Lindsey Graham slams Trump for 'putting the nation and his presidency at risk' by pulling troops out of Syria
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, on Wednesday, October 9, said that President Donald Trump is putting the nation and his presidency at risk by deciding to remove US troops from Syria.
Graham, a longtime Trump ally, said that he has not spoken to the president ever since he made the decision, and added that he would "throw up" if Trump said it was his campaign promise one more time.
The South Carolina senator, while talking to Axios, said: "I think he's putting the nation at risk, and I think he's putting his presidency at risk. And I hope he will adjust his policies like he did before. That would actually be a sign of real leadership."
"If I hear the president say one more time, 'I made a campaign promise to get out of Syria', I'm going to throw up," the Senator said of Trump's decision to secede the area to Turkey.
The president's controversial decision has garnered intense scrutiny from both sides of the party, including GOP Leader Senator Mitch McConnell, with many saying that he abandoned America's Syrian Kurdish allies under pressure from Turkey.
Trump, however, has defended the move, saying "it is time for us to get out of these ridiculous endless wars."
The president reiterated his stance in a tweet on Wednesday morning, writing: "Fighting between various groups have been going on for hundreds of years. The USA should never have been in the Middle East. Moved our 50 soldiers out. Turkey MUST take over captured ISIS fighters that Europe refused to have returned. The stupid endless wars, for us, are ending!"
The Republican senator said that he heard of Trump's shocking decision at 6 am from someone who called him on Monday, saying: "You won't believe what just happened!"
Graham, who has slammed Trump's decision publicly, said: "He knows how I feel. The president is not ending the war. He's creating a bigger war if he does not change course," the outlet reported.
"The president's doing this completely against everybody else's advice," he said and claimed no one on the White House national security team supports the move.
Graham and Trump are said to be close friends and they often play golf together. The pair was spotted playing together in the last Saturday in September at the Trump National Golf Course in Virginia.