Republican Mike Pompeo sheds 41kg as White House run beckons

Mike Pompeo, Donald Trump’s former secretary of state, has lost 41kg, stoking speculation that he is preparing a 2024 run for president.

Mike Pompeo, the former US Secretary of State, has lost 90 pounds over the past six months.

Mike Pompeo, the former US secretary of state under Donald Trump, has lost more than six stone, stoking speculation that he is preparing a run for president in 2024.

Pompeo, 58, lost 90lb (41kg) over six months by dieting and exercising at his home gym up to six times a week.

A former director of the CIA and senior figure in the White House, he said he was prompted to act in June after seeing the scales tip towards 300lb (136kg) for the first time in his life, which would mean he now weighs roughly 210lb (95kg).

He told the New York Post that he woke up the next morning and told his wife, Susan: “Today is the day.”

Pompeo is widely seen as a potential presidential candidate for the Republicans, especially if his former boss Trump decides not to run. However, Pompeo laughed off the suggestion that his healthy living indicated he was gearing up for a tilt at the White House.

“The truth is, I’m really getting ready for 2044 and hoping I’ll be around in 2054,” he said, adding that he hoped to spend as much time with his future grandchildren as possible.

Mike Pompeo has lost 41kg by dieting and exercising at his home gym up to six times a week.

After piling on weight, he invested in a home gym in his basement and filled it with dumbbells and an elliptical machine.

“I tried to get down there five, six times a week and stay at it for a half-hour or so,” he said. “And that was nothing scientific. There was no trainer, there was no dietician. It was just me.”

Pompeo is a former congressman who served as secretary of state in the Trump administration from 2018 to 2021 after a brief stint as the director of the CIA.

He described problems with his weight as a “lifetime struggle” and said that he hoped his success could inspire others.

“It is hard and it’s not permanent,” he said. “There’s no guarantees that I’ll still be at whatever I weigh now, but if you realise that good things can happen if you keep at it, you can do it.”

Heavyweight: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo disembarks his plane upon arrival on July 20, 2020 in London.

Pompeo, 58, said that although his family was “Italian and we like to get together around a good meal of pasta and bread and cheeses and dessert, I am going to be the guy that says, ‘Yeah, I’ll have a salad’.”

He also said he had swapped his favourite maple syrup-smothered stack of pumpkin pancakes at the restaurant chain IHOP for “egg whites and turkey bacon”.

Pompeo, who was born in California, said he first gained weight after winning a seat in Congress to represent Kansas in 2010.

He said he used an old foot injury suffered in the army as an excuse for not shifting the pounds sooner.

The new trim Mike Pompeo at his home gym. Picture: Samuel Corum

While Pompeo is yet to commit himself to a presidential run in 2024, his actions over the previous 12 months suggest that a bid is likely.

In June he launched a political group supporting conservative candidates in this year’s midterm elections, aiming to help Republicans win back control of Congress and prevail in state races.

Pompeo said that his Champion American Values political action committee was established to “protect American values and to help Republicans take back majorities” both nationally and locally.

He has been visiting key states and speaking at political events.

He joins other Trump administration officials, including the former vice-president Mike Pence and Nikki Haley, who was US ambassador to the United Nations, as possible contenders for the Republican presidential nomination.

THE TIMES