Pompeo when asked if impeachment weakened Trump: 'You should ask Mr. Soleimani'

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was asked on Sunday if the Democrats' impeachment of President Donald Trump has made the commander-in-chief vulnerable among international circles.

"You should ask Mr. Soleimani," Pompeo responded to" Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace, referring to late Iranian terrorist Qassam Soleimani who was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Iraq on Thursday.

Wallace pressed the former head of the CIA if he thought the Democrats' efforts to remove Trump from office would result in the United States being perceived as weak by other countries and foreign enemies.

"I don't," Pompeo said, according to the Washington Examiner. "Our adversaries understand that President Trump and our administration will do the right thing to protect the American people every place that we find risk."

The House of Representatives voted along party lines to impeach Trump in December charging the president with two articles of impeachment: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Not a single Republican backed the measures, which are expected to be tried in the Senate in the near future.

Pompeo: It would have been 'culpably negligent' not to take out Soleimani

Pompeo reiterated that the U.S. had credible intelligence that Soleimani was planning to kill more Americans and attack U.S. interests in the region.

"I think any reasonable person who saw the intelligence that the senior American leaders had in their possession would have come to the same conclusion that President Trump and our leadership team did about the fact that there would have been more risk to America, more risk through inaction than there was through the action that we took," Pompeo said.

Additionally, the former Army officer noted that although "there are things we simply cannot make public" regarding the threats posed by Soleimani to U.S. national security, Pompeo said "we would have been culpably negligent had we not gone after General Soleimani when we had the opportunity."

Democrats say killing Soleimani was a 'disproportionate' response

Meanwhile, Democrats are criticizing Trump for issuing the order to terminate the Iranian terrorist who had the blood of over 600 Americans on his hands. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi described the termination of Soleimani as "disproportionate."

"American leaders' highest priority is to protect American lives and interests. But we cannot put the lives of American service members, diplomats and others further at risk by engaging in provocative and disproportionate actions," she said.

During a separate segment on "Fox News Sunday," Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) contrasted Trump's own diplomatic approach to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un with his treatment of Soleimani.

"We don't go around killing all the bad people in the world," he said.

Trump approved the strike against Soleimani after the Iranian terrorist mastermind allegedly ordered the siege of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and the killing of a U.S. contractor in Iraq.