“I think Lindsey should focus on Judiciary,” President Donald Trump said Wednesday when asked about criticism from South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of his decision to effectively side with Turkey over the Kurdish population of Syria.
Graham, who is often an ally of the president, was comparing Trump’s move to pull back U.S. forces supporting the Kurds to the Obama administration policy of withdrawal from Iraq. The senator is chairman of both the Judiciary Committee and the Appropriations subcommittee responsible for funding the State Department.
“The people of South Carolina don’t want us to get into a war with Turkey — a NATO member — or with Syria. Let them fight their own wars. They’ve been fighting for 1,000 years,” Trump said during a joint news conference with Italian President Sergio Mattarella. “Let them fight their own wars. The people of South Carolina want to see those troops come home, and I won an election based on that. And that’s the way it is, whether it’s good or bad. That’s the way it is.”