Trump’s Turkey debacle
To the Point
KCRW
4.4 • 583 Ratings
🗓️ 24 October 2019
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Republican U.S. Senator Mitt Romney says President Trump’s withdrawal of soldiers protecting the Kurds violated “American honor.” The military action took the Pentagon by surprise, but it was good news for Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. What’s next for ISIS and America’s diplomatic authority?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Events are moving fast since President Trump withdrew 1,500 American troops from the border between Syria and Turkey in just a few hours. |
| 0:09.4 | After we recorded this episode, the presidents of Russia and Turkey began dividing up territory and diplomatic power. |
| 0:16.9 | But the background is as important as it's ever been, starting with Trump's defensiveness against attacks from political enemies. We never gave the Kurds a commitment that we'd stay for the next 400 years and protect them. They've been fighting with the Turks, and nobody ever committed. Gee, if you do this, we're going to do that. We're going to stay with you forever. Nobody ever said that. For many, many years, Turkey, in all |
| 0:37.8 | fairness, they've had a legitimate problem with it. They had terrorists, they had a lot of |
| 0:42.2 | people in there that they couldn't have. They've suffered a lot of loss of lives also, and they |
| 0:47.4 | had to have it cleaned out. The Kurds are very well protected, plus they know how to fight. |
| 0:53.1 | And by the way, they're no angels, but they were with us. |
| 0:56.2 | They are no angels. |
| 0:57.2 | All roads seem to lead to Putin with the president. |
| 1:00.6 | That final comment from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will hear how Russia benefits from Trump's |
| 1:05.0 | action a bit later. |
| 1:06.3 | First, here's Utah's Republican Senator Mitt Romney. |
| 1:10.4 | The decision to abandon the Kurds violates one of our most sacred duties. |
| 1:15.5 | It strikes at American honor. |
| 1:18.0 | What we have done to the Kurds will stand as a blood stain in the annals of American history. |
| 1:24.1 | Pretty strong language. |
| 1:25.7 | Rukmini Kalamachi is foreign correspondent and terrorism expert for the New York |
| 1:29.9 | Times. She's been covering ISIS since 2014. Her podcast is called Caliphate. Rukmini, as always, |
| 1:38.5 | welcome back to our program. Thanks for having you, Warren. You spent a lot of time in the ISIS headquarters after allied |
| 1:46.5 | soldiers cleared them out. You know a good deal about ISIS. What do you say in reaction, |
| 1:51.9 | or what's the importance do you think of what we just heard from Senator Romney? |
| 1:57.6 | Well, since the rise of ISIS over five years ago, the United States at first tried |
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