Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the Biden administration's decision to revoke the Trump-era designation of Yemen's Houthis as a terrorist group "odd," considering the rebels are "conducting terror."
"It's a fact that Iran is sponsoring the Houthis and the Houthis are conducting terror," Pompeo said on Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "U.S. law says if they're conducting terror, you should designate them as a terrorist organization."
He added that he finds it "puzzling" that the Biden administration would determine the Houthis aren't terrorists and that they aren't "receiving weapons and support and intelligence from the Iranians" and doing "real harm" to people of the United States, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, and Israel.
"These are things that aren't fantasy," he said. "We grounded our foreign policy in reality and facts."
But the Biden decision is a "gift to the Iranians and will allow the Houthis to continue to foment terror around the world. It's too bad."
A senior State Department official, while confirming the move Friday, said removing the Houthis from the list was done for humanitarian reasons and changes nothing about the administration's view of the fighters who have killed civilians and kidnapped Americans.
Meanwhile, now that Pompeo is out of office, he said he still thinks the biggest challenges to the nation are the threat from the Chinese Communist Party and the need to "get things right here at home."
"We have to grow our economy and return to the traditions of America that made this country so exceptional," he said. "If we get those two things right ... the sky is the limit for the next generation here in America."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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