–Trump: Situation at Syria’s Border is, for U.S., ‘Strategically Brilliant’
By Denny Gulino
THE WHITE HOUSE (MaceNews) -Anger boiled over at the White House Wednesday, with an impatient and frustrated President Trump lashing out at several sets of adversaries, at one point seeing the speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader storm out of a meeting saying they had been insulted.
The heightened tensions over his moves in Syria, the deepening impeachment inquiry and questions he considered impertinent from the press, among other things, seemed to weigh on Trump with increased intensity. An abbreviated version:
–A routine appearance with the president of Italy turned into new threats of a tariff war with the European Union. “They have been very unfair to the United States,” he said. Tariffs on EU products go into effect in two days.
–During one event President Trump suggested what he considers corruption during the 2016 presidential campaign and election went all the way up to President Obama, the first time he has leveled that particular charge. “Let’s see whether or not it’s President Obama,” he said.
–Trump increased his criticism of Sen. Lindsey Graham, among his most steadfast allies except on the subject of Turkey and Syria, saying the senator wanted to stay in the Middle East and fight “for a thousand years,” and could better spend his time investigating former FBI Director James Comey and a host of others.
Among Graham’s several tweets on the subject were some that delivered the unkindest cuts, comparing Trump’s actions with what he said were the foreign policy errors of his predecessor. Trump “appears to be hell-bent on making the same mistakes in Syria as President Obama made in Iraq,” he wrote.
–At another point in the day, annoyed with a question from an ABC reporter about whether he regretted giving a “green light” to Turkey, Trump berated the network repeatedly for its mistake of using the wrong footage to depict fighting in Syria, saying the nation was owed an apology.
— Senate Majority Leader Schumer said Trump told the group in the afternoon meeting with members of Congress that some in ISIS were Communists and that maybe Pelosi would be all right with that, or words to that effect.
Through it all Trump doubled down on the merits of his “brilliant” decision to pull some troops out of the way of Turkey’s oncoming weaponry, saying, “The Kurds are no angels.” He dismissed the notion of grand geopolitical realities at stake in Syria, saying, “So there’s a lot of sand that they can play with,” as Syria and Turkey fight over territory.
Trump repeated that he campaigned and won on the pledge to bring home American troops and that is what he is going to do, regardless.
Some Republicans in the White House meeting told reporters they were assured the U.S. is leaving a residual force in Syria although Trump seemed not to acknowledge that under questioning.
Made public was Trump’s letter to Turkey’s President Recip Tayyip Erdogan which Republicans said was evidence the president is strongly opposing the Turkish incursion and which Democrats said was anything but since it began, “Let’s work out a good deal!.”
The impeachment inquiry did not come up in the afternoon meeting with members of Congress though several administration officials now central to the inquiry were present, including White House acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney.
On Capitol Hill a bipartisan effort is underway In both Houses to assemble a sanctions package directed at Turkey much stiffer than that done so far by the administration.
Often repeated through the day on Capitol Hill, not necessarily admiringly, were Trump’s words Wednesday, “So I view the situation on the Turkish border with Syria to be, for the United States, strategically brilliant.”
When it came time for the House vote on a symbolic resolution rebuking Trump’s Syria move, the final tally was an overwhelming approval across party lines, 354-60.
Contact this reporter: denny@macenews.com