Thread by @Monaheart1229

What was revealed at the Sen Intel Hearing yesterday was a stunning rebuttal to Trump's foreign policy lies. This is alarming and dangerous. I am more convinced every day that the big Rep donors will primary him. #WednesdayWisdom #BlueWave2020
nytimes.com/2019/01/29/us/…

2-"WASHINGTON — They think pulling out of Syria and Afghanistan would be a debacle. They think North Korea cannot be trusted. They think the Islamic State is still a threat to America. They think Russia is bad and NATO is good. The trouble is their president does not agree.

3-"More than two years into his administration, the disconnect between President Trump and the Republican establishment on foreign policy has rarely been as stark. In recent days, the president’s own advisers and allies have been pushing back, challenging his view of the world

4-"and his prescription for its problems.The growing discontent among Republican national security hawks was most evident on Tuesday when Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader and perhaps Mr. Trump’s most important partner in Congress, effectively rebuked the

5-"president by introducing a measure denouncing “a precipitous withdrawal” of American troops from Syria and Afghanistan. The senator’s repudiation came on the same day that Mr. Trump’s own intelligence chiefs, led by Dan Coats, a former Republican senator, gave Congress a

6-"radically different assessment of international threats facing the United States from the president’s own. They warned about fresh Russian efforts to interfere in American elections, predicted that North Korea would never agree to give up its nuclear weapons and made clear

7-"that the Islamic State is still plotting attacks around the world. They made no mention of Mr. Trump’s top security priority of building a wall along the southwestern border. Nearly two weeks ago, more than two-thirds of House Republicans voted to overturn the Trump

8-"administration’s move to ease sanctions on Russian companies linked to a prominent oligarch, Oleg V. Deripaska. And last week even more House Republicans voted to bar Mr. Trump from withdrawing from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, as he privately suggested to aides

9-"several times last year. “Perhaps as we now pivot to the presidential elections, the Republicans may finally be thinking, well, maybe we ought to recalibrate a little here and understand there are real risks and we have to provide a check and balance on the commander in chief

10-"in whatever ways we can,” said Wendy Sherman, an under secretary of state in the Obama administration. Many traditional Republicans have been uneasy about Mr. Trump’s foreign policy since the beginning and from time to time have pushed back, most notably in 2017 when Congress

11-"nearly unanimously passed sanctions on Russia over the president’s objections. But the rupture of recent days comes amid disgruntlement over the 35-day partial government shutdown that ultimately failed to achieve Mr. Trump’s goal of extracting money for his border wall.

12-"“We’ve had a couple of rapid-fire shocks to the system,” said Eric S. Edelman, under secretary of defense under President George W. Bush now at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. In addition to the shutdown, he cited Mr. Trump’s abruptly announced decision to

13-"pull American forces from Syria, resulting in the resignation of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and quickly followed by the president vowing to withdraw half of American troops from Afghanistan. “There’s no dearth of evidence of the disconnect between the president and

14-"Republican orthodoxy,” said Mr. Edelman, a longstanding critic of Mr. Trump. But Mr. Edelman noted that the disagreement has been rooted in Congress. “As you look at the Republican Party in the electorate, I think it’s lining up a little more with the president because

15-"I think he’s shifting Republican voters more on things like trade and Russia, maybe on Syria and Afghanistan.” Indeed, many of Mr. Trump’s supporters have cheered his more protectionist stance on trade and the tariff wars with China as well as American allies. Likewise, many

16-"Trump supporters have grown weary of overseas military ventures that never seem to end and therefore applaud his moves to bring home American troops. Polls have even detected a shift in Republican views on Russia, which throughout the Cold War was a unifying force in the

17-"party. In Republican circles in Washington, however, the unease coincides with a critical juncture in Mr. Trump’s foreign policy. His pullouts from Syria and Afghanistan come as trade talks with China head toward a climactic deadline and Mr. Trump prepares to get together

18-"next month with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, for their second summit meeting after an initial encounter in Singapore last year. Olivia Enos, a policy scholar on Asia at the Heritage Foundation, said doubts had grown about Mr. Trump’s negotiations with North Korea to

19-"eliminate its nuclear program. “Many initially welcomed the president’s pursuit of diplomacy in North Korea,” she said. “But after Singapore, many questioned whether North Korea was sincere in coming to the negotiating table. Since that time, North Korea has continued to

20-"play hard to get, calling its sincerity to denuclearize into further question.” Some analysts said it was the way Mr. Trump makes his decisions as much as the decisions themselves that rattle the foreign policy establishment. Announcing the Syria pullout by Twitter without

21-"preparing the allies or framing the public explanations left even some of the president’s strongest supporters in Washington unnerved. “I don’t think Leader McConnell or anyone else wants to take the wheel from the president or even give him rudder direction,” said

22-"Frederic C. Hof, a former State Department official who worked on Syria and is now diplomat in residence at Bard College. “They want to be sure he’s at the helm and he knows he has a crew. They want real deliberation to take place on these tough issues.

23-"They want the president to be part of it.” The administration has yet to even agree with itself on the state of affairs in Syria. At first, Mr. Trump declared the Islamic State defeated, then said it was not but could be finished off by others. Patrick M. Shanahan, the acting

24-"defense secretary who took over for Mr. Mattis, predicted on Tuesday that the terrorist group would lose its final stronghold in Syria by next month. “Ninety-nine-point-five percent plus of the ISIS-controlled territory has been returned to the Syrians,” he said. “Within a

25-"couple of weeks, it’ll be 100 percent.” Mr. McConnell seemed less than convinced. In a speech introducing his measure on Tuesday, he took on Mr. Trump’s approach to the Middle East. “Simply put, while it is tempting to retreat to the comfort and security of our shores, there

26-"is still a great deal of work to be done,” he said. “And we do know that left untended, these conflicts will reverberate in our own cities.” While not mentioning Mr. Trump by name, Mr. McConnell directly rebutted the president’s argument about the limits of American

27-"responsibility for patrolling the globe. “We are not the world’s policeman,” the senator said. “But we are the leader of the free world. And it is incumbent upon the United States to lead.” The White House declined to comment on Tuesday. Mr. McConnell attached the amendment

28-"to a bill intended to extend aid to Israel and offer protections to state and local governments that refuse to do business with companies that boycott Israel. The Senate advanced the main bill on Tuesday on a 76-to-22 vote, with all the negative votes coming from Democrats.

29-"About a half-dozen announced or possible Democratic presidential candidates voted against the bill, defying their party leaders, who favored it; just one of the potential candidates, Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, voted for it. Mr. McConnell’s decision to offer his

30-"measure on Syria and Afghanistan, which has no binding force, was notable in part because he has sought to avoid open rifts with the president. Unlike current or former Republican senators like Jeff Flake of Arizona or Mitt Romney of Utah, Mr. McConnell rarely speaks out

31-"against Mr. Trump, preferring to keep focused on mutual priorities like judicial appointments. But from time to time, he has made a point of staking out the more traditional Republican position. “Look, Senator McConnell has a different worldview than the president does,”

32-"said Antonia Ferrier, a former adviser. “He’s a national security hawk who believes American strength in the world is critical.” “It’s pretty clear,” she added, “he wanted to send a message to both our enemies and our allies with this amendment that many in America continue

33-" to view ISIS and Al Qaeda as a threat in Syria and Afghanistan.” And pretty clearly a message to the White House as well."
~Peter Baker, NYT, 1/29/19