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00:00This is my kitchen table and also my filing system over much of the past three decades. I've been an investor. The highest finally got me in time. I've often thought as private equity and then I started interviewing Oh I watch your interview. I know how to do. I've learned in doing my interviews how leaders make it to the top. I asked him how much he wanted. He said 250. I said fine. I didn't negotiate with him. I did no due diligence. I have something I'd like to sell and how they stay there. You don't feel inadequate now because the only the second wealthiest man to rise out right. At the beginning of twenty twenty as Mike Pompeo secretary of state gets ready to step down he looks back on what he's done over the last two and half years as secretary of state and where he sees the challenges in the future for the United States. Now Jim Baker former secretary of state somebody I've gotten to know over the years he was in my firm. He used to say the best job in the United States and the best job in Washington is secretary of state. It's a difficult job. Would you say it's the best job in Washington or the best job you've ever had. Oh undoubtedly. It's the privilege of a lifetime. David it is a challenging job but one that if you've got a great team here at the State Department like I do you can do wonderful things to protect America to keep our nation safe. So as you've now served about two and a half little more than two and a half years as secretary of state and you look back on what you've achieved what would you say you're most proud of having achieved as secretary of state. Well you know internally here I think we've made some real progress at the State Department. We created an ethos for our team. We made sure we had the right people in the right places. We built that a planning system here that I think will have real value as the years go on here at the State Department. I don't talk about those things enough but the leadership challenge of being the secretary of state building out what is a big organization and handing that off to the next secretary of state is an important one. Know around the world we've taken on what President Trump calls America first. It's based on restraint and realism and respect for other nations and their sovereignty. I won't talk about specific places and regions but it's a central understanding of American capacity to do good in the world to do it without putting lots of lots of people in harm's way and to deliver on the things that matter. So as you look back on your tenure as secretary of state what would you say has been the most frustrating thing for you. Is there something you wish you had achieved that you hadn't haven't yet achieved or some other frustration you like to play discuss. Well there's certainly lots of unfinished business in lots of places in the world. The work that we've done to change how America thinks about the Chinese Communist Party and how we respond to it is incredibly important work. But as a long term project something that America neglected for five decades we turned the page. We put American foreign policy with respect to the Chinese Communist Party in a new direction but there's still an awful lot of work to be done. You've been fairly tough on China on human rights issues and other things that they have been involved with respect to Hong Kong and the new security law there. Do you have any hope that that China will ease up on its constraints on one Hong Kong or do you think that's a fait accompli. David I'm a I'm afraid it's a fait accompli. I hope I'm wrong about that. But every thing that we have seen over the past year has indicated that Hong Kong is going to become nothing more than another communist run city. That's most unfortunate. That had a special status. The Chinese Communist Party committed to that status for 50 years. They broke the promise about halfway through. Now the people of Hong Kong are living under threat from this national security law which you referenced where actions that they take pose the risk that the lender or jail. I've already had some of the people who were just doing simple acts of X because what we would consider our First Amendment right to protest they've been put in jail. It's very telling too. There were a group of people who chose to flee Hong Kong and they've now been imprisoned and tried inside of the mainland in China. That's a bad sign. Now China and the United States had a tough trade aggression negotiations over several years. The first phase has been completed. In hindsight do you think we've gotten out of the first phase what we thought we would get which is more Chinese purchases of American products and also more access to their market. Where it really hasn't happened yet. I think they will ultimately deliver on the commitments that they made in that Phase 1 trade deal. Some of it was slowed a little bit by the fact that the global economy slowed down tremendously. But they have they have said all along they would. And we've seen indications that they intend to comply with those. The regret is is that the big issues the hard issues in the trade relationship between the United States and China have not been resolved. The issues about intellectual property theft intellectual about fairness and reciprocity in the fundamental investment rules for a broad range of industries the protection of of assets and property that is American owned property inside of China those things that are central to making sure that we have a fair and balanced trade relationship with China. The Chinese Communist Party ultimately walked away from that. That work remains to be done. Now when the history of 2020 is written don't no doubt be written. That cove it affected dramatically everything in the world. So let's talk about cove it for a moment. Do you think China could have done a better job in alerting the United States and other countries about how devastating cove it could be. Or do you think they did what they could do and that there was nothing more they could have done. Oh undoubtedly they could have done a better job. Not only could they have done a better job than. Imply negligence. They did a poor job intentionally. They they knew much. They knew a great deal more than they told the world. They co-opted the World Health Organization. They politicized it. They took it from a science based organization to a political organization. And they took actions that protected them but threatened the world. No. When the story of 20 20 really December of 2019 when the Chinese Communist Party first became aware of human to human spread of this virus. I think the world will come to understand. What I think most people already know is that the Chinese Communist Party handled this in a way that has caused enormous loss of life and billions and billions of lost dollars in wealth and prosperity around the world. And it didn't have to be this way. You and President Trump have spent a fair amount of time on North Korea. I do feel that there has been progress. I know there were some meetings but do you feel that they have actually not moved far with their nuclear program or are they actually in possession of more nuclear weapons than they were several years ago. And what progress do you think can realistically be made in the future there. That's an important question. President Trump came in and recognized that one of the great challenges that we faced was a tension between the United States and North Korea. They had a real nuclear capacity when we took office. Over time he came to believe that the best path forward was to begin a real conversation with him from the most senior levels. Yet summits in Hanoi and in Singapore where Chairman Kim made the commitment that he would be part of a process that would denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. Unfortunately we have not achieved that yet. Chairman Kim has not yet made the decision that he is actually prepared to execute that. So the challenges continue. What about the Middle East for a moment. The Abraham Accords whether you're a Democrat or a Republican or a Trump supporter or not. Most people would say it's probably a plus for Israel and other parts of the Middle East. So who do you think deserves the credit for that is that President Trump is at the State Department. The White House was first enabled by President Trump who made some decisions at the beginning of his time as president which enabled us. What what were those. Those were the simple recognition of the rightful capital of Israel being in Jerusalem the homeland of the Jewish people. The fact that the Golan Heights was rightly part of Israel. They issue from the statement from the State Department which talked about settlements not being necessarily illegal in every situation. The policy we took with respect to Iran putting pressure on Iran not taking Iran as our primary security partner in the Middle East. But in fact flipping the script and acknowledging that the Gulf states had the rightful capacity and Israel had the rightful capacity to defend themselves from Iran and putting real pressure on Iran. Those things all enabled the good work. And then it was a team effort. Jared Kushner and his team at the White House our State Department team the team at Department of Treasury all had a hand in making sure that we delivered the outcomes which enabled these nations to make the right decision which was that Israel is not a threat but a partner. Israel is a friend not an enemy and that they ought to normalize relationships with them. That's a good thing. We've got a handful so far. I'm confident that there will be more. It's the direction of travel. It's the direction of history. I'm glad that we were here to be the part that partners for these countries that enabled them to get across the line to make this decision. Now when you last visited Israel you became the first secretary of state to visit the West Bank territories that are now occupied by Israel and through settlements and also to visit the Golan Heights. So was that a conscious statement to visit areas that previous secretaries of state hadn't been willing to visit. And what do you think the purpose of your visit was in terms of sending a signal to Palestinians and others in the Middle East by visiting those sites. Well not just the visits David but everything that the administration has done has been very clear not just signals. We've communicated directly with the Palestinians about the fact that they need to stop the model that they have adopted which is that no deal is good enough for them in the end. The president laid out a vision for peace and his vision for peace included a really really good outcome for the people that live in the West Bank. They've rejected that. They've rejected even the willingness to start a conversation about a conversation about this. That's unacceptable. So. Well what we've done is whether that was my trip to Judea Samaria or my visit to the Golan Heights or the Abraham Accords. We've simply said we're going to recognize what's real. What the reality is we're going to acknowledge that we're going to ask Palestinian leadership to step up and do the same. So far they have declined to do that. I hope that they will do it today or tomorrow or the next day if they do if they get that right. I am very confident that they they they being the people that live in these places can live a far better existence that they do today. They can have more control and autonomy over their own lives more wealth and prosperity as well. But so long as their leadership chooses to reject the willingness of the Israelis to engage in a conversation with them but how to move forward then the plight of these people will continue to be challenged in ways that are just awfully sad. And you mentioned earlier the Iranians. Would you say by pulling out of the agreement with Iran on nuclear weapons and nuclear materials we gained a benefit because it seems that they have actually begun to develop more nuclear enrichment facilities than they had before. So what would you say is the been the benefit of pulling out of the agreement that we had with the Iranians. Let's say three things. First when President Trump came into office the Iranians were growing their economy at 5 6 10 percent a year and they were doing so with American wealth that was funneled through European companies that were doing business there with the famous money that the American shipped to them to get the deal done. All of this was creating wealth and capacity for the kleptocrats and the theocrats in charge of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It was threatening the United States of America and our people. Their capacity to foment terrorism around the world was expanding. That's not the case today. Simply now they have reduced their ability to underwrite Hezbollah Shia militias in Iraq. The work is serious now become more costly for them with the Caesar Act work. But real sanctions on Iranian activity that's taking place there among the Assad regime. We have diminished their capacity to inflict risk and security threats to people United States of America and indeed to people all across the world. One of the core critiques from my time in Congress David you remember I oppose the JCP away. Amanda Lang ISE a member of Congress as well was that the Iranians could start up their centrifuges anytime they wanted to. This was a deal where they'd made a promise that they wouldn't. But if they wanted to start the centrifuges up in a step they could. And you've seen it you've seen it as they do. I think they may have a president coming to office that will do a deal with them again. They're going to raise their level of activity to threaten. And so that the Europeans and the United States will once again kowtow and enter into a deal with him that presents them with enormous opportunity in America and the Gulf states with real risk. You need look no further than the Gulf states and the Israelis the people who have to live in close proximity to the Islamic Republic of Iran to understand that the approach that the Trump administration has taken with respect to Iran was the right one and that we ought not go back to the policies of the previous years to our time in office. There was a concern that on the first anniversary of Suleyman his death that there would be an attack by Iran on some U.S. facilities somewhere. So far the first anniversary has passed and that hasn't happened. Are you still worried that there will be some retaliatory attack by Iran. Look the threat from Islamic Republic Iran to make an attack on the United States is something they talk about nearly daily. They tweeted about it again over the weekend. They threatened the president. They've threatened me. And other senior leaders of the United States government threatened Israel nearly daily. Yes we're on guard. We're always ready. On Afghanistan the US under the administration Trump administration has more or less reach an agreement under which we will pull back some troops from Afghanistan. Are you comfortable that the Taliban will honor the agreement that we have reached with them. Oh goodness. There's there's every reason to expect that this agreement will be complicated fraught. One step forward two steps back and that there remains an awful lot of work to do. But we've made real progress in Afghanistan in these four years. Four administrations have tried to convince the Afghans to get together and talk. And we did that for the first time. We got all the Afghans in a room in Doha Qatar to have a conversation. We're now months into that conversation. We've got the process right. The international community has come around. We've built out a real coalition to try to work to build out an Afghanistan that is reconciled and peaceful. I am confident that it will be both fraught but I am optimistic as well. What do you think you would like to do when your term as secretary of state is completed. David I think I've answered all your questions. Just make kick this one. Right now the intelligence community is saying that your former colleagues the CIA among other intelligence agencies that we have been hacked by the Russians and I think you have made a speech on effect saying that the Russians were in your view responsible for it. Do you stand by that position and any doubt that the Russians were the hackers in this most recent instance. And how damaging has the hack been. Well the United States government is constantly under threat from cyber attacks. The particular incident that I think you're referring to was in fact a Russian operation. But as we sit here today David there are North Korean efforts there are Chinese efforts there are Iranian efforts. There are radiance from non-state sponsored entities as well all trying to get inside U.S. systems not only U.S. government systems but U.S. commercial private sector systems as well. This is an ongoing challenge not not led by the State Department to protect our systems led by DHS and the intelligence community and the FBI. But it's something that's ongoing. Defense is hard to play in the cyber space and identifying the appropriate deterrent response is also particularly complicated. Now the United States doesn't advertise what we do in response to these kind of hacks but can you say that it's likely that some kind of response will be given as a result of what has happened. And David I'd rather not comment on that just to say we haven't articulated vision for the appropriate way to response that I am confident that we have done that in each case as it was appropriate. And we will do so in this particular instance as well in a way that matches that matches the response that is most appropriate. That's that's all I can really say. Now prior to President Trump becoming president the eastern Ukraine and Crimea was taking over in effect by Russia. Do you see any progress that's been made there. And you have any hope that ultimately the Russians will pull out of eastern Ukraine or give back Crimea evidence. It's been pretty frozen. The Russians have twice made agreements that they have failed to live up to. I regret that we have continued to do the things that are right by the Ukrainian people. Whether that was our effort to stop Nord Stream too from being built whether it was the president's decision to provide lethal defensive materials for the Ukrainians something the previous administration refused repeatedly to do. We've done the right things for them. We've tried to build up the capacity for the Ukrainian government to defend itself from the threats that come from Russia. But the military threats the information threats the threats inside of Ukraine the energy threats we've done all of those things. And yet in southeast Ukraine there is still a conflict that hasn't made. We haven't made much progress nor have the Europeans made much progress in their diplomatic efforts as well. I regret that. I wish I wish we would have made more progress during our time. Let's talk about NATO for a moment. President Trump was tough on NATO saying that the NATO members should increase their defense spending. They would argue that they were going to do it any way. He would say that they did it in part because of his talking about it. Where do you think NATO stands. Is it as strong as ever or is it not as strong as it once was. David I think NATO's in a better place today than it was in January of 2017 by a long shot. And you don't even have to take my word for it. You can ask Secretary-General Stoltenberg leader of NATO what's better about it. First there's no doubt that European countries have made decisions. I think Stoltenberg gentle sector Jens Stoltenberg puts the number at about 440 billion dollars of commitments between now and 2024. That's not that far off. That's thirty six months on. Right. Significant investments in their partnership NATO. That's a good thing. Commitments to defend their own nation. Commitments to the partnership at NATO. That's a fantastic outcome that President Trump spurred on. Second we challenge that not only to make sure they spent the right resources but to be sure that they were focused on the right things the right activities the right threats. So we spent a lot of energy making sure we were focused not only on the threat from Russia that was created to deter the Soviet Union. It's important that we continue that effort. But today much of the threat to NATO countries comes from the Chinese Communist Party that we were just talking about. And we have now made a fundamental pivot in how we think about NATO as a counter China effort. So let's talk a moment about your own future at some point. Secretaries of state go on and do other things. Some of have gone become president United States. Some have done things in the business world. What do you think you would like to do when your term as secretary of state is completed. David I think I've answered all your questions. Just kick this one. I don't know precisely what I'll do. I want to make sure and tell the story of the work that the Trump administration did. So I'll find a way to do. I'm really really proud of the work we did but we lived it. We served at a time of inflection where the transition from a counterterrorism boss to United States had to change. I think we've gotten that right. But there's a lot of work to do. And I think it's really important that the whole world understand how we thought about this why we thought about it this way because I believe that is what needs to continue the work that we've done. The realistic restrained capacity for America to do good in the world is too important to leave without a clear exposition. That's all spent some time in the time after when there's a 70 first secretary of state someday trying to make sure that at least the world understands how we are thinking and why we're thinking about the things the way we did. What would you say is the most important lesson that you would like to convey to your successor. Goodness. I remember when I was nominated to be the secretary of state Secretary Baker came by to see me. He reminded me how important it is that a secretaries state do two things. One that he filled out a team at the State Department to help deliver those. No secretary can do this work on his or her own. You need a team around you to help deliver outcomes on behalf of the press of the United States. Second the relationship between a president's secretary of state is absolutely central to your success. When you travel around the world and meet with leaders or when you speak to them on the phone they need to know that you have a relationship with the president. That means that you are in fact speaking on behalf of him that you have a clear understanding of the commander's intent. And so I would I would advocate for anybody who takes on this role that those two tasks are very very important to get right. So as we talked in the first week in January do you think the world is safer today than it was a year ago or two years or three years ago or maybe it's not quite as safe as it was. No I think I think we are leaving after four years. I think we're leaving the world safer than when we came in. I hope that the policies that we've put in place will have the capacity to continue. And wherever the next secretary of state is will begin to follow down this path in a way that recognizes the threat from the Chinese Communist Party that honors the work that we have done to push back against the Islamic Republic of Iran the two states with the capacity to inflict real harm on the United States of America. These are important things that work needs to continue. And when your time and secretary is over you expect to take some time off to not have to worry about cables coming in all the time or or not have guards around you all the time. What is your most looking forward to when you get to be out of this position. David any time you are the leader you have a leadership matter whether it was when I was the CEO of a company or a tank platoon leader. There's a lot of a lot of responsibility that comes with that. And real challenges. I I have loved every minute of this. But when that when that leadership mantle passes to the next person I'll certainly take a deep breath. And I will hope that I will have and that history will reflect that every day. The decisions that I made were the right ones and were made with a noble purpose.

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The David Rubenstein Show: Michael Pompeo, U.S. Secretary of State

Secretary of State Michael Pompeo told David Rubenstein he regrets the U.S. didn't solve some “hard issues” with China, while saying the Trump administration made the world a safer place. He speaks on this episode of “The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations.” The interview was recorded January 4, 2021. (Source: Bloomberg)

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