(Radio Iowa) – Potential 2024 presidential candidates are starting to test their messages with Iowa audiences. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo addressed a crowd of Iowa Republicans early Friday morning.

There’s no firm date yet for the 2024 Iowa Caucuses, but the Iowa G-O-P’s chairman says there’s no pushback from national Republican Party leaders about keeping the Iowa Caucuses as the lead-off event in the presidential nominating process. Pompeo emphasized his service in the Trump cabinet and sketched out his own electoral history for the crowd — as a Kansas congressman and even his race for a seat on the board of his homeowners’ association.

Pompeo served as C-I-A director, then as Secretary of State.

Pompeo criticized the Biden Administration for what he described as its willy nilly approach to security at the country’s southern border. And Pompeo said the Trump Administration’s “America First” foreign policy was a fundamentally different approach that worked with Mexico, North Korea and Iran. Pompeo’s speech to the Westside Conservative Club in Urbandale was his only public event during his two-day trip here. He hosted a private fundraiser for Congresswoman Ashley Hinson of Marion, later in the day, Friday.