Klobuchar says Trump's foreign policy still a "disaster" despite al-Baghdadi raid
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democratic candidate for president, conceded that the U.S. special forces operation over the weekend that led to the death of ISIS founder and leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, represents a political victory for President Trump. But she stressed that she believes Mr. Trump's foreign policy — which has veered from both traditional Republican and Democratic orthodoxy — has been filled by consequential mistakes.
"Look, I have in the past, for instance, when the president made the decision to respond to Assad's use of sarin gas, I commended him for that decision," Klobuchar said on "Face the Nation" Sunday. "But just because you make some decisions — and you must as a commander in chief and you must make those decisions for the security of this country — doesn't mean that his foreign policy overall has not been a disaster."
Klobuchar listed a series of "bad decisions" Mr. Trump has taken on the world stage since taking office in 2017, including pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal and the withdrawal from a bilateral arms control treaty with Russia.
She also denounced Mr. Trump's move to scrap U.S. commitments in the Paris climate accords "at a time when our world is warming, sea levels are rising and we're seeing floods and fires all over the world."
Unlike many of her fellow Democrats vying for the nomination, Klobuchar said she would also keep a U.S. military presence in northern Syria, a region which Mr. Trump ordered American troops to withdraw from, opening the door for Turkey to launch an invasion against Syrian Kurdish forces, the main U.S. allies in the fight against ISIS.
"I would not have done it. I would not have given in to Erdogan," she said, referring to Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who ordered the incursion into Kurdish territory soon after Mr. Trump's order to withdraw troops from northern Syria.