Mike Pompeo wants to be secretary of state. But the deck is stacked against him.
One by one, Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee announced their opposition to his nomination the week of April 16. That included the two who voted to confirm him as CIA director, Virginia senator Tim Kaine and New Hampshire senator Jeanne Shaheen. By midweek, all eyes were on the remaining 13 Democratic senators who helped confirm Pompeo in January 2017.
Several had already come out in opposition, including California senator Dianne Feinstein, who is up for reelection and facing a progressive challenger. “The Secretary of State is a very different role than CIA director, and it’s not the kind of position you learn on the job,” she said in a statement. “I sense a certain disdain for diplomacy in Mike Pompeo that I believe disqualifies him from being our next senior diplomat.”
Others, though, are running for reelection in states Trump won in 2016, and political pressure can cut two ways. Republican senators Tom Cotton and Lindsey Graham both mused aloud about where Indiana senator Joe Donnelly, West Virginia senator Joe Manchin, and North Dakota senator Heidi Heitkamp stood on Pompeo. Cotton and Graham both predicted these senators would vote to confirm him—though all three had been tight-lipped in the halls of the Senate.
“I’m wide open,” said Manchin when asked about Pompeo’s nomination.
What are the factors that you’re weighing?
“I’m just wide open,” he said with a grin.
Heitkamp took a different tack, insisting to reporters midweek that she had not made up her mind on the nomination.
Pompeo faced some Republican pushback as well. Kentucky senator Rand Paul announced his opposition in March, describing the CIA director as an advocate for regime change.
Republican leaders said that Pompeo would get a floor vote regardless of whether he received a favorable recommendation from the Foreign Relations Committee on April 23.
On April 19, Heitkamp became the first Democrat to annouce her support and shifted the ground of the debate. Even with Paul opposed and Arizona senator John McCain back home receiving medical treatment, her promised “yea” meant Pompeo would have a majority so long as the other 49 Republicans all vote in his favor. But that wasn’t necessarily a given. Arizona senator Jeff Flake said he had unanswered questions, though he wouldn’t mention anything specific. “I’ll need answers before I vote yes,” he said.
Pompeo’s Democratic opponents, meanwhile, said that his “record of favoring military action over diplomacy,” as Connecticut’s Chris Murphy put it, proved that he was not fit to be the nation’s senior diplomat. His attacks on the Iran nuclear deal and his views of executive military action came up time and again during his April 12 confirmation hearing. Lawmakers also questioned Pompeo’s statements about Muslims and his view of same-sex marriage.
During the hearing, more than one Democratic senator questioned Pompeo’s willingness to stand up to the president. The CIA director is close to Trump, a relationship that developed over months of face-to-face intelligence briefings. Pompeo testified that he has “no discomfort with directness or confrontation” and has always been upfront with the president. Democratic committee members seemed less than convinced.
As if to counter Democrats’ concerns that the CIA director is “anti-diplomacy,” news of Pompeo’s secret trip to North Korea over Easter weekend leaked not long after the hearing. Arkansas’s Tom Cotton, during a call with reporters on April 18, said that the visit undercuts assertions that Pompeo is “too bellicose.” He described the meeting as the “best evidence imaginable that he is committed to diplomacy.”
The State Department remains without a leader amid major national security events, including an upcoming Iran deal-related deadline and talks with North Korea. Democrats acknowledged that concern, but stood by their objections.
“I’m concerned about it being vacant,” Kaine said before adding, “I’m concerned about what message it sends if you put somebody in with a history of sort-of anti-diplomacy rhetoric and statements, anti-Muslim statements.” Asked if he could think of someone more suitable, Kaine demurred.
“I want to make sure the right person is there,” said Connecticut’s Murphy. “If your chief concern was positions being vacant, then you would never look at the merits of candidates.”
Connecticut’s senior senator, Richard Blumenthal, announced his opposition to Pompeo on April 18. “There have to be 10 [candidates more suitable for the position],” he said, “but they probably are not more amenable to Donald Trump.” After pondering for a minute, Blumenthal named retired admiral James Stavridis as someone he admires and who might also be acceptable to the president.
Even Democrats voting against Pompeo have acknowledged his “clear record of public service,” as Maryland’s Ben Cardin put it, and that he “believes in the power of the State Department,” in Murphy’s words. That is one reason Pompeo’s supporters fumed over the opposition.
“By rejecting Pompeo as a matter of party loyalty, they’re showing that being a Democrat means refusing to let Trump govern,” said one senior Republican congressional adviser. “Full stop. There’s no other excuse.”
Cotton pinned the Democrats’ resistance on “an electoral grudge.” “Fifteen of them voted for him last year. There’s no reason why they shouldn’t vote for him again now,” Cotton said. “The only reason they’re not is because of their blind partisanship and the fact that they are still not over the results of the 2016 election.” The Democratic side of the foreign relations panel, he added, “is not representative of the Senate as a whole.”
Lindsey Graham called Democrats’ opposition to Pompeo a “low point.” “I’m very disappointed in my Democratic colleagues. Clearly, the man is highly qualified. He’s somebody a Republican president would pick,” he said. “Here’s what I can’t get about our Democratic friends: Elections matter when they win. When we win, they don’t.”
Despite the nomination’s polarizing effect, Republican leaders were optimistic even before Heitkamp’s announcement that Pompeo would get the votes he needs. “I can’t imagine, at a time when we’re negotiating in one of the most dangerous and volatile places on the face of the earth, that our Democratic colleagues would deny the president his diplomat in chief,” said Senate majority whip John Cornyn of Texas. “It would seem to be reckless, and I hope they will reconsider.”
The Senate’s number three, John Thune of South Dakota, hoped much the same. “There’s gotta be a few reasonable Democrats that actually think we need a secretary of state,” he said. “Right?”
