The first version of this: pretending not to hear the president’s words. When asked about the situation in Venezuela on “Fox News Sunday,” Pompeo told host Chris Wallace, “We’ve told the Russians and we’ve told the Cubans that [their interference is] unacceptable.” Wallace pointed out that the president claimed Friday after speaking with Russian President Vladimir Putin that Russia is looking for “something positive” in Venezuela. Rather than attempt to reconcile Trump’s statement with his own, Pompeo simply pretended the president never said it. “[The] president’s been very clear on this,” he told Wallace, “He said — I think it was in a tweet several weeks back: The Russians have to get out. That remains our view.” Similarly, on ABC’s “This Week,” Pompeo said: “The president has said that the Russians must get out. … I don’t think anything the president said is inconsistent with that.”

The second iteration of Pompeo’s cluelessness: pretending not to understand the question and clashing with the interviewer. In the Fox interview, Wallace asked the secretary of state, “Why doesn’t the president get tough with Putin about what everyone seems to agree is clear, meddling in 2016 and the threat of meddling in 2020?” Pompeo first insisted, “We continue to work on it,” even though he is well aware that Trump didn’t bring the issue up with Putin in their Friday conversation and that Republicans have blocked bills to fund increased election security. When Wallace pressed, Pompeo sputtered: “Chris, I don’t get your point. ... You continue to be fixated on something that [special counsel] Robert Mueller wrote down” — as if somehow Mueller writing that Russia tried to interfere in the 2016 presidential election makes that less of a threat.

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Later, while discussing China and human rights on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Pompeo referred to “up to a million [Muslims] held in reeducation camps.” When host Margaret Brennan pointed out that the Pentagon estimated closer to 3 million and called the camps concentration camps, not reeduction camps, Pompeo — rather than acknowledge the discrepancy — snapped back: “Don’t — don’t play ticky-tack.”

And when all else fails, Pompeo resorts to his final strategy: pretending not to know anything at all. Will there be a Russia-U.S. summit? “I don’t know, we’ll see.” Where would he rank climate change among threats to the United States? “I can’t rank it.” Is he still the lead negotiator with North Korea? “So far as I know." Why didn’t Trump ask about election interference? “You’ll have to ask the White House that question.”

In each interview, Pompeo slid easily from pretending not to understand interviewers’ questions to pretending not to hear what the president said to pretending not to know anything at all. His version of deliberate obliviousness does not have the degree of furious pride that defines Trump’s incuriosity. But like counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway, press secretary Sarah Sanders and other “survivors” of this White House, Pompeo has the shamelessness needed to get ahead. That such a quality is key to “success” in this White House is truly disturbing.

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