Secretary of State Mike Pompeo lashed out at NPR Reporter Mary Louise Kelly during an interview.
In the interview, Kelley asked about the U.S. and Iran relations and the Ukraine investigation. The interview seemed normal until Kelley asked Pompeo about Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch’s dismissal.
During a taping of NPR’s All Things Considered, Pompeo suddenly ended the interview after repeated questions about Ukraine. According to Kelly, after the meeting ended, an aide called her into Pompeo’s office, where the Secretary of State began screaming at and cursing at Kelly.
She said Pompeo yelled at her for “about the same amount of time as the interview itself,” as he was visibly upset she asked about Ukraine. Then she recalled the following:
“[Pompeo] asked, ‘Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?’ He used the F-word in that sentence and many others. He asked if I could find Ukraine on a map. I said yes, and he called out for aides to bring us a map of the world with no writing. I pointed to Ukraine. He put the map away. He said, ‘people will hear about this.’”
This comes after text messages were released by Lev Parnas revealing that former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine was under surveillance by the President’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.
Trump himself was also caught on tape telling aids, “Get her out tomorrow. I don’t care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. OK? Do it.”
Nancy Barnes, NPR’s senior vice president of news, said in a statement, “Mary Louise Kelly has always conducted herself with the utmost integrity, and we stand behind this report.”
Pompeo responded, “This is another example of how unhinged the media has become in its quest to hurt President Trump and this Administration. It is no wonder that the American people distrust many in the media when they so consistently demonstrate their agenda and their absence of integrity. It is worth noting that Bangladesh is NOT Ukraine.”
