January 25, 2020

Mike Pompeo Goes Postal on NPR Reporter

Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images via ZUMA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Now here’s a story. NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly interviewed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo yesterday. After asking a bunch of questions about Iran, she switched subjects to Ukraine. Pompeo got pissed off even though his staff had agreed that Ukraine could be part of the interview. Kelly asked Pompeo if he thought he owed an apology to Marie Yovanovitch, the ambassador to Ukraine who was fired last year for not being helpful enough with President Trump’s scheme to extort an investigation of Hunter Biden. Pompeo was not happy with the question. Kelly persisted: Should he have defended Yovanovitch? Pompeo said he defended everyone at the State Department. Kelly asked if he could point to remarks where he had defended Yovanovitch. Pompeo abruptly cut off the interview and stalked off.

But wait! There’s more:


Pompeo took out a map and asked Kelly to point to Ukraine! With F-bombs! What a dick. But today there’s even yet more:

So Pompeo accused Kelly of lying twice: first in breaking an agreement to confine the interview to Iran, and second in breaking an agreement to allow Pompeo to have his temper tantrum off the record. Then he implies that Kelly pointed to Bangladesh and thought it was Ukraine.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Pompeo is the one lying about all this stuff. Kelly set up her interview properly. She was asked to leave behind her recording equipment for Pompeo’s tirade, but not told it was off the record. And she knows perfectly well where Ukraine is.

Welcome to Donald Trump’s Washington.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate