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Trump’s Syria announcement blindsided many GOP supporters

In this Sept. 25, 2019, file photo, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., takes questions from reporters at the Capitol in Washington. Congressional Republicans have spent most of the past two years studiously avoiding any public fights with President Donald Trump, either out of party loyalty or fear of being on the wrong end of a presidential tweetstorm. That public show of unity ended emphatically when Trump announced he would be withdrawing U.S. forces from northern Syria in advance of an impending Turkish military operation against Syrian Kurdish militia fighters. Graham, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas all joined Democratic colleagues in publicly criticizing the idea, with Graham even going on Fox News to label the decision "short-sighted and irresponsible." (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
In this Sept. 25, 2019, file photo, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., takes questions from reporters at the Capitol in Washington. Congressional Republicans have spent most of the past two years studiously avoiding any public fights with President Donald Trump, either out of party loyalty or fear of being on the wrong end of a presidential tweetstorm. That public show of unity ended emphatically when Trump announced he would be withdrawing U.S. forces from northern Syria in advance of an impending Turkish military operation against Syrian Kurdish militia fighters. Graham, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas all joined Democratic colleagues in publicly criticizing the idea, with Graham even going on Fox News to label the decision "short-sighted and irresponsible." (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File) In this Sept. 25, 2019, file photo, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., takes questions from reporters at the Capitol in Washington. Congressional Republicans have spent most of the past two years studiously avoiding any public fights with President Donald Trump, either out of party loyalty or fear of being on the wrong end of a presidential tweetstorm. That public show of unity ended emphatically when Trump announced he would be withdrawing U.S. forces from northern Syria in advance of an impending Turkish military operation against Syrian Kurdish militia fighters. Graham, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas all joined Democratic colleagues in publicly criticizing the idea, with Graham even going on Fox News to label the decision "short-sighted and irresponsible." (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

By Associated Press 4 min read

WASHINGTON (AP) – For once, Republicans and Democrats in Congress were in the same place: out of the loop.

When it came to President Donald Trump’s abrupt announcement that U.S. forces would no longer protect Syrian Kurds from a Turkish invasion, his supporters knew as little as his critics.

All the effort by Republicans to assuage and court the mercurial president meant little in terms of their ability to dissuade him from a decision that most of them vehemently opposed. They found out about it like Democrats, late at night and on Twitter.

For Republicans, it was a reminder that having the president’s back can be a one-way proposition, especially with a commander in chief who likes to make decisions from his “gut.”

Even as Turkish bombs fell Wednesday on northern Syria, Sen. Lindsey Graham, a frequent Trump golf club buddy and a presidential educator on foreign policy, talked to the president through television appearances and Twitter. He warned on “Fox & Friends,” a program that Trump is known to make part of his morning routine, that he’s making the “biggest mistake of his presidency.”