A Conversation With Mike Pompeo
And another with filmmaker Gloria Greenfield and historian Victor Davis Hanson.
Next Tuesday, February 8, I’ll be introducing, and then interviewing onstage, Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills, a luncheon event hosted by the David Horowitz Freedom Center. For those who will be in the SoCal area that day, here are the details.
Pompeo is making the rounds to promote his brand new memoir Never Give an Inch, and he’ll give a short speech at the event but then sit down with me onstage and take some questions.
Pompeo has not yet announced a bid for the Presidency, but he almost certainly will run, and this book is no doubt part of the campaign he is gearing up (his recent impressive weight loss — a reported 90 lbs. — might also be part of his campaign preparation). At an event I attended Tuesday night that was packed with conservatives (more on that in a moment), several told me in private conversation that they would not hesitate to vote for Pompeo, although Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is naturally their preferred candidate (as he is mine too). No one mentioned Trump, at least not to me.
I haven’t looked too deeply into Pompeo but I have a hard time finding any issue on which I disagree with him, except his push for supplying Ukraine with tanks and fighter jets (and no, that doesn’t make me pro-Putin). That’s a serious sticking point, though. In any case, I’m a DeSantis man all the way. I’ve met DeSantis and he’s the real deal, a leader of men. He has every positive quality (and more) that some people see in Trump, but without any of Trump’s considerable baggage.
Most importantly, I believe that DeSantis will be a far more effective President than Trump or any other candidate, in no small part because DeSantis has proven to be a fearless warrior in the cultural arena. He understands how critical it is that our government leaders take the fight to the likes of Big Tech, Disney, gender ideology, Critical Race Theory, woke corporatism, and on and on. These are all cultural threats more than political ones, though the two are linked, and America desperately needs a leader who grasps this and will wield the power of the state to push back.
The Tuesday evening event I referred to above was the Los Angeles premiere of a new documentary by my filmmaker friend Gloria Greenfield called Civilization in the Danger Zone. The film, in which I was honored to make a brief appearance for some commentary alongside such pundits and authors as Rod Dreher, Christopher Rufo, Heather Mac Donald, is a must-see about the most urgent internal and external threats facing Western civilization. This event too was hosted by the Horowitz Freedom Center; it was held at the Eli and Edythe Broad Theater in Santa Monica, California before a crowd of over 180 very enthusiastic attendees.
I introduced historian/pundit Victor Davis Hanson, who then introduced the film with some opening remarks, and afterward I made some closing remarks and then was joined onstage by VDH and Gloria Greenfield for a conversation about the film.
The film and event were extremely well-received, by all reports. Attendees were snapping up DVD versions of the film for themselves and to give to friends, which you can order here for your own. I can’t recommend it highly enough.