“Global cooperation between the public and private sector will make the difference: we’ll #StopTheSpread together,” Pompeo tweeted Tuesday, shortly before holding a news conference to, among other things, talk about the virus.
Pompeo’s increased visibility over the past week follows intense criticism of his performance throughout the coronavirus crisis. The critics include his own employees, many of whom were already upset at his treatment of career diplomats during the impeachment scandal that engulfed President Donald Trump.
U.S. diplomats, lawmakers and others had accused Pompeo of being largely AWOL as his department dealt with ferrying home tens of thousands of Americans stuck overseas and rolling back embassy services abroad amid general internal confusion about social distancing measures.
Not only did Pompeo fail to offer leadership, the critics said, he’s cynically using the pandemic to pound on U.S. adversaries — especially China and Iran — undermining global cooperation against the virus right when it’s badly needed.
“He has been largely absent,” said Tom Wright, a foreign affairs scholar at the Brookings Institution who follows Pompeo’s moves closely. “What we know he’s done has not been very helpful.”
Pompeo drew derision in particular when, on March 21, he used his personal Twitter account to post a picture of himself and his wife watching a classic Tom Cruise movie and piecing together a puzzle. “Susan and I are staying in and doing a puzzle this afternoon. Pro tip: if you’re missing the beach, just throw on Top Gun!” Pompeo wrote.
The respondents included Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, who wrote: “I have constituents stuck overseas can you get off your ass and get them home?”
In a later tweet, Pompeo tried to suggest he was working at the same time, but the damage was done. (The tweets were sent shortly before he headed for a brief trip to Afghanistan.)
People close to Pompeo acknowledge his profile has been lower than one might expect during an international crisis. But they dispute the idea that he’s been absent, saying he’s stayed on top of the pandemic the entire time, though often behind the scenes.
They point out that Pompeo has State Department representatives working closely with the president, the vice president and others on the coronavirus response. Those aides include Deborah Birx, the State-based U.S. official overseeing HIV/AIDS response, and Stephen Biegun, the deputy secretary of State. Much of the internal coordination in Foggy Bottom has been handled by other top Pompeo staffers, but that’s because it’s their job, the people close to the secretary say.
“I understand that there are folks in the State Department who have a different political persuasion than the secretary,” one of the people said. But “he’s made very clear that he cares about every employee.”
The person added, however, that Pompeo plans to be more out front in the coming days, on a variety of communications platforms.
One reason Pompeo may have kept a lower profile as the virus crisis grew in January and February might be that Trump himself was downplaying it. The president kept insisting the U.S. wouldn’t suffer and that the problem would go away.
Pompeo, a former Republican congressman from Kansas, has long been one of Trump’s closest aides, and he’s achieved that in part by almost never contradicting his boss in public. He could have drawn Trump’s wrath if he’d raised alarms about the virus.
But Pompeo’s unwillingness to get ahead of the president also filtered down throughout the State Department, leaving ambassadors and other top officials unclear as to how to address the outbreak with their employees as well as the public, current and former department staffers say.
His lack of urgency, the critics argue, contributed to confusion about whether U.S. diplomats should even be holding meetings or going in to work. “It’s handicapped the State Department’s normal procedures and trip wires,” said Brett Bruen, an outspoken former U.S. diplomat who now works as a consultant.
As the weeks went on, State Department employees were especially incensed that they heard so little directly from Pompeo. One bemoaned that he’d “heard from a f–-ing laundry service I used five years ago about how they’re taking care of their employees and customers but not a thing from the secretary of State.”
Pompeo has started trying to rectify that. On Friday, he sent a note, titled “Message from Mike: Resilience and Strength of Our Team” to the department that was mostly about the virus crisis. (He’d only briefly mentioned it in a previous message.)
Source: politico.com
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