EXCLUSIVE: Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will take aim at President Biden on Tuesday in a high-profile speech in New Hampshire, the state that for a century’s held the first primary in the race for the White House.
“I’m here because a few weeks ago, the President of the United States gave a speech and smeared half the country as enemies of the state. He essentially said if you’re pro-life or you oppose his policies, you’re a threat,” Pompeo will charge as he headlines the latest edition of ‘Politics and Eggs’ at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics.
The speaking series at St. Anselm College, just outside of Manchester, has been a must-stop for nearly a quarter-century for actual and potential White House hopefuls of both major parties.
“I’m here because I’m not going to let that just slide by. I’m going to stand up for the Americans that the President attacked. Because America deserves better than that,” Pompeo will emphasize in his address. Excerpts of his speech were shared with Fox News on Tuesday.
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Pompeo is referring to some heated language the president used recently in targeting “MAGA Republicans,” who he argues have embraced “semi-fascism” due to their continued loyalty to former President Donald Trump.
The president, in a primetime address at Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park, where the Declaration of Independence and the nation’s Constitution were debated and signed — argued that “too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal. Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”
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Biden’s more aggressive language of late appears to be a move to alter the midterms narrative from a referendum on Biden and congressional Democrats and their record steering the country — amid record inflation, soaring crime, and border security — to a choice election between Biden and Trump and a battle to save democracy. The president’s new push made national headlines but also received plenty of pushback from Republicans.
Pompeo on Tuesday will also fire back, saying, “Mr. President: I do not know your heart. But I do know that treating your countrymen like enemies is a rejection of the principles that make America great.”
And he will argue that Biden gave “one of the most divisive presidential speeches in American history. … He used two Marines as window dressing while he attacked half of our nation as enemies. … While none of us know the president’s heart, we do know his ideology. Because we see the impact every day. I can sum up the president’s principles in three words: Woke, weak, and waffling.”
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Pompeo, whom pundits view as a potential 2024 GOP presidential contender, will also stress that “now more than ever, we need to believe that America is worth fighting for again. We need conservative leadership that believes it too; leaders who will celebrate that it is exceptional and never apologize for it.”
The West Point graduate and Army armor and calvary officer stationed in West Germany during the Cold War who was later elected to Congress from Kansas before serving as CIA director and America’s top diplomat in the Trump administration, has made numerous stops the past year and a half in New Hampshire as well as Iowa, South Carolina and Nevada, the other three early voting states in the Republican presidential nominating calendar.
Pompeo, a Fox News contributor, has repeatedly said that he’ll make a decision on 2024 following the November midterm elections.
But last week, speaking to the Navy Seal Foundation Midwest Evening of Tribute in Chicago, Pompeo revealed more about his potential White House run.
“We’ve got a team in Iowa, a team in New Hampshire and South Carolina. And that’s not random. We are doing the things one would do to get ready,” Pompeo shared.
And taking a friendly jab his former boss, Pompeo joked that “unlike others, if I go down an escalator, no one will notice.”
Pompeo was referring to Trump’s famous ride down an escalator at Trump Tower in New York City in 2015 as he announced his White House run.
