Trump: U.S. will retain some troops in Syria for now to ‘protect Israel’

U.S. President Donald Trump said the United States would retain influence in Syria in order to protect Israel, even as U.S. troops are withdrawn.

“We’re going to be there and we’re going to be staying– We have to protect Israel,” Trump told Margaret Brennan on CBS’s “Face The Nation” on Sunday when asked about a timetable for the withdrawal of 2,000 troops. “We have to protect other things that we have. But we’re- yeah, they’ll be coming back in a matter of time.”

He said that his administration has “done an incredibly job” with Syria. “When I took over Syria it was infested with ISIS. It was all over the place. And now you have very little ISIS and you have the caliphate almost knocked out. … When I took it over it was a disaster. I think we’ve done a great job with that,” he said.