April 14 (Reuters) – Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday he would not run in the 2024 presidential race, which would have pitted him against his former boss Donald Trump for the Republican nomination.
Pompeo, 59, said he decided with his wife that he would not be a candidate due to personal reasons.
“This is not the right time for me and my family,” Pompeo said in a statement. “This is not that time or that time for me to seek elected office again.”
A former congressman from Kansas, Pompeo developed a reputation as one of Trump’s most loyal lieutenants while serving as secretary of state and director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He spearheaded Trump’s pugnacious foreign policy as the top US diplomat and was a magnet for controversy in Washington.
Pompeo also initially endorsed Trump’s false claims about a stolen presidential election following his 2020 loss to Democrat Joe Biden, though he ended up cooperating with the incoming administration. In recent months he has indirectly criticized Trump, saying Republicans need leaders who don’t dwell on the past.
President Biden said Friday that he has decided to run for a second term in 2024 and would announce his campaign “relatively soon.”
(Reporting by Tyler Clifford in New York; Editing in Spanish by Aida Peláez-Fernández)
Source: Ambito
