President Donald Trump's Wednesday visit to American troops in Iraq is drawing some surprising criticism from the president's friends over at Fox News.
On Thursday, hosts of Outnumberedtore into Trump for declaring unsubstantiated victory over ISIS and for turning a trip to see the troops into a campaign stop. The president handed out signed MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN hats to servicemembers, which may possibly be a violation of the Hatch Act.
Watch below:
Co-host Lisa Boothe questioned why Trump would pull out of the Iran nuclear deal while at the same time "ceding Syria" to Iran and Russia and expressed skepticism over Trump's approach to ISIS.
“I just don’t think it’s ever worked out for a president to prematurely declare victory over a terrorist organization,” Boothe said. Trump's premature victory speech strategy “didn’t work out for George W. Bush with the ‘Mission Accomplished’ speech,” Booth added, nor did it “work out for President Obama saying that Al Qaeda was ‘on the run.’”
Julie Banderas jumped in with concerns over "the fact that Russia and Turkey, first of all, are supporting the United States and praising us for making a decision." That is "a huge problem,” Banderas said. Additionally, she “really had an issue” with Trump telling the troops that Americans "are no longer suckers."
Banderas "would never consider us, as a country, as the United States, ‘suckers,’” she said. “We have always led the fight in every major war. Military men and women, I believe, deserve way more respect than that.” Banderas wondered if parents of soldiers would think: “Oh, so my son or daughter was a ‘sucker’ when they were fighting for our freedom?”
Lisa Kennedy, on the other hand, defended Trump's comments because the troops “put themselves in harm’s way for incursions and wars that don’t make sense.”
Fox contributor Jessica Tarlov said it would have been better "if the president had gone and made this trip, which he absolutely should have done, and not used it as a campaign rally.”
Twitter weighed in with its thoughts, which included ire over Trump's lie about giving servicemembers a 10 percent pay raise.
Many feel Trump's stunt was insulting to members of the Armed Forces.
Most, though, were pleasantly surprised that Fox - Trump's favorite channel - may finally be turning on him.
With Fox & Friends like these...
...Trump's political capital is waning.
Thank u, next.
@realDonaldTrump/Truth Social
@realDonaldTrump/Truth Social
@TheRickWilson/X
@MarkPocan/X
@MarkPocan/X
