On the recordApril 26, 2018
Madam President, I rise to express my strong opposition to President Trump's nomination of Mike Pompeo to be the next Secretary of State. There are many reasons to oppose this nomination, but the main reason for me is pretty straightforward. Mike Pompeo is completely unfit to serve as America's chief diplomat. During his time as a public servant, Mike Pompeo has embraced a variety of views that betray America's values. Whether it is his support for interrogation techniques that amount to torture, his preference for war over diplomatic solutions, or his hateful, blatantly discriminatory views about Muslim and LGBTQ Americans, Mike Pompeo's confirmation would degrade America's diplomacy and erode our moral standing on the world stage. Let's start with his evolving position on torture. In 2014, then- Congressman Pompeo praised the interrogators who used torture as ``patriots'' and ``heroes,'' but when seeking confirmation to become CIA Director, Mr. Pompeo suddenly said he would ``always comply with the law'' prohibiting torture. When asked if he would comply with a request from the President to use torture, he said he couldn't ``imagine being asked to do so.'' Never mind that as a candidate Donald Trump boasted about his desire to bring back waterboarding and ``a hell of a lot worse.'' In his later written answers, Mr. Pompeo suggested he could support bringing back waterboarding and other torture techniques if he thought they were necessary.…





