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President Donald Trump said Wednesday that three American prisoners released from North Korea were headed home.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders released photos of an Easter weekend meeting between recently confirmed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Pompeo traveled to North Korea before his confirmation in his role as CIA director to conduct a meeting ahead of an expected summit between President Donald Trump and the North Korean leader. The shock meeting was revealed weeks later with Trump expressing optimism of the results of the meeting. “They had a great meeting,” Trump said of the summit Thursday on Fox & Friends noting that he did not give up...

Are they up in November? Any no's on our side? Inquiring minds want to know.

The Senate narrowly confirmed CIA Director Mike Pompeo to be Secretary of State on Thursday, overcoming steep opposition to his nomination. Senators voted 57-42, just over the simple majority needed for approval by the chamber. Pompeo’s was a virtual lock after Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) reversed his position and said he would support Trump’s pick. The announcement came amid an intense pressure campaign by the White House, and spared Pompeo the dubious distinction of being the first secretary of State nominee since at least 1925 to fail to win over the Foreign Relations Committee. “After calling continuously for weeks for...

The split vote represents the political scrutiny Pompeo is likely to encounter as he moves from the CIA to the State Department, where he’ll face the simultaneous challenges of reinvigorating an agency beset by flagging morale and answering for a president who is prone to impulsiveness. Pompeo, who grew close to President Trump as his CIA director, takes over at State as the United States faces a host of foreign policy challenges. Near term, a deadline looms for extending the Iran nuclear deal and for Trump’s historic denuclearization talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Several Monday conversations with President Donald Trump, a meeting with CIA Director Mike Pompeo, and reassurances about Afghanistan led Sen. Rand Paul to announce Monday evening that he would vote to support Pompeo as the next Secretary of State. Paul recounted his decision process on Twitter as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee prepared to vote on the Pompeo confirmation. The senator spoke with President Trump several times during the day and met with Pompeo. “After calling continuously for weeks for Director Pompeo to support President Trump’s belief that the Iraq war was a mistake, and that it is time to...

Good for Paul, I wasn't confident he'd change to a yes vote.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said on Monday that he will vote for CIA Director Mike Pompeo to be the next secretary of State, making him the second Democrat to support Pompeo's nomination. "After meeting with Mike Pompeo, discussing his foreign policy perspectives, & considering his distinguished time as CIA Director & his exemplary career in public service, I will vote to confirm Mike Pompeo to be our next Secretary of State," Manchin said in a tweet. Pompeo likely already had the votes to be confirmed by the full Senate. With Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) expected to oppose him, Pompeo needed...

Marc Thiessen: Pompeo is close to confirmation and 11 senators are close to making a colossal mistakeFor the first time in the history of the republic, it appears increasingly likely that a majority of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will vote against the president's nominee for secretary of state. If this happens, it would be a black mark not on Mike Pompeo's record, but on the reputation of this once-storied committee. ~snip~ Last year, all 10 Democrats on the committee voted "no" to Rex Tillerson's nomination, making him the first secretary of state in history to be approved on a...

for Secretary of State

U.S. foreign policy toward adversaries such as Russia, North Korea and Syria may turn more aggressive if CIA Director Mike Pompeo becomes secretary of state. Pompeo has lambasted Moscow's aggression toward the West and other countries: January 2018: "I continue to be concerned not only about the Russians but about others' efforts as well. We have many foes who want to undermine Western democracy. So there's this Washington-based focus on Russian interference. I want to make sure we broaden the conversation." North Korea October 2017: Pompeo said Pyongyang was would soon be able to threaten a U.S. city with nuclear...

'Pompeo is a hawkish ideologue'The far-left J Street lobby announced that it opposes CIA Director Mike Pompeo's nomination for Secretary of State and urged Senators to scuttle appointment. "We oppose Pompeo’s nomination and urge Senators to vote against his confirmation," said J Street. "Pompeo is deeply ill-suited to manage US foreign policy and, in particular, the future of the JCPOA nuclear agreement with Iran." "Even in an administration known for its fundamental hostility to diplomacy, Pompeo stands out as a hawkish ideologue and an extreme advocate for the use of military force," continued the statement. "He called for the use...

The Family Research Council (FRC) said in a statement Tuesday that the nomination of Mike Pompeo for Secretary of State will enhance the administration’s goal of a return to “American values and principles” and make support for human rights and religious freedom a priority. “President Trump has been an agent of change in Washington,” said FRC president Tony Perkins in a press statement. “It is hard to identify another federal agency that is in more need of change than the State Department, which has historically and consistently been at cross purposes with American values and principles. Mike Pompeo is a...

GOP Senator Rand Paul publicly announced his total opposition to President Trump’s nominees to head the State Department and the CIA on Wednesday; saying he’s “going to do everything” he can to block them from office. According to Politico, the outspoken Senator revealed his intentions while speaking with reporters at the US Capitol, saying people “complain sometimes about the filibuster” but added he plans to use the procedural maneuver to derail the nomination process. “People complain sometimes about the filibuster, they complain about trying to obstruct… “I’m going to do everything I can to block them,” said Paul. “I’m perplexed...

Following a recent trip to Ukraine, Rep. Mike Pompeo of Kansas told Newsmax that while the final outcome of the ongoing crisis is "impossible to predict," Russian President Vladimir Putin's long-term mission "is to control Ukraine." "It could easily go on from there to Belarus or Moldova," he added, referring to two other independent states in the former Soviet Union that have large Russian-speaking populations. Two-termer Pompeo, a Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee, is part of the growing number of younger Republicans in the House urging the administration to take a harder line against Russia on the economic...

LGBT activists wasted no time in attacking President Donald Trump's new pick to run the State Department, CIA Director Mike Pompeo. "Mike Pompeo's longstanding opposition to LGBTQ equality makes him a reckless choice to lead our nation's diplomatic efforts," Chad Griffin, president of the LGBT group Human Rights Campaign (HRC) said in a statement Tuesday. "The decision to nominate anti-LGBTQ Mike Pompeo could have serious consequences for the United States and LGBTQ people around the globe. The State Department has a crucial role to play in advancing human rights — a role which was already rapidly declining under Tillerson. This...

RUSH: Now to Tillerson and all of this going on in Washington. I want to ask you if you remember something. Didn’t the media…? Didn’t the media tell us…? I mean, way, way back. I’m talking here near… It may even be during the transition, but it was around the time Trump selected Tillerson. Didn’t the media tell us that Trump picked Tillerson to be secretary of state as a payback to Russia for Russia helping Trump win the White House? You can look it up. My memory does not fail me. You remember all of those stories about how...

US President Donald Trump has sacked Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, replacing him with the director of the CIA, Mike Pompeo. Thanking Mr Tillerson for his service on Twitter, Mr Trump said the new state secretary would do "a fantastic job". Mr Tillerson, a former chief executive of ExxonMobil, was only appointed to the job just over a year ago. The president also nominated Gina Haspel to become the first woman director of the CIA. The Department of State said Mr Tillerson had not spoken to the president and was "unaware of the reason" for his firing. Under Secretary Steve...

Rex Tillerson is out as secretary of State, ending a tumultuous tenure as America's top diplomat that was marked by a series of public disagreements with his boss — President Donald Trump. Trump plans to appoint CIA Director Mike Pompeo to replace the former Exxon Mobil chief executive. The president picked deputy CIA Director Gina Haspel to run the spy agency.

President Trump has ousted Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and replaced him with CIA Director Mike Pompeo, orchestrating a major change to his national security team amid delicate negotiations with North Korea, White House officials said Tuesday. Trump last Friday asked Tillerson to step aside, and the embattled top diplomat cut short his trip to Africa on Monday to return to Washington.