All 12 candidates onstage at Tuesday night’s Democratic debate agreed that President Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria was a major policy blunder, but they lacked any clear plan to deal with the aftermath of the Turkish invasion.
Asked if he would send troops back, former Vice President Joe Biden dodged the question, instead criticizing Trump’s decision as “the most shameful thing that any president has done in modern history” in terms of foreign policy.
When Cooper repeated the question, Biden again gave a non-answer and seemed to echo Trump’s response, which is to sanction Turkey and pressure President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. “Turkey is the real problem here,” Biden said. “And I would be having a real lockdown conversation with Erdoğan and letting him know that he’s going to pay a heavy price for what he has done now.”
“We need to work with our allies, to work with Turkey and bring them out. This is an outrageous thing that happened here,” said Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar. “And what do we do now? We continue that humanitarian aid, but then we work with our allies to say ‘Come back, Turkey, and stop this.’”
