A Trump 2024 presidential bid wouldn't keep Pompeo from running
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says he'll make a decision by spring on whether he's running for president in 2024 — whether or not former President Donald Trump is also running.
In an interview airing Friday CBS News senior investigative correspondent Catherine Herridge asked Pompeo, if former President Trump seeks the Republican nomination, "would you stay out of the race?"
"Not because of that," he replied.
What would keep him out of the race? It's "an audacious decision to run for president," Pompeo said. "For someone like me, it's a that's a very serious thing. And one has to conclude that they are best suited to lead this nation forward. And if we conclude we were the is the right time and it's the right thing for me to do, we'll run."
"I will make the case to the American people that we are, and that I'm the right leader and that the American people get to make their decision," he added.
Pompeo said that if he does decide to run, he will likely announce his bid in the spring. Pompeo, formerly a member of Congress, was both CIA director and secretary of state in the Trump administration. Since then, he's written a book, "Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love," — and he's also been working on his fitness — he told Fox News that he lost 90 pounds in six months.
And if it's Trump who wins the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, Pompeo said he'll vote for him with "no hesitation."
At this point, though, he's still thinking about it. "We haven't figured that out," he said. "You know — one could draw a straight line there. One shouldn't. That would be bad data management. I was fitter before I was in politics too, so this is not unique. You don't have to decide you want to run for president to get healthier."
Any announcement would come "somewhere after the first of the year, first caucuses and until the beginning of '24. But sometime in the spring of next year, we will begin to turn our focus to trying to get that right."
"And if it's not, Catherine, if it's not me, if we conclude it's not me, I'm going to stay in this fight," Pompeo added.
As some Republicans hedge on whether they'll accept the results of the upcoming midterm elections, Pompeo said it would be a "mistake" for GOP candidates for office not to accept the election results next month.
"Yeah, that's a mistake. That's a mistake," Pompeo said. "It is important that we have confidence in American elections. So American leaders need to instill confidence." However, he also expressed support for election security measures favored by conservatives, like requiring ID cards. "We have to make sure we have the processes in place to have confidence in those elections that can't be fake," he told Herridge. "We have to have elections that are transparent and complete."
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Kathryn Watson is a politics reporter for CBS News Digital based in Washington, D.C.
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