Pompeo stuck to policy, but in doing so he often exposed tensions between those policies and the positions staked out by the president presiding over them. In the case of Russia, for example, he issued a declaration that the United States would not recognize Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea or lift sanctions on Russia until the peninsula is returned to Ukraine. Trump, however, has called for Russia to be readmitted into the Group of Seven industrialized nations despite its military intervention in Ukraine, and occasionally declined to rule out easing sanctions or recognizing Crimea as Russian territory. Pompeo boasted that in response to Russian bad behavior the Trump administration had imposed hundreds of sanctions, expelled dozens of Russian spies, and invested billions of dollars in defending Europe. Trump, however, has blamed poor relations between Russia and the United States entirely on American “foolishness” and U.S. government investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Pompeo stated that Trump “accepts our intelligence community conclusion that Russia meddled in the 2016 election.” Trump, however, in making the same statement last week after suggesting the opposite during his meeting with Putin, added, “Could be other people also; there’s a lot of people out there.”

The roots of Pompeo’s declaration in support of Crimea

At times, Pompeo appeared to be clinging to U.S. policy as if it were a life vest in waters churned up by the president’s words and actions. Grilled by the Democrats Bob Menendez and Jeanne Shaheen on what Trump discussed with Putin during their private one-on-one meeting in Finland, the secretary of state again and again pointed out that the summit had resulted in no change in U.S. policy on matters such as relieving sanctions and withdrawing U.S. forces from Syria. Deflecting questions about what had transpired between Trump and Putin behind closed doors, Pompeo argued, “What matters is what President Trump has directed us to do.”

At one point, Corker applauded the Trump administration’s policies and described Pompeo as a “patriot” but added, “It’s the president [who] causes people to have concerns.” Citing recent statements such as the equivalence Trump drew between the conclusions of the U.S. intelligence community and denials from Putin, and the president’s suggestion in a recent interview with Fox News’s Tucker Carlson that he might not honor America’s commitment through NATO to defend Montenegro from attack, Corker asked, incredulously, “Why does he do those things?”

Pompeo registered his disagreement with Corker. “You somehow disconnect the administration’s activities from the president’s actions,” he responded. “They’re one and the same. Every sanction that was put in place [against Russia] was signed off by the president of the United States. Every [Russian] spy that was removed was” ejected by Trump. “This is President Trump’s administration. Make no mistake who is fully in charge.”