"I will not be inviting former Ambassador Nikki Haley, or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to join the Trump Administration..."

"... which is currently in formation. I very much enjoyed and appreciated working with them previously, and would like to thank them for their service to our Country. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"

Writes Donald Trump, politely, on Truth Social.

Here's the NYT article about the announcement. Excerpt: "Many in Mr. Trump’s orbit... viewed Mr. Pompeo as being too eager to use the military overseas.... Mr. Pompeo in 2022 also criticized Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents after the F.B.I. raided his home in Mar-a-Lago.... Just days before the election, Ms. Haley said... 'This bromance and this masculinity stuff, it borders on edgy to the point that it’s going to make women uncomfortable'...."

"Did you hear Trump's take on the JFK assassination? Why he didn't release the files?"

"He said that if you knew what I know, you wouldn't tell people either. Which is crazy. What does that mean?"

Joe Rogan asked Tucker Carlson, toward the end of a 3-hour conversation.

Carlson answered:

"Don’t hand that government more power under the guise of conservatism.... We shouldn’t look for larger-than-life personalities, but rather we should fight power in the rooms like this one."

"We can’t become the left, following celebrity leaders with their own brand of identity politics — those with fragile egos who refuse to acknowledge reality. … We can’t shift blame to others, but must accept the responsibility that comes to those of us who step forward and lead."

Said Mike Pompeo, at CPAC, quoted in a WaPo column titled "Pompeo’s personal dig at Trump."

If you're going to tell people to stop fixating on the big person, you have to offer some big substance. You can't just invoke generalities like leadership and fighting "power." You're seeking power. And you've already allied yourself with the big celebrity in your rise to power, so I can't even understand your point. You want us to follow you because you're not a celebrity, after you followed the same celebrity we're — some of us — still following?

I'm limited to what the WaPo columnist (Aaron Blake) chose to quote. I searched for the full text of the speech. Couldn't find it. Not even in his Twitter feed. 

"We both believed that the best outcome was a normal transition of power, which was working, and neither one of us contemplated in any serious format the 25th Amendment."

"The only research I did out of curiosity was I googled it. I remember my general counsel asking me if we wanted him to do extensive research on it. I said, no, not at this point."

Said Steven Mnuchin, quoted "Jan. 6 transcript: Mnuchin briefly discussed 25th Amendment removal of Trump" (The Hill).

 "We both believed" referred to Mnuchin and Mike Pompeo.

"I get asked 'Who’s the most dangerous person in the world? Is it Chairman Kim, is it Xi Jinping?' The most dangerous person in the world is Randi Weingarten."

"It’s not a close call. If you ask, 'Who’s the most likely to take this republic down?' It would be the teacher’s unions, and the filth that they’re teaching our kids, and the fact that they don’t know math and reading or writing. These are the things that candidates should speak to in a way that says, 'Here’s the problem. Here’s a proposal for how to solve it. And if given the opportunity, these are the things I will go work on to try and deliver that outcome that fixes that problem.' Pretty straightforward stuff."

Said Mike Pompeo, quoted in "Mike Pompeo: 'The most dangerous person in the world is Randi Weingarten'" (Semafor).

Pompeo, the former Secretary of State, seems to intend to run for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024.

Pompeo is eager to "ban TikTok." Asked why, he sputters short sentences:

"In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade, former vice president Mike Pence says abortion should be banned nationwide..."

"... and is planning behind the scenes to focus on the issue in the coming weeks, according to advisers.... On Friday, Pence’s organization, Advancing American Freedom, shared a video highlighting that record.... Some Republican strategists called the end of Roe an opportunity for Pence.... 'He just needs an issue set that he can really dig into that’s not about January 6 or Trump or anything,' said Republican strategist David Kochel, who has worked on six presidential campaigns. 'He’s comfortable talking about [abortion],' he added. But Kochel said Trump still has the simplest message to voters about the Supreme Court ruling: 'You’re welcome.'... Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich on Friday disputed that Trump has privately expressed misgivings about overturning Roe.... Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R)... said in a recent statement that the state would 'work to expand pro-life protections' but did not chart out specifics.... Former secretary of state Mike Pompeo called for increased support for pregnancy care centers, organizations that counsel people against abortions and provide them with resources..... Nikki Haley... said in a statement that she hopes for 'a renewed commitment from elected lawmakers to support and protect mothers and their pre-born babies.'"

From "Pence leans in on abortion, as Trump, other potential 2024 candidates are more cautious/The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade has opened up new fissures offering early clues about the contours of the primary" (WaPo).

Do you believe Mike Pompeo lost 90 pounds in 6 months by working out in his home gym for half an hour a day and eating healthy foods?

I know I silently called bullshit when I read about it, so I laughed when I saw the editors of the Kansas City Star openly call bullshit:

We asked weight loss experts, and people who have lost large amounts of weight themselves, whether it’s possible to lose 90 pounds in six months simply by eating better and hitting a humble home gym for half an hour five or six times a week. Their response? Absolutely not, almost certainly not, and hahaha. ... 

“He would have to be on a massive starvation diet,” [said Micah LaCerte, a top personal trainer] probably taking in no carbs at all. And even then, “no way with only a half-hour workout. Ninety in six is unbelievable, especially for his age, unless he’s working out for hours every day. The numbers just don’t add up. Dude, just be honest. Mike, come on, man.”... 

While it may be theoretically possible, “it’s just not likely” without surgery, drugs or other extreme measures, says Al Rose, a longtime New York bodybuilder, trainer and coach... "His face is sunken and his skin doesn’t look good. He’s gone from one extreme to the other..." Rose said....

"We had a model where we'd made clear what our red lines were. We'd made clear the things we were prepared to do to defend them."

"We could have executed a plan in a way that would have led to the orderly withdrawal. We would have demanded that the Taliban actually deliver on the conditions that we laid out in the agreement - including the agreement to engage in meaningful power sharing agreement - something that we struggled to get them to do but made clear it was going to be a requirement before we completed our requirement to fully withdraw."

Said Trump's Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, quoted in "Mike Pompeo Outlines How Trump Admin Planned to Handle Afghanistan, Taliban" (Newsweek).

Biden shut down an investigation into whether the Coronavius came from a Chinese lab... but CNN, breaking the news, will not use the word "investigation."

I'm reading "Pompeo-led effort to hunt down Covid lab theory shut down by Biden administration over concerns about quality of evidence" (CNN). It was an "effort to hunt down" a "theory."

President Joe Biden's team shut down a closely-held State Department effort launched late in the Trump administration to prove the coronavirus originated in a Chinese lab over concerns about the quality of its work, according to three sources familiar with the decision.

It was just an "effort... to prove" something that they already believed, something they wanted to find. Is there a general principle that an investigation launched in the hope of finding something politically useful ought to be shut down? If the "quality" of the work was concerning, why not improve the quality? Why shut it down? There certainly needs to be a principle that you don't shut down investigations because you're afraid they might uncover what you don't want to find.

The existence of the State Department inquiry and its termination this spring by the Biden administration -- neither of which has been previously reported -- comes to light amid renewed interest in whether the virus could have leaked out of a Wuhan lab with links to the Chinese military.

So... it wasn't "previously reported"?! I presume that means, CNN already knew it, but it withheld the information from us because it reflected badly on Biden, and CNN is only revealing it now because there is other reporting on the plausibility of the lab-leak theory, and it realizes that withholding the story will hurt whatever reputation for journalism CNN might still have.

"An investigation of alleged war crimes by the US and others in the Afghan conflict can go ahead, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has ruled."

"The ICC overturned on appeal a previous decision to block the investigation. The actions of the Taliban, the Afghan government and US troops since May 2003 are expected to be examined. But US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the ruling was "reckless" and vowed to protect Americans from it. 'This is a truly breathtaking action by an unaccountable, political institution masquerading as a legal body,' he said. 'All the more reckless for this ruling to come just days after the United States signed a historic peace deal on Afghanistan, which is the best chance for peace in a generation.'"

BBC reports.

Dancing in the streets.

Gee, where have we heard this before. In 2003, Dick Cheney assured us we'd be "greeted as liberators" in Iraq. https://t.co/gLXbQVsL5D

— Adam Jentleson 🎈🐢💧 (@AJentleson) January 3, 2020

"Turkey rebuffed U.S. calls for a cease-fire in northeastern Syria as it pressed ahead Wednesday with an offensive targeting Syrian Kurdish militants and demanded that the fighters lay down their arms...."

"Turkey launched the offensive last week to rout Kurdish-led forces it says pose a threat to Turkish national security. Erdogan rejected a U.S. offer to broker a truce, saying in a speech before parliament Wednesday that Turkey had 'never in its history sat down at a table with terrorist groups.' Turkish officials view Syrian Kurdish forces as terrorists for their links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged a decades-long war for autonomy in Turkey. 'We are not looking for a mediator for that,' Erdogan said of talks with Kurdish fighters. He said Turkey and allied Syrian rebels plan to forge ahead to establish a buffer zone some 20 miles into Syria. 'Nobody can stop us,' he said.... 'He needs to stop the incursion into Syria,' [Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo said of the Turkish president. 'We need a cease-fire, at which point we can begin to put this all back together again.'"

WaPo reports.

ADDED: "Turkey-Kurd Conflict ‘Has Nothing to Do With Us,’ Trump Says." The NYT reports.

"Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered a sobering assessment of the prospects of the Trump administration’s long-awaited Middle East peace plan in a closed-door meeting with Jewish leaders..."

"... saying 'one might argue' that the plan is 'unexecutable' and it might not 'gain traction.' He expressed his hope that the deal isn’t simply dismissed out of hand. 'It may be rejected. Could be in the end, folks will say, "It’s not particularly original, it doesn’t particularly work for me," that is, "it’s got two good things and nine bad things, I’m out,"' Pompeo said in an audio recording of the private meeting obtained by The Washington Post.... 'I get why people think this is going to be a deal that only the Israelis could love,' he said. 'I understand the perception of that. I hope everyone will just give the space to listen and let it settle in a little bit.'... Pompeo, unlike previous secretaries of state, is not overseeing the peace effort... [Jared] Kushner, a real estate scion from New Jersey, and [Jason] Greenblatt, the former chief legal officer for Trump and the Trump Organization, have led the initiative since the president took power. The two men, both practicing Orthodox Jews, did not come in with political experience but have shared a long interest in and connection to Israel.... [After Pompeo's meeting with Jewish leaders,] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to form a governing coalition and Israel’s parliament voted to dissolve itself, sending the country back to elections in September. Now, if the White House wants to avoid rolling out a peace plan during a sensitive election campaign period for Netanyahu, it will have to wait until at least November, when... the Trump administration will be stepping up its own reelection campaign...."

From "Exclusive: Pompeo delivers unfiltered view of Trump’s Middle East peace plan in off-the-record meeting" (WaPo)(audio at the link).

Do you think that's something Pompeo wanted to get out? Should we presume one of the "Jewish leaders" leaked it? What's the motivation? If Pompeo wanted it out, is it that he believes Kushner has handled it badly and wants the blame to go where it belongs? It seems that failure of the plan is predictable, but why get the failure process going in advance? To make the collapse less sudden?

The highest-rated comment at WaPo is:

What a bunch of morons. Seriously. What did they think would happen when they moved the embassy to Jerusalem? Why did they think prior presidents didn't do that? And now they think they can slide in with a peace plan.

Was never a big fan of the Three Stooges.

So who linked the recording?

"If those requests were gangster-like, the world is a gangster."

Mike Pompeo responds to North Korea's complaint that his "unilateral... demand for denuclearization" is "gangster-like."

WaPo reports.

I suspect that "gangster-like" refers to the idea, from "The Godfather," of an offer you can't refuse. But:

1. I don't think a firm, unilateral offer is the same thing as an offer you must accept because the alternative is death.

2. The idea of "The Godfather" seems connected to Pompeo's Italian ethnicity, and it's unsophisticated of North Korea to display ethnic bias.

3. There's a hint of an expression of love for American pop culture — the movies... and even the gangsters. Perhaps there was an idea of canceling out the idea that Kim Jong-Un was ignorant of Western pop culture in that he didn't know the song "Rocket Man," a knowledge gap highlighted by Mike Pompeo's giving Kim a Trump-signed copy of the recording.

4. Pompeo's response — "If those requests were gangster-like, the world is a gangster" — is terse and memorable, but it is ambiguous as hell. One meaning is: The requests are not gangster-like, because they're typical of the way deal-making is done all over the world. But the other meaning is: The world is a gangster. In a way, it doesn't matter which of those meanings is true or intended. The message is the same: Quit whining, face reality, and make a deal.

"North Korea accused the Trump administration on Saturday of pushing a 'unilateral and gangster-like demand for denuclearization' and called it 'deeply regrettable'..."

"... hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said his two days of talks in the North Korean capital were 'productive.' Despite the criticism, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, still wanted to build on the 'friendly relationship and trust' forged with President Trump during their summit meeting in Singapore on June 12. The ministry said Mr. Kim had written a personal letter to Mr. Trump, reiterating that trust. The harsh North Korean reaction may have been a time-tested negotiating tactic...."

The NYT reports.

Speaking of "gangster-like" approach, I was just reading this editorial in the NYT, "Democrats: Do Not Surrender the Judiciary":

Barring some unforeseen development, the president will lock in a 5-to-4 conservative majority, shifting the court solidly to the right for a generation. This is all the more reason for Democrats and progressives to take a page from “The Godfather” and go to the mattresses on this issue....

So... gangster good or gangster bad? Which is it?

By the way, I thought "go to the mattresses" was a mistake and the expression was "go to the mat." But both expressions exist. "Go to the mat" comes from wrestling, but "go to the mattresses" is in "The Godfather."

From the book, page 250:

...

Kim Jong-Un told Trump he didn't know the song "Rocket Man," so Mike Pompeo is bringing him a CD.

The Chosunilbo reports that Kim Jong-Un had never understood that Trump's "Little Rocket Man" nickname as a reference to an Elton John song. When Trump and Kim met, "'Kim mentioned that Trump referred to him as "rocket man" when tensions ran high last year' after a series of nuclear tests and missile launches by the North. 'Trump then asked Kim if he knew the song and Kim said no.'
Trump remembered the conversation and told Pompeo to take a CD with the song for Kim. He reportedly wrote a message on it and signed it."

Kim could have been lying, but it's disturbing to think that he's so out of touch with our media that he didn't have people reading and interpreting what was being said about the President's statements about him. I'm not saying he or his people should already know the pop culture that might be referenced, just that he should be informed of what Americans are saying about things the President says.

And yet, if you google "little rocket man" and click to a mainstream media report on the President's insult, it might not mention Elton John. The first thing I clicked on (Newsweek, last September) didn't.

I have no idea what would work to reach Kim Jong-Un, but I'd like to think that it would help for the Secretary of State to present him with an Elton John CD, with Trump's Sharpied scrawl on it: To my favorite Little Rocket Man, love always, Trumpie.

"Secretary of State nominee Mike Pompeo’s newly disclosed trip to North Korea to lay the groundwork for denuclearization talks is earning him grudging praise..."

"... from senators opposed to his bid to be the nation’s top diplomat — a potentially important development as Pompeo tries to shore up at least some Democratic support for his confirmation vote," reports WaPo.

“I’m glad that there’s some preparatory work happening for this potential summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Wednesday morning on MSNBC. “I’m very worried that this summit is going to go very badly . . . but I think we should all admit that it’s good, not bad, that the Trump administration is trying to do some work ahead of this meeting, perhaps setting the stage for success rather than failure.”

“The preparation, certainly, is welcome — there’s no way that Donald Trump should go into that meeting without a lot of groundwork being laid,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said, also speaking on MSNBC. But, he added, as the current CIA director, “Pompeo is the wrong person to be engaging in diplomacy.”

"Grudging" is the right word. The OED defines it as "unwilling, reluctant; resentful, envying."

"While the Obama administration infamously micromanaged policy from the West Wing, the Trump White House has given Cabinet secretaries and agency chiefs almost total freedom to do what they want..."

"... according to two close advisers to the White House," Politico reports.

Is this a new line on Trump? He's not really about anything at all....

I'm starting a new tag to keep track of this possible trend.

There's also this: "An Unexpectedly Smooth First Year for Trump’s C.I.A. Director" (NYT):

In Mr. Pompeo’s telling, the president is a sophisticated consumer of intelligence, and under his leadership, the C.I.A. is being reshaped into a leaner, more flexible organization whose officers have been freed to focus on stealing secrets, eliminating the United States’ enemies and giving Mr. Trump the delicate information he needs to confront the challenges facing the country....

"The White House has developed a plan to force out Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, whose relationship with President Trump has been strained..."

"... and replace him with Mike Pompeo, the C.I.A. director, within the next several weeks, senior administration officials said on Thursday," the NYT reports.

Trump picks Flynn for national security adviser, Pompeo to head CIA.

The NYT reports, brashly:

President-elect Donald J. Trump has offered the post of national security adviser to Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, potentially putting a retired intelligence officer who believes Islamist militancy poses an existential threat in one of the most powerful roles in shaping military and foreign policy...

Mr. Trump and General Flynn both see themselves as brash outsiders who hustled their way to the big time. They both post on Twitter often about their own successes, and they have both at times crossed the line into outright Islamophobia.

They also both exhibit a loose relationship with facts....

And:

President-elect Donald J. Trump has selected Representative Mike Pompeo, a hawkish Republican from Kansas and a former Army officer, to lead the Central Intelligence Agency, according to officials close to Mr. Trump’s transition team.

Mr. Pompeo, who has served for three terms in Congress and is a member of the House Intelligence Committee, gained prominence for his role in the congressional investigation into the 2012 attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. He was a sharp critic of Hillary Clinton on the committee....

He has close ties to Wichita-based Koch Industries....

Lots of news coming from the transition team today — Flynn, Pompeo, Sessions. I guess that the MSM will do an abrupt shift from its theme of the last few days — that the transition is in disarray and falling way behind. The new theme — let me guess — is: all the President's men are terrible.