Trump Critics Call for Removal from Office over Syria Withdrawal

Critics of President Donald Trump’s decision Thursday to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria have begun to call for his removal from office — with one even referring to a military coup.

Conservative pundit Erick Erickson, a “Never Trumper” who rallied to the president’s side during the fight over Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation, suggested on Twitter that Trump would face a “military coup” in a “lesser country.”

If we lived in a lesser country than our great nation, today is the day we really would be talking about a military coup. Soldiers down to the enlisted ranks are raising hell about the President’s Syria decision.

— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) December 21, 2018

Erickson cited soldiers who are “venting to reporters,” and clarified that he himself was not actually calling for a coup.

I’m not calling for a coup. I am saying the number of officers and enlisted who are venting to reporters is off the charts hight right now and they all seem pretty pissed.

— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) December 21, 2018

Eli Lake, a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion, who defended former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn from charges of treason earlier this week,  suggested that the Senate should vote to remove Trump from office because of his decision on Syria — presumably, in the event Democrats impeached the president upon taking power in the U.S. House next year:

2 more years of this? Republican senators need to start thinking of it’s worth it.

— Eli Lake (@EliLake) December 21, 2018

The common thread among these critics appeared to be the conviction that Trump could not govern without help from experienced hands like Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who resigned Wednesday.

Prominent Never Trump pundit Bill Kristol made the case for alarm — albeit without calling for the president to be forced out of office, at least this time: “Never been more alarmed for the nation since coming to D.C. over three decades ago,” he tweeted.

Others, like MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, returned to the familiar theory that Trump is acting as a puppet for Russian President Vladimir Putin in his foreign policy decisions.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.