Pompeo: Congress repeatedly rejected State Department budget cuts from $70B to $45B
Mike Pompeo · Mike Pompeo: Negotiating with Tyrants, Spy Balloons (or UFOs?) & Why Trump Didn't Ban TikTok · Joe Lonsdale · Feb 22, 2023 · at 7:03
Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo discusses bureaucratic spending and budget battles with Congress with Joe Lonsdale.
0:00 / 0:13exact quote · 13.2s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“We proposed a budget, Joe, about two-thirds of the State Department budget think Forty five billion instead of seventy billion. And each year, both Republican and Democrats alike on Capitol Hill said, nope, we're going to give you a seventy billion.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Mike Pompeo
Pompeo: Federal government unions should be eliminated and workers made at-will
“There should be no government unions. It's just not, it's a non sequitur. They should have rules there where they work at will, just like every other employee, they should be terminable.”
Pompeo: John Bolton published classified details on ongoing Trump administration diplomacy
“Fair enough to tell stories after the president's gone, but I was still dealing with these leaders, and he's, John Bolton's out telling stories that I believe had classified information about ongoing decision making.”
Pompeo: Not sure I left State Department materially better
“I must say, Joe, I, 70,000 people, a thousand days. I'm not sure I left that place materially better than where I began. We did a lot, but we had to work around and through what was the most resistant, unaccountable bureaucracy, the one that I've ever been a p…”
Pompeo: State Department hiring should focus on merit, not DEI
“And so the State Department training and hiring program needs to be fundamentally redone, focused on mission, not on diversity, equity, and inclusion, but based on pure merit.”
Pompeo: Prospective military recruits seek mission execution rather than equity or climate initiatives
“When you are now saying, Hey, you know what? We're going to make sure your vehicles are all carbon neutral and we're going to guarantee you a safe space. Like that is not what a kid who's thinking about joining the military is looking for. They want to go do m…”