Trump just totally flipped on Syria
President Trump recently said there was no reason to keep U.S. troops in Syria. Now, he's "100 percent" certain that's not true.
Trump decided in December that the U.S. had "defeated ISIS in Syria," and said he'd be withdrawing the small American force still stationed there. Pretty much everyone disagreed, so Trump said in February he'd keep some troops there after all. A bipartisan group of senators and House members told Trump they approved of the continued presence, and he wrote back to say that he "agree[d] 100 percent," NBC News reports via a copy of his response.
After Trump's surprising December announcement, even Trump's staunchest Senate supporters called withdrawal from Syria a mistake. Reports later suggested that Trump "hastily" agreed to the move after a call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, against the advice of his entire national security team.
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When Trump reversed the decision, senators and House members sent him a letter to say they "support a small American stabilizing force in Syria." Trump responded by highlighting a paragraph in the letter, which read "like you, we seek to ensure that all of the gains made in Syria are not lost." While Trump seemed pretty confident with his shocking original decision, this time around, he hand-wrote "I agree 100 percent" next to the highlighted paragraph and returned it, NBC News says.
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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.
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