During an appearance on Fox News host Sean Hannity’s Friday night, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threw European allies under the bus for not coming around to President Trump’s authorization of the strike that killed top Iranian military official Qasem Soleimani.
When Hannity asked Pompeo what other countries have been telling him after the strike that killed Soleimani, the secretary of state said that he’d been “talking to partners in the region” which has been “fantastic.”
“I spent the last day and a half, two days, talking to partners in the region, sharing with them what we were doing, why we were doing it, seeking their assistance,” Pompeo said. “They’ve all been fantastic.”
However, Pompeo added that “talking to our partners in other places” such as European allies hasn’t “been quite as good.”
“Frankly, the Europeans haven’t been as helpful as I wish that they could be,” Pompeo said. “The Brits, the French, the Germans all need to understand that what we did — what the Americans did — saved lives in Europe as well.”
Pompeo then repeated Trump’s talking point of the strike that killed Soleimani being “a good thing for the entire world” and urged “everyone in the world to get behind what the United States is trying to do”
“Qassem Soleimani and his IRGC led assassination campaigns in Europe,” Pompeo said. “This was a good thing for the entire world and we are urging everyone in the world to get behind what the United States is trying to do: To get the Islamic Republic of Iran to simply behave like a normal nation.”
Earlier Friday, Trump attempted to justify his decision to authorize the strike that killed Soleimani by arguing that the move was intended “to stop a war.” The President’s comments came after the State Department urged all U.S. citizens in Iraq to depart the country immediately as the region braces for possible retaliation from the Iranian military.
Watch Pompeo’s remarks below:
Pompeo: "The Europeans haven’t been as helpful as I wish that they could be." pic.twitter.com/3KaK0qp6cP
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) January 4, 2020
