Secretary of State Mike Pompeo slammed former Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday night for making false statements about the Obama administration’s policies toward the Islamic Republic of Iran. Pompeo also called out Democrats as a whole for failing to even talk about China during their convention this week.
Fox News anchor Bret Baier asked Pompeo to respond to the following remarks from Kerry this week:
For the eight years of the Obama-Biden administration, we led by example. We eliminated the threat of an Iran with a nuclear weapon.
“That’s just false. They didn’t lead by example; they led from behind,” Pompeo said. “That was their motto. President Trump leads from the front. He’s prepared to take the courageous stands. They didn’t stop Iran from having a nuclear weapon; indeed, they provided billions and billions of dollars so that Iran could continue their nuclear enrichment program and protect themselves from attack. They put themselves on a pathway to a nuclear weapon. That’s what the deal did. We’re going to prevent that pathway from continuing.”
Next, Baier had Pompeo respond to the following remark from Kerry:
Donald Trump pretends Russia didn’t attack our elections, and now he does nothing about Russia putting a bounty on our troops.
“So, two pieces to that. First, there’s been no president tougher on Russia, whether that’s our defense buildup, whether it’s the work that we’ve done to provide weapons systems to the Ukrainian people to defend themselves,” Pompeo said. “Remember, John Kerry and Vice President Biden refused to do that. I’m confident that the Russians would rather have that policy denying the Ukrainians weapons. We’ve been tough on Russia; we’ve sanctioned hundreds of Russians for their malign activity. I think this administration takes a back seat to no one with respect to standing up for America, protecting our security, and getting it right with respect to Russia, whether that’s Russian efforts in Afghanistan or in Syria or in Ukraine.”
Lastly, Baier asked Pompeo to react to the fact that “China has not come up” during the convention this week.
“Is that, do you believe, an opening for Republicans next week on that issue, and what you’re doing?” Baier asked.
“I’ve been terribly surprised that the Democrats haven’t talked about foreign policy enough with no mentions of China, the single-greatest challenge to the United States over the next years,” Pompeo responded. “The single greatest threat to the United States comes from the Chinese Communist Party. Donald Trump called it early; he talked about it during his campaign in 2015 and again in 2016. And now for three and a half years we have imposed cost on China in a way that has protected the American people from this threat. And when they refused to acknowledge the Wuhan virus, when they said we’re going to cover this up, we’re going to allow people to travel across the world in spite of the fact that we know it presents a threat, President Trump is aiming to hold them accountable for the enormous loss of life all across the world and the trillions of dollars in economic harm that the Chinese Communist Party allowed to permeate all throughout the world.”
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