---
title: "Sen. Lindsey Graham Suggests Trump’s Abrupt Syria Withdrawal ‘Set In Motion’ Deadly ISIS Attack On US Troops"
description: "Sen. Lindsey Graham essentially laid the deaths of the unknown number of U.S. soldiers killed in a suicide bombing in Manbij, Syria, on Wednesday at the feet of President Donald Trump during a hearing on Capitol Hill, Bloomberg News reports"
date: "2019-01-16"
modified: "2019-01-16"
authors:
  - name: "Jared Keller"
    job_title: "Former Managing Editor"
    link: "https://taskandpurpose.com/authors/jaredkeller/"
url: "https://taskandpurpose.com/news/lindsey-graham-syria-trump/"
categories:
  - "News"
---

# Sen. Lindsey Graham Suggests Trump’s Abrupt Syria Withdrawal ‘Set In Motion’ Deadly ISIS Attack On US Troops

![](<https://taskandpurpose.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/19092308-1.jpg>)

Sen. Lindsey Graham essentially laid the deaths of the unknown number of U.S. soldiers killed in a suicide bombing in Manbij, Syria, on Wednesday at the feet of President Donald Trump during a hearing on Capitol Hill, Bloomberg News [reports](<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-16/syrian-explosion-injures-several-including-americans-anadolu>).

- The commander-in-chief's surprise Syria withdrawal announcement "set in motion enthusiasm by the enemy we're fighting," Graham said during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday.
- "\[Trump's statements\] make people we're trying to help wonder about us, and as they get bolder, the people we're trying to help are going to get more uncertain," Graham said Wednesday, [per](<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-16/syrian-explosion-injures-several-including-americans-anadolu>) Bloomberg News. "I saw this in Iraq. And I'm now seeing it in Syria."
- Graham was [among](<https://twitter.com/LindseyGrahamSC/status/1075407801327984641>) the most vocal Republican critics of Trump's Dec. 19 withdrawal announcement, [warning](<https://twitter.com/LindseyGrahamSC/status/1075409803349016576>) that the abrupt decision to withdraw will "be viewed as a boost to ISIS desire to come back.
- Graham subsequently met with Trump on in the closing days of 2018 in an effort to slow the withdrawal effort, telling reporters that the Trump administration was "in a pause situation where we are re-evaluating what's the best way to achieve the president's objective of having people pay more and do more."
- "He promised to destroy ISIS. He's going to keep that promise," Graham added. "We're not there yet, but as I said today, we're inside the 10-yard line and the president understands the need to finish the job."

### SEE ALSO: Trump's Syria Withdrawal Is Almost Certainly Not Happening Anymore, Sen. Lindsey Graham Says

### WATCH NEXT: The Final Countdown In Syria?

## Author
Jared Keller is the former managing editor of Task & Purpose. His writing has appeared in Aeon, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the New Republic, Pacific Standard, Smithsonian, and The Washington Post, among other publications.

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