Trump Commends Pompeo For Attacking Journalist: ‘You Did A Good Job On Her’

President Donald Trump complimented Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday for his tirade against an NPR reporter asking questions about his actions in Ukraine, saying he “did a good job on her.”

The reporter, Mary Louise Kelly, has said Pompeo went off on a tirade during an interview on Friday, in his private living room at the State Department after she asked several questions about Ukraine.

Trump’s remark came after he thanked Pompeo during the White House’s reveal of its Middle East peace plan.

As Pompeo received a standing ovation, Trump commented “Whoa… That was very impressive, Mike.”

“That reporter couldn’t have done too good a job on you yesterday,” Trump continued. “I think you did a good job on her, actually.

Kelly alleged Pompeo used the F-word during their conversation and told aides to provide a blank map and asked her to point out Ukraine.

“Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?” Pompeo allegedly asked.

On Saturday, Pompeo accused Kelly of lying and said she pointed to Bangladesh instead of Ukraine. Kelly, who has a master’s degree in European Studies from Cambridge University, said she pointed to Ukraine.

In an op-ed published by the New York Times on Tuesday, Kelly said she was not upset about being called a liar but was worried that Pompeo speaks to foreign leaders in that manner.

“For the record, I did,” Kelly wrote about pointing to Ukraine correctly. “That’s not the point.”

“The point is that recently the risk of miscalculation — of two old adversaries misreading each other and accidentally escalating into armed confrontation — has felt very real,” she said. “It occurs to me that swapping insults through interviews with journalists such as me might, terrifyingly, be as close as the top diplomats of the United States and Iran came to communicating this month.”

Article by Katherine Huggins