Secretary of Point out Michael R. Pompeo is arguably the most Trumpy of President Trump’s Cabinet secretaries. He has aggressively pursued the president’s “America First” agenda, mimicked the commander-in-chief’s bombast and routinely flouted norms noticed by his predecessors.

In a sharp turn from prior Republicans and Democrats who held his post, Pompeo has echoed Trump’s praise of dictators and suspicion of conventional democratic allies. The final result has been a combined file that overseas plan gurus say will take several years to evaluate, but did tiny to create ties with overseas leaders set off by Trump’s contempt for alliances.

Pompeo “seemed a lot more of a democracy denier than a democracy promoter, additional rooted in domestic politics than foreign plan,” explained Douglas Alexander of Harvard Kennedy School’s Foreseeable future of Democracy Undertaking. His tenure “not only weakened the State Department at dwelling,” Alexander mentioned, “but weakened America’s standing” overseas.

The secretary of State’s tenure and adoption of Trump’s brash model, Republican operatives say, can very best be observed as a calculated way to situation himself as Trump’s heir in the 2024 GOP primaries.

Trump’s electoral defeat has scrambled that calculus, placing in question the political upcoming of a Cabinet secretary who morphed from Trump skeptic into die-tough evangelist. Incorporating to Pompeo’s woes, Trump is suggesting he will run once again in 2024, which would almost certainly force loyalists who had their eyes on the task like Pompeo to stage aside.

If Trump decides not to run in 2024, a GOP applicant will however have to have to marshal the aid of a huge chunk of the outgoing president’s base and undertake numerous of his procedures.

But Trump, by keeping out the likelihood of his possess candidacy, freezes the relaxation of the potential area.

“They cannot do substantially until it results in being obvious regardless of whether Trump is going to operate,” stated Alex Conant, a political consultant who labored on Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s 2016 GOP presidential campaign. “No donors, no celebration operatives, no early-point out politicians will be in a position to endorse anyone. Trump is the 800-pound gorilla, and everybody will keep on to make way for him until eventually his options are recognized.”

A West Issue graduate from Southern California who relocated to Kansas and prospered in protection sector companies, Pompeo was not normally a Trump lover. Pompeo, then in his third expression in Congress, backed Rubio in the 2016 primaries, warning that Trump would be an “authoritarian president who overlooked our Constitution.” He even ridiculed the business enterprise mogul’s circus-like marketing campaign.

But following Trump seized the nomination, Pompeo speedily cast apart his uncertainties and turned a vocal supporter of the future president. He was rewarded with an appointment to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Following a yr, he was selected by Trump to lead the Point out Division, changing former Exxon oil govt Rex Tillerson, who clashed with Trump’s policies and penchant for undercutting him publicly.

Pompeo promised to restore what he termed “swagger” to a demoralized Point out Division, but the vow was quick-lived. Soon, best career overseas assistance officers still left or ended up compelled out, and even mid-stage diplomats commenced to soar ship as Pompeo’s major problem was bending to Trump’s will instead than hewing to diplomatic practice and traditions.

As Trump’s leading diplomat, Pompeo embraced and fomented an “America First” coverage, though it normally resulted in The us performing by yourself.

Pompeo cites as the administration’s key foreign coverage achievements a set of agreements by a couple Arab and Muslim nations to give restricted recognition to Israel. He forcefully backed Trump’s tougher technique to China, like the imposition of trade tariffs, despite the fact that absolutely nothing has blocked Beijing’s worldwide enlargement. He also has sought to punish Iran through a “maximum pressure” marketing campaign that has neither improved the Islamic Republic’s regional routines nor slowed prospective nuclear generation.

“We fundamentally shifted to an thought that stated we’re likely to get care of America first, we’re heading to get this correct,” Pompeo informed conservative discuss clearly show host Ben Shapiro before this month. “We’re happy to operate with our pals and associates, but when we get it proper for The united states, when we are real looking about what we can do and the factors that we just cannot do … we can be a force for fantastic in the world.”

Pompeo mirrored Trump in other means — the secretary has been criticized for how he utilised his office environment and for not tolerating dissent.

He spoke at the Republican Nationwide Conference in August — from Jerusalem, wherever he was on an formal trip, which watchdog teams explained likely broke federal regulation barring governing administration officials from engaging in such overt political exercise. In his speech, he praised Trump’s “bold initiatives in just about every single corner of the planet.”

In Might, Pompeo fired the inspector normal who was investigating his attempts to sell arms to Saudi Arabia, around congressional bans, and his alleged personal use of federal assets. Just about every of the two succeeding performing inspectors common stop after a couple of months beneath duress as Pompeo attacked their work.

An inspector basic report concluded that Pompeo’s recurring inclusion of his wife, Susan, on formal excursions did not violate the law, but that the secretary’s office environment unsuccessful to supply adequate documentation. A different pending congressional investigation concerns his talking engagements in U.S. states — swing states — ahead of the Nov. 3 presidential election.

When Trump dispatched his own lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, last calendar year in an to attempt to dig up dirt on his predicted Democratic rival, Joe Biden, in Ukraine, Pompeo stood on the sidelines. The president finally tried to stress the Ukrainian president to launch an investigation of Biden’s son Hunter in trade for releasing desperately needed military services aid.

“Letting Rudy Giuliani develop into secretary of Condition for Ukraine — to provide political purposes that have been obviously illegal — will always be Pompeo’s most shameful moment,” explained Stephen Sestanovich, a diplomacy scholar at Columbia University and a Council on Overseas Relations fellow.

The final straw for numerous American diplomats came when Pompeo refused to again the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, as Giuliani and Trump tried to besmirch her status just after she was known as to testify at the president’s impeachment hearings.

Pompeo also acquired considerable scorn in his refusal to blame Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and heir apparent, Mohammed bin Salman, for the gruesome killing of Saudi journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi. The journalist was slain in October 2018 in the Saudi Consulate in the Turkish city of Istanbul. A lot of human legal rights and independent companies blame the Saudi govt for his killing.

But Pompeo, responding to a wave of U.S. congressional opposition, attacked the “Capitol Hill caterwauling” and approved the Saudi government clarification that blamed a rogue procedure.

Pompeo has hardly ever masked his simmering contempt for a lot of journalists whom he considers to be opposed to the Trump administration. To complicated thoughts, he has explained to reporters they had been “rude” or their problem was “ridiculous.” At one particular news conference, he repeated a BBC journalist’s name above and over as if to scold her for asking the query. When an job interview with an NPR journalist about Iran and Ukraine did not go as he hoped, he set out a push release condemning her.

In the Shapiro interview on Dec. 15, Pompeo claimed a lot of American journalists are “beholden” to the Chinese Communist Social gathering, and that’s why they do not present much more help for Trump.

He has expended his previous weeks in workplace performing as while it were being business enterprise as common, telling journalists he was planning to usher in the upcoming Trump administration, and then speeding by way of remaining steps such as new sanctions on Iran. Like Trump, he also invited hundreds of persons to extravagant get-togethers and held usually-maskless meetings, versus community health tips — right up until he was uncovered to the coronavirus and pressured to quarantine. (He never analyzed positive, his office environment explained.)

“Nothing is much more essential for a secretary of State to know than which problems can be dealt with successfully by the U.S. on your own and which demand enable from other individuals,” reported Sestanovich, the Columbia University scholar. “Pompeo seemed to consider you can address this challenge with ‘swagger’ — you cannot.”