Lindsay Graham appeared with Dana Bash on her television show and dozens of people all across the country saw it. It’s no secret that Graham is not on the same page with Trump on withdrawing from Syria.
That is probably why they wanted him on CNN to try to get him to criticize President Trump. What Bash didn’t expect was for Graham to bring up Obama’s withdrawal from Iraq.
Bash tried to defend the move by saying that he was forced to because of the Status of Forces Agreement. Graham told her to her face that was an outright lie. The Status of Forces Agreement was dependent on how things on the ground were going. Obviously, they weren’t going too well since ISIS was able to carve up Iraq like a Christmas turkey.
In fact, Graham told Bash that her excuse was bullcrap. He pointed out that Trump inherited a bad situation from Obama.
During a Sunday interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Graham said that he doesn’t approve of President Donald Trump’s decision to pull troops from Syria and Afghanistan but added that the president inherited a “bad hand” from Obama.
“Everything we’re dealing with today falls on Obama’s watch,” Graham argued. “He’s the one who withdrew from Iraq.”
“But he did it because there was a Status of Forces Agreement,” host Dana Bash interrupted.
The U.S. and Iraq finalized a Status of Forces Agreement in 2008 wherein the U.S. government agreed to pull all troops out of Iraq by the end of 2011. However, the agreement was dependent on the current status of ground operations and the Bush administration expected that Obama would renegotiate the deal rather than pull out all of the troops at once.
“No, that’s a bunch of bullshit,” Graham responded to Bash’s point. “Pardon my French — that’s a complete lie.”