Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made an address as part of the republican National Program while on a trip to Israel, violating a department rule he established that State officials not engage in politics and likely violating US law by doing so in a foreign country on an official diplomatic trip.

While his address was not aired on some networks carrying the republican series of speeches, Pompeo displayed highly undiplomatic skills in saying Trump has held China accountable for the “China virus.”

[FACT CHECK:  Trump has yet to implement one single domestic policy to contain the spread of the virus, nor has he issued any sanctions against China for the spread of the virus.  His only stated accomplishment was to ban travel from China, which he did after the virus was on US soil and with most of the cases stemming from European travelers.  Also, 40,000 people entered the US from China after the ban was announced.]

Pompeo said Trump “lowered the temperature” in North Korea, but he did so by putting Kim Jung-un on the same diplomatic level as the President of the United States.  Pompeo also selectively said that North Korea hasn’t done any “long range” missile tests, but they have done medium range tests that could hit the US West Coast as well as our allies in Japan and Southeast Asia.

Pompeo also claimed that “today, because of President Trump, NATO is strong, Ukraine has defensive weapons systems, and America left a harmful treaty so our nation can build missiles to deter Russian aggression.”

[FACT CHECK:  Trump continues to threaten to pull out of NATO, which would be a present to Vladimir Putin.  Ukraine accepted delivery of “defensive weapons systems” but is prohibited from using them without explicit US permission.  And the missile treaty prohibited the development of intermediate range nuclear missiles, which give Russia the advantage of building nuclear missile to threaten our allies in Europe, without a US parallel program because we can’t deploy ground based nuclear missile to Europe.]

Pompeo said that Trump eliminate ISIS terrorists, naming some leaders struck down by US forces, with Pompeo saying specifically that these people were “responsible for the murder and maiming of hundreds of American soldiers and thousands of christians across the Middle East,” in a curious omission of Muslims killed.

Pompeo also restated the debunked myth that Trump is reducing troop levels in the Middle East when, in fact, US forces there have increased slightly.

Stoking Muslim ire, Pompeo said that Trump moved the US embassy in Israel “to this very city of God, Jerusalem, the rightful capital of the Jewish homeland.”