Support for this Tuesday, January 8, 2019 episode of Today Explained comes from

Quip Electric Toothbrushes. Over one million mouths employ the Quip Electric Toothbrush

for their cleaning services, and you can get started over at GetQuip.com.

Sash Explained where the Quip starts at just $25, and your first set of

refills is free. G-E-T-Q-U-I-P.com slash Explained.

General Williams, you are one of the hosts of the Worldly Podcast here at Box, and there's

been this whole back and forth about troop withdrawals in the last few weeks, and it all

started with a tweet.

Right, well, it all started on December 19th when the Wall Street Journal reported that

Trump had ordered the troop withdrawal from Syria.

So, Vox's Defense Reporter Alex Ward immediately emails the Pentagon for comment, and they

reply that at this time we continue to work by with and through our partners in the

region. So this kind of like non-committal, vague, we don't know what else is going on,

kind of thing.

And then literally one minute after he gets that response from the Pentagon, Trump tweets

out this tweet saying, we have defeated ISIS in Syria. My only reason for being there

during the Trump presidency, and then right after that he posts this wild video where he

basically announces that he's pulling troops out of Syria.

So our boys, our young women, our men, they're all coming back, and they're coming back

now. We won, and that's the way we want it, and that's the way they want it.

And what was the immediate reaction here in the United States?

It was basically pandemonium.

...