Pompeo rolls out ad on religious freedom in Iowa, S.C. amid 2024 speculation

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is rumored to be gearing up for a presidential campaign, released an ad on Monday promoting religious freedom minutes after the Supreme Court ruled in a major school prayer case.

The ad begins with a voiceover from the day the court held oral arguments on the case, with the narrator calling it “one of the most important” school prayer cases in more than a decade.

“They’re not just words,” Pompeo interjects. “They’re not just actions. They’re the things that make us. They lift us, inspire us, save us.”

A person familiar with the ad campaign said it is running digitally in Iowa and South Carolina, two early 2024 primary states seen as key to winning a party’s nomination for president.

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled 6-3 in favor of a football coach who was placed on paid leave for holding brief, postgame prayers on the school football field’s 50-yard line.

The school argued the his influential capacity as a coach pressured players to join the prayer, but the court’s conservatives ruled that it was unconstitutional “discrimination” against the coach’s religious views.

Pompeo tweeted the ad roughly 20 minutes after the court’s ruling.

“I’m Mike Pompeo, and this is who we are,” he said in the ad. “Together let’s make sure that our religious freedom and our right to pray are never canceled.”

The ad was paid for by Champion American Values PAC, a political group launched by Pompeo last year.

Pompeo, who served as CIA director during the Trump administration prior to becoming secretary of State, is widely seen as a potential 2024 Republican presidential contender. 

He has visited the early primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire, traditionally the two first primary contests, since leaving the State Department upon President Biden’s inauguration.