U.S. President Donald Trump has acknowledged Secretary of State Mike Pompeo may run for a Senate seat in 2020 and indicated he would support the top diplomat if he chose to do so.

Trump's apparent blessing for his close ally's potential departure marks the first public confirmation that Pompeo is considering the Senate race next year in his home state of Kansas.

Is Pompeo running for Senate?

Pompeo has been coy in his statements on a Senate bid even as his repeated trips to Kansas and regular interviews with media in the state left little doubt it is a strong possibility.

In an interview with "Fox and Friends" on Friday, Trump said Pompeo told him, "'Look, I'd rather stay where I am'" but that he "loves Kansas."

"If he thought there was a chance of (the Republican Party) losing that seat, I think he would do that, and he would win in a landslide because they love him in Kansas," Trump said.

Is Kansas a safe Republican seat?

Kansas is heavily Republican and has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932, the longest streak that any state has shut out one of the two major U.S. parties. But neither party is taking chances on next year's election, in which Trump is seeking a second term.

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Kansas elected a Democrat as governor last year and the Republican candidates for the Senate nomination include Kris Kobach, a firebrand anti-immigration activist who is unlikely to appeal to centrists.

Senior Republicans believe Pompeo, if he runs, could retain the seat now held by Pat Roberts, who has decided not to run for a fifth term. They do not have the same confidence in Kobach, who lost the state's governor's race last year.

What are Pompeo's ambitions?

Pompeo emerged as the king of U.S. foreign policy after the departure of John Bolton, Trump's hawkish national security adviser and a master of inside-Washington maneuvering.

But a Senate victory would ensure continued influence for Pompeo regardless of whether Trump wins next year - or if Trump, despite all his public statements, sours on the 55-year-old.

Pompeo, an evangelical Christian former congressman with roots in the populist Tea Party movement, is widely seen as harboring ambitions to run for president himself in 2024.

Trump named Pompeo as secretary of state in 2018 after firing Rex Tillerson. Prior to that, Pompeo served as Trump's CIA director.

How about the impeachment inquiry?

Pompeo, who has come under fire for not vigorously defending diplomats caught up in the Trump impeachment inquiry, is also implicated personally in the scandal. 

He acknowledged that he was on the July 25 call in which Trump asked Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, for "a favor" - an episode that triggered the inquiry.

Gordon Sondland, U.S. ambassador to the European Union, said under oath that Pompeo was kept in the loop of what the envoy considered an improper effort by Trump to force Ukraine to announce an investigation into domestic political rival Joe Biden.

NBC News, quoting unnamed sources, recently reported that the scandal has caused a rift between Pompeo and Trump, who resented how Pompeo had not stopped State Department officials' appearances.

But in the Fox interview Trump indicated that Pompeo still enjoyed his support, saying: "Mike has done an incredible job."

(With input from AFP, Reuters)