Individual-1 declares “victory for America”. Ethnic cleansing gets a pass as Russia and Turkey get what they want. Trump revels in mentioning blood and casualties. Then jabbers about securing the US border by deterring refugees.

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  • Trump: “We have secured the oil, and therefore a small number of US troops will remain in the area…we’re going to be protecting it” and will decide what we’re going to “do with it in the future.” 
  • Trump says of both Turkey and the Kurds: “We have done them a great service.” He repeats his false claims that US troops have been in Syria for “10 years” and that the mission was supposed to last a mere “30 days.” 
  • Trump: “Let someone else fight over this long, bloodstained sand.” (This is a fertile, non-sandy region.) 
  • “There were a few that got out,” Trump says of ISIS prisoners, but he claims they’ve been “largely” recaptured. Esper just spoke of 100 escapes, calling this number much smaller than expected, but did not say they’d been largely recaptured. 
  • Trump thanks the Kurdish SDF “for their sacrifices in this effort,” calling them “terrific.” He’s been pretty consistently maligning them over the last week until now. 
  • Trump is criticizing pundits who are criticizing him over Syria even though they were the ones who got us into this Middle East “mess.” He asks how many Americans have to die while intervening in “ancient” and “sectarian” conflicts. 
  • Trump says that people used to scorn this Turkey deal but are now saying, “Wowww, what a great outcome, congratulations.” He adds that it’s too early for these congratulations. 
  • Trump says that the US spent trillions on wars in the Middle East even though, he says, it was “never really wanting to win those wars.” 
  • Trump thanks Erdogan: “A man I’ve gotten to know very well and a man who loves his country, and in his mind, he’s doing the right thing for his country.” 
  • Trump claims to have saved the lives of “tens of thousands of Kurds.” Basically, he argues that the Turkish attack has nothing to do with him but that his ceasefire deal is his doing. 
  • Trump keeps saying, very nonsensically, that others had tried to get this deal for “man, many decades.” This is a deal specifically tied to the circumstances of Trump’s withdrawal and the subsequent Turkish offensive. It doesn’t resolve larger regional issues.