Turkey and Syria

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, on Syria, yesterday, the U.S. military carried out airstrikes to destroy what only a few weeks ago had been the headquarters of the American campaign to destroy ISIS in Syria. Nothing encapsulates the failure of President Trump's decision to stand aside for Erdogan more than the fact that we are now bombing our own bases rather than allow them to fall into the hands of Assad, Erdogan, or Putin.

If Erdogan, Putin, and Assad are such great allies or no problem, as President Trump told us yesterday at the White House, then why do we have to bomb our own headquarters after American troops evacuated so it doesn't fall into Syrian or Turkish or even Russian hands? That one thing encapsulates the absurdity, the awfulness of President Trump's lack of policy and erratic, impulsive, and whimsical movements on the Syrian front.

Yesterday the President said this withdrawal was a ``strategic move.'' It certainly is not that because this is not the action of a military that carried out a deliberate withdrawal. It is the action of a military that was given a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants decision of the President contrary to the recommendations of the commanders on the ground.

Donald Trump has the nerve, the gall, to think he knows more about the military than these generals who have served our country for decades. It is appalling. How does America put up with this? How do our Republican colleagues put up with this? He doesn't consult the generals. What a blunder, and it seems to be the result of the President's inability to say no to dictators. He seems to like a Putin and an Erdogan and even a Kim more than our allies. This is also a clear demonstration of the President's fecklessness and recklessness, both, or as my colleague Senator Lindsey Graham, and one of the President's staunchest allies in Congress, said, ``I fear that this is a complete and utter national security disaster in the making.''

Yesterday afternoon, congressional leaders went to the White House, at its request, to meet with the President about the rapid disintegration of the situation in northern Syria. Speaker Pelosi and I talked about it ahead of time, and we talked about it with Senators Reed and Menendez as well. We had a serious purpose: to find out if the President actually had a plan to contain ISIS and fix the mess precipitated by his decision to green-light Erdogan's military incursion into Syria.

Alarmingly--alarmingly--President Trump had no plan. The greatest insult that occurred in that room was not any of the name-calling that Trump did. A far greater insult to America, to all of us, was the lack of any policy guidance, any policy decisions, any direction from the President and his top national security advisers on how to contain ISIS.

I reminded the President that as two New Yorkers, we probably knew better than most the damage a small band of terrorists can do, even from a half a world away. I asked: What is your plan to prevent ISIS from regrouping and resurging? He didn't have one. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper didn't have a plan.

After we pushed them and pushed them, I said: Who is going to take care of all these prisoners? The President said there were 70,000 ISIS prisoners and their families. Who is going to take care of them, make sure they don't escape, as some have already?

They finally said: Well, the Syrians and the Turks will do that. So I asked the group if they had any intelligence or assurances that the Turks and Syrians would do a decent job. Secretary Esper himself said there was no evidence of that.

This is amazing. Terrorists whom we have spent a decade fighting--we have spent billions of dollars and lost lives to fight them--are finally in prison. The Kurds are guarding them. The Kurds are leaving, understandably, because they have to fight the Turks now. What is the plan? There isn't any, except to rely on Syrians, Turks, who have not even close to the interest we have in curbing ISIS.

Assad is much more interested in gaining back his Syrian homeland. Erdogan is focused on hurting the Kurds, whom he is fanatically against. So they are not going to pay much attention to ISIS.

It was appalling, just appalling. President Trump has stepped aside for Putin, Assad, and Erdogan. Our allies, the Kurds, are being slaughtered as a result of our betrayal. Most importantly, as Secretary Mattis said, ``if we don't keep the pressure on [in Syria], ISIS will resurge. It's absolutely a given that they will come back.''

The President didn't like hearing Mattis's words, but all of America should. He is one of the most respected military minds, one of the most respected leaders on both sides of the aisle--liberals, Independents, conservatives. Here is what he said, again repeating:

[I]f we don't keep the pressure on [in Syria], ISIS will resurge. It's absolutely a given that they will come back.

So make no mistake, the President's incompetence, his impulsiveness, his erraticness has made Americans less safe--Americans here in our homeland. Congress, today, must make the fact clear to the President in a bipartisan fashion.

We have the opportunity, my colleagues. The House passed a resolution condemning the President's decision by an overwhelming vote of 354 to 60. That means the vast majority of House Republicans--129 to be exact--condemned the President's decision in Syria. Leader McCarthy, Whip Scalise, and No. 3 Cheney all voted for it. They are as loyal to President Trump as anybody, but they saw the danger, the real danger. Today the Senate should, and I hope will, follow suit. We can quibble about the language, but I have no doubt we can agree on the basic message, and there is no reason we can't vote on a Senate resolution today.

Time is of the essence. To say, well, I would like to add this word or add this sentence, as Kurds are being slaughtered, as ISIS terrorists are escaping--no, no, no. No, no, no. We should move to the House bill immediately because we all know there is only one person who can reverse this, and that is the President. The greatest ability to make him reverse is an overwhelming message from the Republican side-- House and Senate--that this is wrong. He doesn't hear that publicly too often from our Republican friends. He has heard it from the House, correctly and courageously.

Please, my friends, my Republican friends in the Senate, let's put politics aside. Today let's vote the House bill passed yesterday by them. There is no time to waste. Time is of the essence because the President still doesn't get it. Our meeting at the White House demonstrated that to all who were present. Hopefully, an overwhelming bipartisan vote in the Senate will break through to him. I strongly, strongly--in the strongest of terms--urge my friend Leader McConnell and our Republican colleagues to allow a vote on the Syrian resolution today. Security, justice, fairness demand no less.

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