Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reportedly yelled at a reporter when she asked about former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.
NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly conducted an interview with the Cabinet member on Friday morning that abruptly ended after she turned her questions to Yovanovitch, according to the outlet.
She began by asking about current relations with Iran in the aftermath of the strike that killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani and the retaliatory strike that injured more than 30 U.S. service members before pivoting to ask whether Pompeo owed Yovanovitch an apology.
Pompeo declined to answer the question several times, and he grew more irate when Kelly said that there are “people who work for you in your department … saying you should stand up for the diplomats who work” in the State Department. He pushed back by implying that those claims were made by anonymous sources, but Kelly brought up the resignation of Michael McKinley, a career foreign service officer with four decades of experience, who felt like the department no longer backed foreign service employees.
The secretary said he has “defended every single person on this team” and that he has “done right for every single person on this team,” according to a recording of the interview.
Kelly claimed that the interview ended moments later and that Pompeo “leaned in and silent glared at Kelly for several seconds before leaving the room.”
Following Pompeo’s departure from the interview room, an aide asked Kelly to follow her into Pompeo’s personal quarters at the department without a tape recorder. There was no apparent agreement that what would be said was off the record, despite her not having a recording device with her.
Pompeo proceeded to shout and curse at Kelly, asking her if the public cared about Ukraine and noted that “people will hear about this.”
He released a statement on Saturday morning and said the conversation was supposed to be off the record. “It is shameful that this reporter chose to violate the basic rules of journalism and decency,” it reads. “This is another example of how unhinged the media has become in its quest to hurt President Trump and this Administration. It is no wonder that the American people distrust many in the media when they so consistently demonstrate their agenda and their absence of integrity.”
