Tag: Mary Louise Kelly

Emails support NPR host after Pompeo calls her a liar in setting up contentious interview

Washington Post logoSecretary of State Mike Pompeo says an NPR host lied in setting up an interview with him on Friday, but email records support the journalist’s account of how the contentious exchange came to be.

The emails, obtained by The Washington Post, indicate that Pompeo’s staff was aware that NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly would ask Pompeo about several topics in the interview and raised no objections, contrary to Pompeo’s characterization.

In an extraordinary statement issued on State Department letterhead on Saturday, Pompeo blasted Kelly for repeatedly asking him why he refused to express support for the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch. Kelly said afterward Pompeo berated her using profanity and challenged her to locate Ukraine on an unmarked map, which Kelly said she did. Continue reading.

NPR reporter says Pompeo cursed at her, told her to point to Ukraine on map

Washington Post logoSecretary of State Mike Pompeo, apparently frustrated by questions about Ukraine and former U.S. ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, launched into a profanity-laced rant against an NPR reporter after an interview, the news organization said.

During the interview with NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly that aired Friday, Pompeo refused to say whether he owed an apology to Yovanovitch, whose firing has featured prominently in President Trump’s impeachment inquiry. An aide ended the interview after Kelly pressed Pompeo for a response.

Kelly recounted what happened next in a report that accompanied her interview. She said a staffer escorted her to Pompeo’s private sitting room, where he was waiting. Although she was not allowed to bring recording equipment into the room, she said there was no request that she keep the exchange off the record, and that she would not have agreed to a conversation if it had been. Continue reading.