President Trump spontaneously criticized State Department employees in front of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Friday at a White House coronavirus press briefing.
During the question-and-answer session of the press conference, Trump interrupted a reporter to admonish the State Department, referring to the institution as “the deep state department.”
“One thing, Secretary of State Pompeo is extremely busy, so if you have any question for him right now, could you do that?” said Trump. “I’d like him to go back to the State Department or as they call it, ‘the deep state department.”
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Trump then turned to Pompeo and said, “You know, Mike?” with a grin before Pompeo smirked and nodded his head.
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, standing nearby, appeared to be caught off guard by the remark, wiping his brow in response.
At the height of Trump’s impeachment investigation in December, former New York City mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani said he believed “deep-state” actors working in the State Department were attempting to take down the president.
“They want to get him out of office,” said Giuliani. “Any way they can. How you can miss that this is a coup attempt is beyond being intelligent.”
In May 2018, Pompeo dismissed concerns about an alleged “deep state,” but Trump has spent much of his first term attempting to identify people working against his administration. In February, he reportedly directed an aide to purge the “bad people” and “deep state.”
