Trump turns on ally Lindsey Graham to justify Turkey's attack on Kurds

There’s trouble in paradise for Donald Trump and one of his chief congressional defenders, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

The otherwise buddy-buddy lawmakers are engaged in a war of words over Trump’s disastrous decision to pull United States troops out of Syria, allow Turkey to invade the land, and abandon the Kurdish allies who helped beat ISIS into submission.

Graham has strongly criticized Trump’s decision, saying it will lead to the reemergence of ISIS and saying that pulling the troops will be one of the worst decisions of Trump’s time in office.

After being asked about Graham’s comments at a news conference Wednesday with the Italian president, Trump defended his decision and laced into Graham.

“Lindsey Graham would like to stay in the Middle East for the next thousand years, with thousands of soldiers and fighting other people’s wars,” Trump said. “I want to get out of the Middle East.”

Trump went on to say that Graham should focus on investigating Democrats and his perceived political enemies.

“He ought to find out what happened with Comey, what happened with McCabe, Lisa, what happened with Peter Strzok, what happened with President Obama, what happened with Brennan, that’s what Lindsey should focus on,” Trump said, rattling off a list of people Fox News has helped gin up conspiracy theories about.

Graham and Trump have a roller-coaster relationship.

In the presidential primary ahead of the 2016 election, Graham was a vehement Trump opponent, saying that Republicans would be “destroyed” if Trump were nominated.

However, once Trump ascended to the White House, Graham has lavished praise on and defended the man he once claimed to loathe, and now even spends weekends on the golf course with him — where Trump has spent hundreds of days since he was elected, despite a campaign promise that he’d never golf.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.