The other day Secretary of State Mike Pompeo excoriated a female reporter who asked him a question about Ukraine he didn't like, then President Donald Trump, male chauvinist pig-in-chief, commended him for it.
"That was very impressive, Mike," Trump said at a White House event after Pompeo was introduced to applause. "That reporter couldn't have done too good a job on you yesterday, huh? I think you did a good job on her, actually."
The incident Trump was referring to occurred last week when Mary Louise Kelly, host of All Things Considered on NPR, asked Pompeo about whether he should apologize to former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, for her sudden ouster at the behest of Trump and his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani.
Angered because the interview was supposed to be about Iran, Pompeo told Kelly, "I have defended every State Department official. We've built a great team. The team that works here is doing amazing work around the world... I've defended every single person on this team. I've done what's right for every single person on this team."
But he didn't let it go at that.
Here's how Kelly reported it, according to NPR:
"I was taken to the Secretary's private living room where he was waiting and where he shouted at me for about same amount of time as the interview itself. He was not happy to have been questioned about Ukraine.
"He asked, "do you think Americans care about Ukraine?"
"He used the F-word in that sentence and many others. He asked if I could find Ukraine on a map. I said yes, and he called out for aides to bring us a map of the world with no writing. I pointed to Ukraine. He put the map away.
"He said, 'people will hear about this.'"
On Saturday, Pompeo issued a statement saying that Kelly lied to him by saying the post-interview conversation was off the record, which she denies.
"It is shameful that this reporter chose to violate the basic rules of journalism and decency. This is another example of how unhinged the media has become in its quest to hurt President Trump and this Administration. It is no wonder that the American people distrust many in the media when they so consistently demonstrate their agenda and their absence of integrity.
"It is worth noting that Bangladesh is NOT Ukraine."
Bangladesh? That's odd, Kelly would have to be horribly geographically deprived if she mistook Bangladesh for Ukraine, considering the two countries are 3,000 miles apart -- an unlikely circumstance since she's a former national security reporter with extensive international travel and a master's degree in Euopean studios from Cambridge University.
Perhaps it is Pompeo who is geographically deprived. She pointed to Ukraine and he mistook it for Bangladesh! Doesn't say much for our genius Secretary of State, does it?
Trump? He just looks for every opportunity to berate the media, especially when its reporting calls into question his actions, and those of his administration suck-ups -- like Pompeo.