Video News Clips: In Their Own Words

Mike Pompeo Reveals Whether He’ll Support Republican Nominee

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Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday he would support “whoever” is running against President Joe Biden in the 2024 general election.

“Special Report” anchor Bret Baier asked Pompeo if he would refuse to support former President Donald Trump if he were the nominee. Trump currently leads Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida in the Real Clear Politics average of polls taken from July 12 to August 6, 54.2% to 15.9%, a margin of 38.3 points, with businessman Vivek Ramaswamy in third place with 6.1%.

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“No, I said pretty clearly I’m going to support the Republican nominee against this president for the reasons we were just talking about: The Iran policy, their failed efforts to protect the Americans when they withdrew from Afghanistan,” Pompeo told Baier. “Another Biden administration would be tragic. I’ll support whoever it is from the Republican Party that’s running against President Biden.”

Pompeo criticized the Biden administration over an agreement to release at least $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds in exchange for the release of Americans being held by that country.

“That $7 billion or $6 billion that is held by the South Koreans today was there when I was there, too,” Pompeo said. “The Iranians wanted that money and now they are going to get it.”

Pompeo also noted that he and former National Security Adviser John Bolton were being targeted for death by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The Justice Department announced the indictment of a senior member of the IRGC on charges of conspiring to kill Bolton in August 2022, claiming that a confidential source was offered $300,000 to carry out the assassination.

The United States designated the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization in April 2019. The Trump administration killed Qasem Soleimani, a notorious commander of the IRGC, in January 2020 in a drone strike.