It appears that now-former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is wasting no time in stoking speculation about his likely national ambitions.
On Thursday, his first full day as a private citizen following the end of President Trump’s administration, Pompeo tweeted "1,384 days."
That happens to be the number of days until the next presidential election, in November of 2024.
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Pompeo, a former congressman from Kansas who served as CIA director under Trump before becoming America’s top diplomat, is considered to be one of more than a dozen potential 2024 GOP presidential hopefuls.
The then-secretary of state, who was arguably Trump’s most loyal cabinet member, faced criticism last year for giving speeches considered to be tinged with political overtones, including delivering an address during August’s Republican National Convention that he recorded during an official diplomatic trip to Israel. After the speech, House Democrats called for an investigation into whether Pompeo violated the Hatch Act, which bars federal appointees from engaging in politically partisan activities.
Over the past year and a half, Pompeo also spoke at The Villages, a must stop in Florida for GOP politicians, at religious gatherings in Texas and Iowa, and last month he traveled to Georgia to tout Trump’s efforts to combat threats from China.
Although it’s normal for secretaries of state to speak to domestic audiences, the address in Atlanta came as the nation’s campaign spotlight was fixated on Georgia, due to the state’s twin Senate runoff elections, where control of the Senate was up for grabs.
Pompeo’s new tweet quickly generated buzz on Twitter. The tweet was "liked" more than 20,000 times and retweeted more than 4,300 times in the first half hour after it went up on the social media platform.
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Pompeo, who’s not tried to hide his probably national ambitions, toot to Twitter multiple times during his final week as secretary of state to tout his achievements as secreatary of state and to build up his private twitter account.
"I will never stop fighting for America First, even after my time as Secretary of State," he tweeted Monday to the more than 3 million followers on his official State Department Twitter account. "There is always more work to be done and I look forward to continuing to share and engage with you on what's next. If you haven’t already, please be sure to follow me @mikepompeo."
As of Thursday morning, Pompeo had nearly 922,000 followers on in personal Twitter account.