Pompeo meeting with Biden’s secretary of state pick for first time

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is meeting with Antony Blinken, President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee to be his successor, for the first time on Friday.

Blinken and Pompeo were originally slated to meet in mid-December, but the meeting was canceled after Pompeo went into quarantine after coming into contact with someone who tested positive for coronavirus.

Blinken, wearing a mask, arrived at the State Department just before 1 pm, ET, and was greeted by Pompeo’s executive secretary.

It’s unclear how long Pompeo and Blinken will meet. CNN reported that the December meeting was only scheduled for 15 minutes.

Pompeo has yet to acknowledge Joe Biden as President-elect in public remarks but did seem to acknowledge his impending departure in an interview with Bloomberg News this week.

“After four years, I think we’re leaving the world safer than when we came in,” he said.

“I hope that the policies that we put in place will have the capacity to continue and whoever the next secretary of state is will begin to follow down this path in a way that recognizes the threat from the Chinese Communist Party, that honors the work that we have done to push back against the Islamic Republic of Iran, the two states with the capacity to inflict real harm on the United States of America,” he added.

Their meeting comes two days after the assault on the US Capitol. Pompeo condemned the violent insurrection as unacceptable, but he did not blame President Donald Trump for inciting it.

This story is breaking and will be updated.