Former White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said President Trump made the right decision to relocate U.S. troops in Syria ahead of a Turkish military offensive against the Kurds.
Sanders, 37, said Thursday on Fox News that acting as commander in chief is the most challenging part of Trump’s job. She said that because both Turkey and the Kurdish fighters have been allies to the United States, it puts America in a tough place.
“This is an incredibly difficult situation,” she said. “There is nothing more difficult in any part of his job than that role that he has to play as commander in chief, and I think that the president is doing the right thing by looking at how we protect the American military.”
Sanders said that because of the conflicting allegiances, Trump’s move to relocate forces in the region to let Turkey and the Kurds fight it out was the right choice.
“You have Turkey who is a NATO ally. You have the Kurds who have been an ally in the fight against ISIS. Unfortunately, those two allies hate each other,” Sanders said. “The president wants to be careful that we don’t get stuck in the middle of another endless war. This is a sad tragedy of the Middle East. It is a never-ending tale of the conflict that exists there.”
“The president wants to be careful that we don’t continue to put American soldiers in harm’s way for an endless war,” she added, noting that all parties involved should collectively work to extinguish ISIS.
Trump has taken criticism from both sides of the political spectrum since his Sunday announcement that the troops would be moved.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a frequent Trump ally, called for Congress to sanction Turkey if it invaded Syria. He also said the U.S. should suspend Turkey’s membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization if it attacks Kurdish forces there, which it already has. Despite that, a recording of Graham was released Thursday where he told Russian prank phone callers that the Kurds were a “threat” and a “big problem.”
Illinois Republican Rep. John Shimkus also announced Thursday that he has withdrawn support for the president over Trump’s decision to relocate troops. Nikki Haley, Trump’s former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, called the decision “a big mistake.”
