Secretary of State Mike Pompeo remarks to the Family Leadership Summit, July 17, 2020.
Transcript
just make a brief introduction, and then I’m gonna introduce his wife, Susan, to introduce him. But one the quotes I loved was I’ve decision making decision magazine. It’s that in Mike Pompeo, Americans have a secretary of state with the foreign policy expertise and the strategic mind to play diplomatic chess with anyone. They also have someone who, though not preachy, has never tried to hide. Is Christianity under a bushel basket? Pompeo’s theological beliefs, including that God has made every person in his own image, should be considered an asset for a chief diplomat, not a liability, says representive James Lankford. Behind every strong and successful man, there is a very special woman when it comes to Darla and I. Usually it’s a very surprised woman by when for others. Susan Pompeo was born in Iowa City. If you won’t know the strength of her character in the strength of her convictions, she’s emerged a conservative after being born in Iowa City. I think what really tells the tales that these two teamed up together to teach 1/5 grade Bible Bible study class Sunday school class together Please help me welcome Secretary State Palm pales wife, Mrs Susan Pompeo would introduce her husband. Susan. You Thank you all. Thank you. Please. Thank you. Um, good afternoon, and thank you for that. I’m pretty sure that this is the precise moment when my husband, who thought it was a fun idea toe have introduced him today, is questioning why? Because he doesn’t know for sure what I’m going to say, but he’ll be just fine. Um, you are probably somewhat familiar with Mike’s resume. His resume reflects his life, uh, where he has had very diverse opportunities and experiences. And because of that, Mike and I joke a times we’ve been called calculating and strategic. And would that we be that smart? Um, it is true. He’s been a soldier. He’s been in private business. He’s been a congressman. He’s been director. The C i. A. But it was not strategic, nor was it calculating. We both know it was the hand of God. Uh, he may know he may feel compelled to defend himself, but it was really soft chocolate chip cookies that initially led Mike to a Bible study with other cadets at West Point. You can ask you more about that, but he hung in there, as did the cookies. It was business that had saw him moving from the East Coast back to his mother’s home state of Kansas. Tow Launch a business there, and it was really encouragement from others that compelled both of us to launch a campaign for Mike to run for Congress from the fourth District of Kansas, when his name recognition was a whopping 1% at the time. I think it was probably his willingness and interest, particularly from his days as a soldier toe, learn and think and want to Nome or about the national security arena that initially landed him in President Trump’s Cabinet and Mike and I, even to this day looking each other on a day like today where we get to have so much fun in a place that we love and say to each other, how did we get here? But we know it was the hand of God. It was definitely God’s hand When Mike said to me as Bob eluded in the car one day going home from church, our pastor had made a pretty impassioned plea because we were short of Sunday school teachers, and Mike said there’s no reason we can’t do that. And I said over the 1000 reasons We can’t do that. I’m teaching a women’s study. I’m busy. You never have time to even read little up. Well, as you heard, we taught fifth grade Sunday school until Mike was in Congress. And finally, only finally recently did he admit I took the girls and he took the boys. And then we were in the same big room. But my girls were perfect and memorized their scripture and their lessons. They were precious. And Mike finally now admits that he felt good about himself if the boys stayed in their chairs and didn’t break out into a fight. So at least I feel good about that. Our church also had a fantastic youth program. Our son Nick, who’s here today somewhere there he is never, ever, ever missed. Monday night boys discipleship and Mike and I have also joked with each other that we think the youth pastor knows a lot more about next teenage years than we dio. But we are a okay with that, Um, by Mike’s presence here today, I think you probably understand if you didn’t that Mike has never tried to deny his faith or to hide it. Moreover, he thinks the role of faith leaders, whether that’s being a pastor or a light person or a believer in in America right now more than ever, is critical on, and I’m sure you’ll hear him talk more about that. I always remember this one time when a member of the media asked Mike, how do you plan if you end up in Congress to separate your faith from your business? And he paused for a minute and then said, I won’t even try. It’s the prism through which I view the world and everything else and eso. He still has his Bible sitting on his desk, and he’s ridiculed for it, as I’m sure you’ve read, and he is fine with that. Ah, one other caveat or one other point that I’d like to share with you because I still find this so interesting. Mike World leaders and have mentioned to Mike repeatedly they know of Hiss faith and especially those who themselves are of faith, whatever their religion might be. I really admire that and appreciate it, and it’s fascinating the things that they will write to him, the common bond that they definitely feel they share with him because of a faith commitment, which I think is a pretty good place to start diplomacy at, um, Michael has taken what he said the neck week after week after week as Nick was growing up and he does it himself. And that is tell the truth, Work hard, pray hard and you’ll be just fine. So with that, I’d like you to meet my husband, Mike Pompeo. Thank you all. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. It is wonderful to be here among so many friends. I want to thank you, Bob, for your introduction and all the amazing, good patriotic work that you and your team do. And Susan, that was pretty nice of you to kept it. I kept it straight like that. That you will know this the family leaders making a real difference all across the country. I’ve noticed that you snagged a unique honor. Your book, like from Lucas, received the check. Norris seal of approval. Whatever you can do to get on the good side, I think I think that’s smart. I really dio all right. It took a while for us. to get together. But I’m glad that I was able to make it out here in the pop. Invited me to be here last year. I was in I Westbrook at the World Food Prize headquarters, about President Trump’s critical mission. To bring fairness and reciprocity into our relationship with China to the benefit of American farmers and indeed all Americans. And speaking of critical missions, I couldn’t leave Des Moines last time without picking up a box full of Jethro s BBQ over on Forest Avenue. Uh, deep connection to Kansas. Of course I’ve been here. I’ve been here that I was several times I’ve been. When I ran a company called their Aerospace, we did business with a company called Collins Aerospace. I came here when Wichita State was in the Missouri Valley. They played Northern our we want more than we lost. Uh, the University of Iowa is, of course, my mother in law’s Almer mater. No offense to the Cyclones in the room today. And as you heard Susan Aziz Iowa girl herself, she grew up in Kansas but spent every summer there in Coralville. So I like to think you all had a part in making the woman that she is such a special lady. Susan, thanks again for your blessed introduction. And speaking of cyclists, the last two years have been quite a whirlwind going from Congress to be the director of America’s Central Intelligence Agency to now being America’s most senior diplomats, the 70th secretary of State of the United States. And if you believe the media, I’m supposed to be running for the Senate down in Kansas right now. But I love what I’m doing working for President Trump to deliver American foreign policy all around. But it wasn’t so long ago that Susan, I would just like so many of you all. We were raising our son. We were trying to build up our community. We’re staying involved in our church house, teaching Sunday school. I ran a small company of a couple 100 folks in Kansas. That job in Sunday school, of course, was the best preparation to be America’s most senior diplomat. I will not elaborate, and look, I know, too. I know American families are busy. The first thing on their minds isn’t the work of the State Department every day. Uh, but it matters. It matters. What we do. It’s why I want to be here to talk with you all about that. Today we have a responsibility, keep you all safe. We advocate to for American businesses abroad. Help create jobs in every state in the union, and we represent your principles. And I think our administration does that remarkably well because people don’t always know. We do have made it one of my missions to travel all over America to highlight their great work that we’re doing on. I couldn’t be prouder of that work. We’ve executed a foreign policy that American families in Des Moines and Rebuke and in Davenport can believe in. It’s a pro national security foreign policy focused on America. It’s a pro religious freedom, foreign policy, and it’s a 100% pro life foreign policy. Susan talked about this, but my my faith helps guide how I execute the mission every day, and I want I want to talk about that just a bit. How we execute this mission. Let’s start with the first point. America’s national security are our foremost objective. By far. It’s the highest priority of any secretary of state, and certainly for President Trump is Well, our founders understood this. They understood the keeping our citizens safe was the very first duty of any government. I wish some mayors across America knew that, too, I think, to about my responsibility in light of the biblical call to be a good steward of whatever you have. First Corinthians four says that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. And God’s entrusted this position to me for this time. And I feel every day the duty, tow honor that calling. Look, I learned a lot about stewardship to when I was in an M one tank. You actually learned a lot inside an M one tank. It was my first assignment. I was a young second lieutenant leading a unit that was then patrolling the east West German border during the Cold War. Freedom on one side, communism on the other. That was a big responsibility for May. Uh, I had, uh, a little younger look to me at that time, and today my job is a little bit bigger, but nonetheless, the threats we face today aren’t terribly different. But they come from different places today. China is working to take down freedom all across the world. The Russians want to poison our democracy, our institutions, and use disinformation to sow discord. Here in America, Iranians desire to spread the Islamic revolution all over the Middle East. I could go on, but I’m doing all I can. And President Trump is doing all he can to faithfully discharge our duties. I work pretty late most nights, and I my staff can attest to that. I haven’t got home to see friends and family in Kansas. A whole heck of a lot. I’ve been traveling all across the world. I don’t get as much sleep as my doctor tells me I should. Indeed, I understand. Michael Dell, Maybe here, maybe one of those pillows might prove prove useful. Um, the truth is, President Trump has given me the capacity on the drive to execute diplomacy with a real level of excellence. Not just because Americans are depending on our success and our ability get it right, but striving for excellence to because the call to stewardship God has placed on us, we can feel in every circumstances justice. He’s called all of us to do that. Wherever it is, we find ourselves starting my position well also means making decisions based on the truth. Our God is indeed a god of truth. We should every day seek to reflect his character in that regard. Our administration has told some very plain truth. Truce that weren’t recognized or worse, had been conveniently ignored for too long. And that perhaps starts with the Chinese Communist Party. No administration has broken glass on the threat of our times, like we have for a long time foreign policy thinkers, truly the elites on the East Coast. For a long time, foreign policy thinkers thought that the more we traded with China, the more free that nation would become in the last risk there would be to the American people. But that’s not what’s happening today. Today, the Chinese Communist Party is crushing freedom in Hong Kong. It’s threatening a free Taiwan is trying to dominate world communications networks, including those right here in places like Iowa, an inside China, just to give a single example. A few weeks back, I read a report about the Chinese Communist Party forcing mass abortions and sterilisation on Chinese Muslims in western China. These are some of the most gross human rights violations we have seen, and I’ve referred to it as the stain of the century. But we’ve used the truth of calling that out in a way to put it into action. We know these things are deeply wrong and we know puts risk on people all across America, so we won’t stay still. While Communist China tries to crush the world’s freedoms, we have slapped sanctions and travel restrictions on CCP officials. We’re telling the truth every day of where the Corona virus came from and the Communists cover up of that virus. We’re revising Hong Kong’s agreement with Hong Kong as the Communist Party erodes the freedom for people in that place. We’re fighting to to stop China from stealing our intellectual property. You will work hard, you create value. We want to bring fairness to tow our trade policies. As we’ve done in the phase one trade deal. You should note the Chinese Communist Party isn’t too happy about it. A few weeks ago, the Chinese state TV called me quote the common enemy of mankind. End of quote. That’s the people I knew pretty well back in Kansas. Say what? No. Uh, look, it’s Ah, I’m guessing that because President Trump and I are serious about this, that will face more of that from them. But we’ll do the right thing for the American people. Look, we’ve also fundamentally changed the way America treats the Islamic Republic of Iran. We know the facts. The nuclear deal gave the regime more money to carry out terrorism, presenting risk to the United States and others in the Middle East. Outlaw regimes like the one that was led by the Ayatollah Onley respond to strength, not to appeasement. So we flipped what the previous administration was doing. We ditched the deal and implemented a brand new Iran policy. This policy deprives the regime of blood money. It denies the regime diplomatic sanctuary, and it deters the regime from aggression. And they felt it. The regime has felt the effects of the 1st 2 steps, and the terrorist Qassem Suleimani has come to understand, too, that our commitment to deterrence when we wiped him off the face of the earth Israel. That work is also important for the sake of our closest friend in the Middle East. Israel, here, to my faith, shapes my work, our nation’s share to day of tradition. Christian roots. Our approach to government draws on that beautiful teaching from the first chapter of Genesis that all human beings are made in the image of God. It’s a major reason why both countries have a high respect for human dignity and personal liberty. Each of our two nations respects human rights, and it only makes sense for the two countries to be so close, as close as we possibly can be and from a pure Furin foreign policy standpoint, Israel as an essential security partner. It’s a model. It’s a model in the Middle East of how to create a thriving economy, and Israel to is a bastion of freedom in the region. I’m proud that there’s not been any administration that has supported Israel in the way the President Trump and our administration has done. Each of the actions we’ve taken have been criticized. There’s a reason they weren’t done before we moved our embassy to Jerusalem. We said that the Golan Heights is a part of Israel. We’ve now unveiled a vision for peace that recognizes reality on the ground, the biblical truths in that special place, and we said that any Zionism is indeed, any Semitism, period. I’m also really proud of the work that we’ve done defending religious freedom, our first freedom. According to the Constitution, Thomas Jefferson was our first secretary of state. He’s got a nice statue in Washington that I pray never comes down. I actually went there when some of the rights were taking place in Washington, D. C. I walked up there early one morning, and on the walls of his monument is a quote from the Virginia statute of Religious Freedom, which he helped author. It says quote Almighty God has created the mind free. No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worshipper ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief. And now, some 250 years later. Ah, high respect for this unable right guides our administration. Right now, four out of five people around the world don’t enjoy full religious freedom, and we’re fighting tooth and nail to change that. We instituted new religious freedom training programs for thousands of our foreign service officers. We’ve called out China’s Warren faith. It’s mass detention of Uighurs. It’s godless decisions to replace just displays of the 10 Commandments with words from general secretary. She have not gone without being called out. And now, two years running, we at the state Department of hosted what we call the ministerial to advance religious freedom nations and religious leaders from all over the world coming together to protect this essential freedom, Would you believe are gathering? Last year was the largest human rights conference ever held at the State Department. This this is different then the state Department of old. This was such a big deal because we recognize how much previously untapped enthusiasm there is all across the world to defend religious freedom were there to leave. And if you’re here, if you here today and you think your part of a silent majority in this issue, take heart. There are plenty of folks all around the world who aren’t silent, who are prepared to fight for this freedom alongside of us. And, of course, one of them is President Trump. Last year, my friend in your Sam Brownback, who heads up these issues at the State Department, brought persecuted religious minorities into the Oval Office. They met with the president, people of different faiths, from places like Sudan and Burma in Cuba, the event scheduled for just a few minutes and there was a program in place. But I think we all know by now President Drugs Trump does things his own way. He spent almost half on hour asking them very personal questions, hearing stories of burned homes and have imprisoned family members and reforming the American commitment to religious freedom. This administration appreciates and knows that our rights come from God, not government. Can I get an amen to that? And this brings me to my last point the final thing that I want to share with Day. Our ability to defend these rights abroad must begin with our own powerful example. Here at home. America sets the tone for the rest of the world in this respect, and our administration has defended the rights of unborn like no other administration in history. Abortion quite simply, isn’t a human right. It takes a human life. You all you won’t know this, Salma says in Psalm 1 39 unit me together in my mother’s womb. This is when life begins full stop. So we’ve reinstated the Mexico City policies are not a single dime of American taxpayer money will ever go to a foreign NGO that performs active abortions anywhere in the world in in the fall of last year. In the fall of last year, Secretary a czar at Health and Human Services and I, we mobilize 20 countries to deliver a joint statement at the U. N. Criticizing pro abortion language in U. N. Documents. This has not happened before. We said clearly quote that there is no international right to an abortion. It may seem simple to you, but in many parts of the world, this kind of language is verboten. And President Trump and our team made a consistent effort in a push to have this be recognized all across the world. You know, it’s the joy and the small things we sometimes find. After release that statement, one of our colleagues received an email from a friend in the pro life movement in Africa. The note said Quote never did I think that America would use its great power to speak for the protection of the unborn in the most unambiguous and unapologetic terms. End of quote. And while it is sad that it took so long for America to find her boy voice so powerfully we have not done so, and we appreciate all of you who support our efforts every single day. I’ll close with this thought provoking question. Why isn’t that America is unrivaled in our commitment to freedom? I think I know an answer. Our founders built our country on a commitment two essential rights on a LeRoi something I spoke about at length yesterday in Philadelphia. They come from these amazing documents, our declaration of independence and our Constitution, and the nation’s foreign policy must be grounded in those central understanding. That’s the commitment that’s made us a shining star of liberty in the world. It’s a dark place somewhere in this fallen world. But our house, our House of foreign Policy, is built on solid rock on these bedrock principles that were made at our founding as secretary of state. Upholding this legacy is a enormous privilege. It is no easy task, but I’m leaning on my faith each and every day to help me try to get it right. Your prayers and I get wonderful notes from all across America, people who are praying for me in their circles and groups and their Bible studies Your prayers help sustain me. Help sustain me as I traveled as I represent the greatest nation on earth by God’s grace will continue to do this each and every day. May the Lord bless you. May God bless Iowa. And may God bless this great nation. The United States of America. Thank you. All ladies and gentlemen, has been a great leadership summit. I asked Secretary of State Populus State Standard I as Secretary of State Bomb pale. If it be okay if I prayed for him as we dismiss as well, everybody okay with that? But I skipped. Raised a gun. Do we just come to you this afternoon? Our so thankful for a great day, a day that you have made a day that you’ve orchestrated. Thank you for all the messages that were delivered here today. Lord, I pray that we embrace him, that we take them to heart, that we choose to be a great generation in our time. Lord, I thank you for leaders. The scripture says you raise up leaders. I thank you for raising up Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. I pray that you’d have your hand of favor blessing and protection all over him. Give him wisdom. Unmeasured. And Lord, I just prayed that this country, under President Trump’s leadership, Vice President Pence’s leadership secretary state pond, pales leadership. The entire administration lord would continue to be that shining city on a hill, that beacon in the night that points others to the one true hope. And that is you and Jesus saying we pray and we give you all the praise in the glory. Amen. And Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you.