QUESTION: Hi, welcome back. Glad you made it here, everybody, the Chris Salcedo Show. Our telephone number of 281-558-5738, 281-558-KSEV. I want to welcome former congressman, used to run the CIA, now Mike Pompeo is the 70th United States Secretary of State. Sir, welcome to the Chris Salcedo Show.
SECRETARY POMPEO: Chris, thanks for having me on this morning. It's good to talk to you.
QUESTION: Sir, you have undertaken in the State Department something pretty historic, a repatriation of Americans that were abroad when COVID-19 hit us. Tell us how many people you brought home and how many folks are still out there that need to be brought home.
SECRETARY POMPEO: So, Chris, I'm sure many of your listeners knew someone who was traveling when this virus hit the world, might have been on a mission trip or on business or just on a family vacation. We've all seen the cruise ship issues. We had people stranded in 109-plus countries. We now have returned over 61,000 Americans to their families. We got them back home, got them back to their church, got them back to where they wanted to be when they got stuck. When trains and buses and planes all stopped flying, the State Department showed up and brought these people home. I am proud of what the State Department has done under President Trump's leadership. We still have several thousand people who have said, yes, I'm stuck, I want to get back. We're going to do everything we can to get them back just as quickly as we can.
There are still countries that are open. They may close too. And I'd just have all your listeners make sure that if they're thinking about traveling in the next handful of days that they pay attention to what's going on in the country they're thinking about heading to, and they check in with the State Department before they depart.
QUESTION: That's a good point. Let me switch to the genesis of the pandemic we're going through right now, which, of course, is China. Have you spoken to your Chinese counterpart? Number one, do they acknowledge that they were less than truthful? What I've been saying, they've lied to the United States and that they've lied to the world, releasing this pandemic. And what about their activities in the South China Sea? As we're battling COVID-19, is there evidence out there that you have seen the Chinese are trying to exploit and further solidify their dominion in the South China Sea by militarizing it even further?
SECRETARY POMPEO: Chris, those are all good questions. So I have spoken to my Chinese counterpart. I made clear President Trump's expectations that the Chinese Government would be transparent, honest, timely in passing this information. This isn't political; this is about saving American lives - frankly, saving lives of people all around the world.
We know where this virus originated. It originated in Wuhan, China. These are just the facts. And we need every government to do two things. One, they've got to be honest about what's going on. They've got to talk about where the disease is in their country, how many fatalities they've had, what kind of cases they have, what kind of testing they're engaged in. And then for the Chinese Government, as the President said when they were talking about the fact that this might have come from an American soldier or an American weapons lab, that's really risky. That creates risk when you put disinformation out there in that way.
This data is important for our best medical professionals to make decisions about how we're going to get the American economy cranked back up again. We have to have every country, including China, engaged in a transparent, open way.
QUESTION: Well, yeah, and I think there is fair evidence out that they have not been. So Senator Tom Cotton is out there, as he sees his constituents suffering, some losing their lives, and a lot of lawmakers are seeing this as well. He's put out an idea of opening the courts to allow - much in the same way that 9/11 victims were able to do this - to be able to sue the Communist Party of China, the communist government out there, for damages. Is that something the State Department would support?
SECRETARY POMPEO: So I've seen various proposals like that. Here's the way we're thinking about this today: Today we're focused on doing everything we can to deliver good outcomes around the world. It's important to get good health outcomes in other places too. Chris, we're not out of the woods until this virus goes away. If somebody's got it in Africa or Asia or someplace else, it can come back to our country too. That's what we're focused on today.
There will be a time, and that time is not too far off - there will be a time when the world will get to see which countries performed well, which countries created risk and imposed costs, and in fact, your point is well taken - cost American lives. And I'm very confident that both President Trump and members of Congress like Senator Cotton, when that time is right, those who were responsible for both the loss of lives, the tragedy that's taken place here in the United States, and the economic damage that has been done all around the world, I'm very confident that this administration will lead the way in holding both those countries and the individuals responsible for it accountable.
QUESTION: No, you know what? I share the confidence this administration will. Let me just ask you point blank about your confidence in the level of cooperation you're getting from your counterpart in China. Have they been honest with us? Can you definitively tell the American people that communist China has been truthful about even their current levels of COVID-19 infection?
SECRETARY POMPEO: Just like many places, we've watched this data and sometimes it just doesn't fit with what we know to be the case. What we've asked is we've asked every country, including China, we've asked them to make sure that we can get information. You'll recall, Chris, at the very beginning of this, the very onset, the United States tried to get our best doctor scientists inside of their country, and we weren't successful at doing that. We wanted to do it alongside the World Health Organization and just simply weren't able to do it. We've watched now, too, China expel journalists who were reporting on this set of issues, and we've also seen some of the folks inside of China, Chinese citizens who were talking about this, not be free to share that data.
What has to happen to get past this time, we need every government - including the Chinese Government - to be transparent and open. If we get those things, if we can get transparency, if we can get these data sets right, we've got a real shot at pushing back against this thing and getting the global economy back on track. I regret that some countries didn't get it right at the front end.
QUESTION: Yeah, me too. Switching gears a little bit, we're now hearing that Great Britain is reconsidering their adopting and using the 5G technology from Huawei, considering the dishonesty that you and I have been talking about from communist China. (A) Is the State Department encouraging them to re-evaluate, and do you think it's a good idea for them to abandon Chinese 5G?
SECRETARY POMPEO: I've been talking about this for two years now, Chris. The Huawei system, this 5G system that Huawei puts forward, is a system that is fraught with peril, fraught with national security risks for any country that puts it in. It allows too much access for the Chinese Government and the Chinese Communist Party.
So yes, the answer is we've traveled the world, the State Department has traveled the world not only to the United Kingdom but to many, many countries and made clear to them the real risk and cost to their own people. If you want your own people to have data that's private, that is secure, putting Huawei systems into your country's infrastructure is not the right approach, and we've worked to help them develop alternatives to that as well.
I hope the United Kingdom will move back in the direction that the United States has and simply says the fact that the Huawei system is inexpensive on the front end - that is, it's got a cheap price - that the cost is on the back side, and we ought to avoid it just as we've done here in the United States.
QUESTION: From your lips to God's ears. The Iranians are hard-hit by the coronavirus, the China coronavirus, as well, and you have stated that you might be willing to look at relieving some sanctions in Iran. How do we help the innocent Iranians who are being plagued by the China coronavirus yet make sure the murderous, terrorist regime of Iran still pays consequences for their actions?
SECRETARY POMPEO: Chris, we've been pretty clear. We've offered humanitarian assistance from the very front end. We offered to provide food assistance, all the things that the Iranian people would need. This is a tragedy that has struck the Iranian people. Part of the loss of life that will occur there is a direct result of the regime not having invested in their health care system, but rather having invested in Hizballah and terror campaigns around the world. This is not the time to throw a bunch of cash at the Iranian regime. It won't work. That cash will go to be siphoned off for corruption; it'll end up in the hands of arms merchants; it'll end up in the hands of the Shia militias and Hizballah.
We have supported other countries too as they have tried to move humanitarian assistance in. We've been somewhat successful at getting that product to move and getting in to the Iranian people. We need to do everything we can to help the Iranian people move through this virus problem, but we shouldn't do a thing to provide resources or funding to a regime that presents real risks to American soldiers, our colleagues and friends who are serving in the military today in Iraq and Syria, all of those places where the Iranian leadership is acting in ways that it's trying to put them at risk and cause loss of life for American soldiers. We should never, never do anything that would fuel the Iranian regime's capacity to inflict terror around the world and risk American lives.
QUESTION: Last question I have for you, Mr. Secretary. Speaking of the Iranians, you've got their allies, the Venezuelans. Nicolas Maduro still sits there as so-called president even though we don't recognize it. He is now making arrests of Guaido's top aides - the president we recognize here in the United States - and he's even threatening to go after Guaido himself. How much patience does the President of the United States and you have with Nicolas Maduro, this dictator who has done his best to grind the people in Venezuela into the dirt?
SECRETARY POMPEO: Well, I don't want to get out in front of any decision that the President may make, but what this administration has done to make clear that we stand with the Venezuelan people is unprecedented, whether it's the work that we've done to recognize Juan Guaido and the president that was elected by those Venezuelan people, whether it's the humanitarian assistance we've helped to provide as now over a third of the Venezuelan people have had to flee their own country, moved into Peru or to Colombia or elsewhere in South America.
This is a truly humanitarian disaster, wholly unrelated to the current virus, and we're going to do everything we can to stand up an opportunity for the Venezuelan people to get their democracy back. It is a man-made crisis of epic proportions that Nicolas Maduro has foisted upon his people, and I hope the people of Venezuela, with all of the good nature that they possess, will get a chance to take their country back. The United States stands ready to do everything we can to make sure that democracy is restored in Venezuela.
QUESTION: Amen to that, a case study in the perils of socialism right down there in our own backyard.
SECRETARY POMPEO: Amen.
QUESTION: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, sir, it has been a pleasure talking with you. Come back, we'll talk soon.
SECRETARY POMPEO: Thank you, Chris. So long. Have a great day.
QUESTION: You betcha.
