would worry about corruption. They said, "Well, we don't shouldn't spend our money because they're corrupt."
Okay. What we should do is try and eliminate corruption. make sure we channel our money to the in the right way and reduce the risk that it goes to a a bad end, but the mission still remains. Um,
we we should and is there democracy still fledgling and uh complex and imperfect? Yes, I remember a fledgling democracy or at least reading about one.
I'm not that old. Um, in the United States, um, we should be driving to make that better. But when it comes to who's
challenging the things that matter most to us, we should speak with uh a clarion signal that says, "No, the United States is going to continue to stand for the
things that made us this exceptional place."
The great voters and and they get that and they're like,
"I'm with you, brother, but man, I got to here." I'll give the last piece and but this is worth the time. I'm with you, brother. But man, that's hard to go back home and tell because when I have a
town hall meeting, the people who show up are like, "Mike, how come we're spending money in Ukraine, but we didn't
fix the pothole?" This is the politician's curse. You have to explain that. And there are, I'll speak for America, there are many elected
officials who just aren't up to the task. The easiest thing to do is to tell that person, you know, that's a good point. That's a really good point. We
need to fix your pothole. Um, I think I think our citizens deserve better than that. I think they deserve a fixed
pothole and an explanation about why their grandchild will be in a much better place in the world if we also do the necessary. And and uh last thought,
if you're if you're if you if you if you if you get caught in an argument about this, you should concede the costs. The costs to the United States of America of
doing this are enormous. We spend a pile of money and we're going to spend $1.5 trillion dollar bigger than almost every
global economy on defense if we pass this budget for this next year. And I I think we will. 1.5 trillion dollars.
We've we've lost lives in this conflict in Iran. Um we lost a lot of lives in Afghanistan. And we can argue about Iraq and Afghanistan,
but but it's expensive. It's costly. Um and we should we should acknowledge those costs. But don't forget, this is a
balance sheet. And there has been no nation that has benefited as much from the postw World War II construction and
American leadership as the United States of America. And I would argue Canada sitting right alongside of it. We have benefited enormously from expending
these costs. Right? Canada was in Afghanistan alongside of us as well,
right? Um we should make sure that we count both sides of the ledger. And that's the thing I think sometimes my conservative colleagues don't get. They
just tally the cost and they tell people we're not going to do that. And they forget the fact that we live in with relative religious freedom uh and a deep
economic powerhouse precisely because we spent those resources to protect and preserve an order um that was both
morally proper and beneficial to the United States interests. I appreciate that. Kansas.
Kansas. You know a little bit about Kansas. I do. Uh Kansas is a really important state in the American conservative
heartland. Uh the birthplace of Tea Party Republican thinking, populist thinking I think in American life. Um
this Iran war, how do how do you think people in Kansas are responding to it today? If you pulled canons, it would be
very close in terms of and it would depend how you word the question, I suppose. Um but it it'd be very close.
Um, if we win, everybody will pretend they were for it the whole time. Um, and so we should win. Uh, and so the outcome
will actually matter. One of the one of the failures of some of the previous wars in the Middle East was we didn't see them through to their logical conclusion. That is, we didn't go and be
done and they lingered and we suffered and we didn't get the outcome that was proposed at the front end. Here we've got a real opportunity to do that.
Second, while Kansas would be roughly split, in the Republican party, it'd be 8515 in support of what President Trump
has done. Partly because they support President Trump, um, but largely because they can see why this matters to them as
well. And in the Democrat party, it'd be 7030 the other way. They've had an enormous amount of anti-Israel,
anti-semitism creep into the Democrat party. And while it's the minority party in the state of Kansas, there's still a significant number of Democrats and they would all say um this was a bad idea.
Partly because they think it's a bad idea and partly because they just they suffer from Trump derangement syndrome as well. We know some of those people. Yeah.
Um I was going to say something, but I'm smart. I won't. Oh, no. You should do it right now.
Nobody's watching. It's fine. It's just you and me. I'll save it.
Let me let me pick it up from this though. Um you going to run for president?
Uh, I don't know. I I I imagine the answer is probably no. Um, but uh my wife and I will pray and think about it.
Um, we were getting ready to go run in 2024. Uh, but we would have gotten crushed by Trump, too. So, so we uh we
kept our powder dry. Um, you know, it's it's an incredibly arrogant thing to say you're thinking about running for president, right? Like, no, I really
think I'm that person. Like, nobody else can be the president as good as me. Uh that is a hard thing for me to get my head around a lot of times. Um but if if
we think we can and I say we, it's my wife and I, right, who will have to ultimately make the decision. If we think we can shape the conversation in the way that we've been having this
conversation, if I think I can move our party or the country in that direction,
even if I get wiped out and lose, it would still have been a worthy effort. Appreciate that.
I'm not sure.
It's a big decision. I can't imagine what it's like. It's it's a big decision and frankly I'm not sure I'm a good enough politician to to do that to shape that conversation. Um the world needs less politicians.
Uh yeah, let me let me um if you if you don't mind, I'd love to reflect on some lessons of leadership.
Uh moral clarity under pressure. Uh many leaders face criticism often for being too rigid. Um, how has your faith and
commitment to America's founding values shaped the kind of moral clarity you believe strong leaders must demonstrate now in a polarized world?
Two thoughts. Um, so I just have been incredibly blessed.
This for me, America's given me opportunities that are just staggering.
Like I was running a machine shop in Witchah, Kansas 15 years ago. Like if you'd asked one of my lathe operators
like see that dude like he's going to be the secretary of state, they would have laughed, right? Um and yet um I got this
incredible privilege to serve and to do my best every day to try and deliver on behalf of President Trump and the country. Um that always kept me focused
no matter how much noise, no matter what the Washington Post would say, like I just got up every morning, put the helmet on, and went back at it. I I I
will say this and I think this is true in in lots of parts of life not just for senior leaders of nations but for business leaders uh for faith leaders uh
for leaders in their family it is really important that we each stay grounded.
If if you don't know who you are, if you don't have this deep understanding of who you are, you will get whipsawed and the and the system will crush you and
you will end up saying things and doing things that you would not have believed you would say or do two, five, 10 years before that. And so when I think of like
the the most important qualities when I'm looking for someone who's going to go lead something that is that matters to me, um I'm looking for someone that I
know is anchored, deeply anchored. Um, I think that often comes from faith. That happens to be my my bias. But it it can
be it can be in a understanding of nation as well. And if there if if they're just if they're just doing it because that's the flavor of the day.
The Tea Party movement is ascendance.
The MAGA movement is in ascendance. The what whatever it is, man, they will they they will they will end up going with the flow. And that's not the kind of
leaders you need in any one of the institutions that really really make a difference in our countries.
Okay. Um, leading through crisis, you've had a long tenure. Looking back on your tenure, what was the most testing moment
that revealed what what constitutes that strength to lead uh really requires and what did it teach you about decision-making under fire?
Good. You know, the uh the most difficult things that I faced um were that I had folks in the field whose lives were at risk. Uh so State
Department uh folks in embassies all across the world. We had our our embassy in Baghdad came under fire I think a hundred straight days. When I was a CA
director, we were making life and death decisions. We had folks out every night all over the world doing crazy great stuff. Um but with enormous amount of
risk uh and so um that that was that was was difficult because it wasn't me. I
was safe. I had my security team all around me. Um, and I was asking them to do things that were uh put them and their families in in a really difficult
place. That was of all the things the the the most stressful. What I what I took away from that was really what I
was talking about before in the in the following sense.
you better know who you are and then you better make sure your team knows who you are and then all the work you do if if you are if you are waiting till there's
a problem to say I'm going to go learn about this or I'm going you you show up in these jobs and it is it is come as
you are. So, whatever it was that I studied when I was a young cadet or whatever I learned about the the law of
war when I was in law school or uh whatever my dad taught me when he slapped me upside the head, what
whatever lessons I had I had built my foundational understandings of the world on were the ones that I brought to bear.
Uh and when when you're in those moments, I one of the I I write about this a little bit in the book. The very
beginning of my time, I was the brand new CI director. I I was still trying to figure my way around the building and Assad had fired chemical weapons and
President and and killed civilians and and President Trump had said, "I'm not Barack Obama. If the if Assad uses chemical weapons, we're going to
respond." Remember, President Obama had said he was going to and then didn't.
And so, um, wake up one morning and the reports all say that this happened.
President Trump asked the team to show up at the White House in the situation room, uh, later that morning, uh, midm morning. So, I spent four hours with my team back at Langley with a simple task.
I was just the CI director. I wasn't about policy. Like, are we sure these were chemical weapons?
Are we certain that Assad fired them? It wasn't a false flag operation. And are we ser sure people were killed? Right?
The three connective dots that one had to conclude at a very high level of certainty because we were about to go downtown and brief the president of the United States who was going to go do something.
And uh I brought the team in uh about six or eight people. And I started with the youngest person. It was a female.
She was fantastic about 25 year old gal.
And she was the she was the sigant person in Syria. And um she is the one who had listened to the sigant that
morning. And I said, "So what do you know?" She said, "It was him. It was chemicals and it killed people." And I
said, "Go downstairs, get in the vehicle, go into the situation room."
And at that point, I was just kind of testing her to make sure she was like not going to back up on her story later.
Um, but I took her down there. It was crazy. I've literally she and we're in the vehicle and she's like, "Her hands are shaking like this." And I'm thinking, "My hands are about to shake too, but I'm not going to let her I'm not going to let her see it." Uh,
those are the moments that you're just counting on the fact that you've you've you've got a team and you you you know enough that you can have confidence in
your own leadership ability to deliver the things that the leaders around you and the team around you needs. Uh, and if you just if you haven't done the hard
work in preparation, if you're waiting till gosh, I won't learn that until I get the job, uh, it's too late. Thank
you. In your book, you define, uh, pipe hitters, people who, uh, deliver excellence and don't avoid hard fights.
We have a room full of a lot of young people from across our conservative movement here. Uh and in our in my closing question to you uh is is your
advice for the next generation which is for rising leaders in government, in business, in politics or the military
who want to embody the kind of strength that you've held, the kind of strength you call on all of us to exhibit. What
one non-negotiable habit or mindset would you urge them to cultivate?
I've met successful lazy people, but not very many. There there is very little substitute for willingness to work your tail off. Uh and my son, if he was here,
he would roll his eyes about now. Um but but hard hard work is both virtuous in its own right and matters in everything
that you do in life. It matters as a head of household, as a as a leader in your family, uh raising your children,
as a mother. Um, it it matters in your business life. It matters in your interpersonal relationship with friends.
That that the ability to work and sacrifice and do the necessary when no one's paying any attention makes a heck of a lot of difference. It will it
doesn't mean you'll be the next CI director or the head of Canadian intelligence services. Um, but boy, it increases the chances a hell of a lot.
And so I I just I I hear people talk about like work life balance.
And by the way, sign me up for that. I you know I'm I'm love love love a good party but but but in the end um there
are there are enormous personal and family and and big payoffs to those who are willing to do the hard things and to
help others do difficult things. And so I would just say you know if you have a choice fine go have fun with friends on Friday night but on Saturday get back in
the books and do the extra thing. uh spend 30 more minutes uh at church on Sunday, wherever it is or in your
synagogue or wherever you may be. Um th those are the things that deliver an increased probability that you will be able to have a successful life as you
self-define it. I I I wish I had a a slicker answer than that.
from the front of the Cold War as it turned into the end of the Cold War uh to the
directorship of the Central Intelligence Agency to Secretary of State to forging uh peace agreements like the Abraham
Accords uh and now today to your insights on Fortress North America, the realigned Middle East, what to think of
when it comes to authoritarians and how to confront them, the DNA of our conservative movement and are uh promised the the lessons and the wisdom
that can be only shared by somebody of your tenure with uh people who are incredible like the ones in this room today. From the bottom of my heart to
the 70th Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, thank you very much for being here.
Thank you.
No comments:
Post a Comment