not a cease-fire. it s a pause in operation. it was the president s unilateral decision, by the way, to withdraw u.s. forces from that region that effectively gave turkey a green light to attack the kurds. turkey considers them, the kurds, terrorists. while the united states has always considered them to be allies. this is what the president said yesterday. president erdogan s decision didn t surprise me because he s wanted to do that for a long time. he s been building up troops on the border with syria for a long time, as you know. our soldiers are mostly gone from the area. you have to say it, nobody wants to say it, we re making the kurds look like they re angels. we paid a lot of money to the kurds. tremendous amounts of money. we ve given them massive fortunes and you know what, it s wonderful. they fought with us, but we paid a lot for them to fight with us.
well, president trump calls it an amazing outcome, but a top turkish official says that it s not a cease-fire. it s a pause in operation. it was the president s unilateral decision, by the way, to withdraw u.s. forces from that region that effectively gave turkey a green light to attack the kurds. turkey considers them, the kurds, terrorists. while the united states has always considered them to be allies. this is what the president said yesterday. president erdogan s decision didn t surprise me because he s wanted to do that for a long time. he s been building up troops on the border with syria for a long time, as you know. our soldiers are mostly gone from the area.
experience, to go meet with erdogan, a man who actually rolled our president over a phone call? there s no strategy here, anderson. also the president seems to paint the kurds with a pretty broad brush. there are terrorist threats that legitimate terrorist threats that turkey has and concerns they have about the pkk. but the president is saying that the kurds are no angels, criticized their ability to fight without u.s. help, said we paid them a lot of money, said they didn t help us in world war ii in normandy of all things. do you think he doesn t is he just trying to make excuses for a rash decision? he s clueless, anderson. he s clueless. just ask any u.s. troops who served anytime in iraq, anytime in the region. the kurds have lost 11,000 fighters fighting and dying alongside american troops. there are many number of american troops whose lives have been saved by the kurdish fighters who stood alongside us. by abandoning the kurdish allies, we ve told people in the
developed by the president and his cronies to get a foreign leader to interfere in the 2020 presidential election to help donald trump get re-elected. it s a terrible betrayal of his oath of office. it s un-american, unpatriotic, and we re collecting evidence that i think will compel the congress to take action to hold the president accountable. did mr. mckinley shed any light on what secretary pompeo did or didn t do in regards to ambassador yovanovitch s removal from ukraine? well, i can t comment specifically on his testimony, but i can tell you that what we re learning is that career diplomats, individuals who have dedicated their lives to serving our country and representing the united states in dangerous places all over the world, expected the president of the united states will support and defend the work of our diplomats. and i think what we re learning is that the president discharged the american ambassador to the ukraine because that individual refused to play ball and w
expected the turks to invade. president erdogan s decision didn t surprise me because he s wanted to do that for a long time. he s been building up troops on the border with syria for a long time as you know. so he expected the turks would invade. he sees the troops building up on the border for a long time, and he decides to suddenly and without much warning remove the one obstacle to it, u.s. special forces who have been living with and fighting with and training the kurds. doesn t that seem like a pretty clear example of what a green light would look like? if this was all unexpected if this was all as expected, i should say, then why the threatening letter? why the push for economic sanctions on what is, after all, a nato ally? why send the vice president and secretary of state to turkey tonight if this is all going to plan and is strategically brilliant? why the apparent rage at the meeting this afternoon?