Mike Pompeo at Ashbrook Center: 'We may well be the least racist nation in the world'

ASHLAND − Education and the Chinese Communist Party are two of the biggest concerns on Mike Pompeo's mind.

The country's 70th secretary of state and former director of the CIA addressed a crowd of nearly 500 Friday night during the John M. Ashbrook Memorial Dinner inside the John C. Myers Convocation Center at Ashland University.

Pompeo had been invited as the night's keynote because he was awarded the 2022 Ashbrook Award, the highest honor associated with the Ashbrook Center.

Past winners include Ronald Reagan, Pat Buchanan, Dan Quayle, John Boehner and Mike Pence.

The Ashbrook Center is independent of the university and governed by a Board of Directors who seek "to strengthen constitutional self government by educating our fellow Americans — students, teachers and citizens — in the history and founding principles of our country and the habits of reflection and choice necessary to perpetuate our republic."

Importance of limited government

Pompeo started his speech by joking that he had often thought it was interesting that he was the 70th secretary of state, but his former boss, Donald Trump, was only the 45th president.

"It reminds me there was a lot more turnover in my gig than his," Pompeo said, drawing a laugh from the audience.

He said that realization had caused him to check his phone each morning that he was a cabinet member, just to make sure he still had a job.

His time in politics started, he said, in 1986 when he graduated from West Point. He recalled that Reagan was his commander in chief at the time, and spoke often about the importance of limited government.

"We are deeply in need of that wisdom today," Pompeo said.

One of the things they gave him at West Point was a copy of the Federalist Papers — he said he still has that copy, and has read them during every step of his career.

'Marxism with a new coat of paint'

The former secretary of state told the crowd that public schools are not teaching the important things that those associated with the Ashbrook Center understand well.

Part of the problem, he said, is that most children missed two years of in-person instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic. He doesn't think they should have been away from school that long.

"It's harmed our children's learning," Pompeo said. "They are less likely to love this America because of what America failed to do for them."

He said when the students are in school, they are too often taught things contrary to history. The most important thing about the signers of the Declaration of Independence, he said, was that they risked their lives to form a new country. Schools, though, teach that they were racists and little more.

"That kind of history is Marxism with a new coat of paint," Pompeo said.

He said he has traveled to 140 countries during his lifetime, and feels that the people in all of them were far more racist than people in the United States.

"We may well be the least racist nation in the world," Pompeo said.

He urged parents to be as active as possible in their children's education, and not leave it to schools alone.

"They are not creatures of the state," Pompeo said. "They are our maker's creatures."

China still a formidable foe

Once his speech had ended, Pompeo fielded a few questions from guests.

He was asked what West Point taught him that has helped him the most throughout his life.

"It taught me how to build teams," Pompeo answered. "The importance of organizational excellence."

Someone else asked how he felt about the situation in Iran.

"I'm rooting for the Iranian people," Pompeo said.

When asked about energy independence, he said the United States has had a chance to be not only independent, but "energy dominant."

He said when energy comes from too few sources, people suffer.

"We're going to have a very difficult winter here in the United States," Pompeo said. "The people who will suffer the most are the families who can afford it the least."

When someone asked what the greatest outside threat is to the United States, he said it was the Communist Party that runs China.

"It's not even a close call," Pompeo said.

He said that China is the only world power that can actually deliver on the promises it makes against other nations.

China, he said, is stronger now than the Soviet Union was at its height. The U.S. has already started taking back a lot of power it had lost to China.

And will he run for the presidency in 2024? Pompeo didn't offer a firm answer.

"Keep praying for us," he said.

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This article originally appeared on Ashland Times Gazette: 2022 Ashbrook Award recipient Mike Pompeo speaks in Ashland