WASHINGTON, D.C. (CNN) – President Trump is defending his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria.
He tweeted Monday that he was “just doing what I said I was going to do” during the presidential campaign.
The post came as his defense secretary said farewell to his department and a sometimes-ally of the president’s said Trump may reevaluate withdrawal plans.
Before the stroke of midnight, the Pentagon will make a classified phone call transferring the power of defense secretary from James Mattis to acting secretary of defense Patrick Shanahan.
Before leaving, Mattis sent a final message to the troops including what some see as a last dig at the president’s isolationism, telling the nation’s warriors to: “keep the faith in our country and hold fast, alongside our allies, aligned against our foes.”
Shanahan takes over Tuesday with perhaps his first task sorting out what President Trump really wants to do about withdrawing troops from Syria.
Just Monday the president signaled a change in the speed with which the U.S. is withdrawing troops from Syria, tweeting, “We’re slowly sending our troops back home.”
It’s a change from what Trump said in a White House video posted nearly two weeks ago: “They’re all coming back and they’re coming back now.”
He also tweeted Monday that “ISIS is mostly gone,” a change from a few days ago, when he declared: “We have defeated ISIS in Syria.”
Military leaders say that is not the case.
The tweets come on the heels of a lunch with one of the president’s closest allies, Senator Lindsay Graham, who is adamantly opposed to a rapid withdrawal.
“The president is thinking long and hard about Syria,” Sen. Graham said. “How to withdraw our forces but at the same time achieve our national security interests, which are to make sure that ISIS is destroyed— they never come back, that our allies, the Kurds, are protected, and that Iran doesn’t become the big winner of our leaving. So I think we’re in a ‘pause’ situation.”
But it’s not clear what happens now.
Former Army Commanding General for Europe and Seventh Army Mark Hertling said, “In this particular situation it sounds like Senator Graham is saying, ‘Hey, I got to the president and I’m hoping he rethinks his decision.’”
It’s leaving allies and enemies confused. Hertling added, “The problem is the president already announced it to the world, and there are both friends and foes alike who are taking his last announcement of over a week ago thinking that’s what we are going to do.”
Senator Graham has said that he did not mean to suggest the president is going back on his withdrawal decision,
In another tweet Monday, the president opined that “If anybody but Donald Trump did what I did in Syria—which was an ISIS-loaded mess when I became president—they would be a national hero.”
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