After years of seemingly not caring much about what’s been going on with Syria, mainstream media has jumped on the chance to criticize President Trump for the invasion by Turkey in the region that Trump had decided to pull our troops out from, trying to pin the blame on President Trump – and going to great lengths.
You probably remember how ABC News used Kentucky gun range footage and said it was a video of an invasion in Syria a few days ago.
Well, just after publishing their retraction and “apology,” ABC News and many other mainstream media outlets misquoted President Trump on the Syria decision, and were then forced to issue yet another correction.
The misquote of President Trump went something along the lines of “If Turkey goes into Syria, it is between Turkey and Syria. It’s not our problem.”
Washington Post WH correspondent Josh Dawsey quoted Trump as saying “It’s not our problem” on Twitter:
However, what President Trump really said was “So, if Russia wants to get involved with the — with Syria, that’s really up to them. They have a problem with Turkey, they have a problem at a border. It’s not our border. We shouldn’t be losing lives over it.”
As evidenced in this White House transcript:
Q Are you okay — are you okay with Erdoğan saying that he is not going to do a ceasefire?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: He didn’t say that at all. He’s meeting. And he’s meeting today with some of our representatives. Mike Pence is leaving today, as you know. We needed to take an extra day for security reasons. But Mike is leaving. Mike Pompeo will be meeting also, who is here right now with us. And he is going to be joining the meeting. We have a lot of great people over there. We’ll see.
In the meantime, our soldiers are not in harm’s way — as they shouldn’t be — as two countries fight over land that has nothing to do with us.
And the Kurds are much safer right now, but the Kurds know how to fight. And, as I said, they’re not angels. They’re not angels, if you take a look. You have to go back and take a look. But they fought with us. We paid a lot of money for them to fight with us, and that’s okay. They did well when they fought with us; they didn’t do so well when they didn’t fight with us.
When I refused to allow the Americans, a year and a half ago, to fight with the Kurds against Iraq, I said, “Wait a minute, this country, stupidly, just spent a fortune on fighting for, with, around Iraq.” Nobody knows how they spent it. But they spent — actually, we’re in the Middle East now for $8 trillion, if you can believe that stupidity. But, in Iraq, we’re in for probably $5.5 trillion. So they’re telling me, “Wait a minute, we just spent $5.5 trillion fighting in Iraq and with Iraq. And now we’re supposed to spend money to fight with the Kurds against Iraq.” I said, “No, thank you.”
So what happens is, when I said we’re not going to fight with the Kurds, the Kurds left. They didn’t want to fight against Iraq, which right now isn’t the greatest fighting force in the world. That happened twice. The Kurds, actually, are pulling back substantially from Turkey. And Syria is pulling in. Syria probably will have a partner of Russia — whoever they may have. I wish them all a lot of luck. You know, Russia was involved in Afghanistan. Used to be called the Soviet Union. Now it’s called Russia for a reason, because they lost so much money in Afghanistan, that they had to downsize. A very big downsizing.
So, if Russia wants to get involved with the — with Syria, that’s really up to them. They have a problem with Turkey, they have a problem at a border. It’s not our border. We shouldn’t be losing lives over it.
But again, we only had 28 soldiers. It was 26, 28. I got all different numbers. It ends up being 28 — between the 26, 28. Two people, and they’re fully accounted for.
So, that’s the story. It’s very simple. And we’re watching and we’re negotiating, and we’re trying to get Turkey to do the right thing, because we’d like to stop wars regardless. Whether Americans are in or whether they’re not in, we want to see wars stopped. That’s a very important thing. On a humanitarian basis, we want to see that happen.
Also in this video of President Trump's remarks:
The misquote of President Trump calling the conflict in Syria "not our problem" as if to portray Trump as being callous was later "corrected" by many media outlets, ABC News included.
Here's the "corrected" version of the article from ABC News:
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that President Trump, when asked whether he was OK with Turkey’s president refusing a ceasefire, responded, "It’s not our border."
President Donald Trump on Wednesday again tried to distance himself and the U.S. from the unfolding fighting and humanitarian crisis in northeastern Syria, telling reporters in the Oval Office, "It's not our border."
Asked at a White House photo op with Italy's president, "Are you OK -- are you OK with Erdoğan saying that he is not going to do a ceasefire?" -- referring to Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's response to U.S. efforts to broker a stop to the conflict -- Trump, after a lengthy discourse about why the U.S. should not be involved in the fighting, then said, "So, if Russia wants to get involved with the -- with Syria, that's really up to them. They have a problem with Turkey, they have a problem at a border. It's not our border. We shouldn't be losing lives over it."
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