ABOARD A MILITARY AIRCRAFT — Acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan had a rocky meeting with U.S. senators at a security conference in Munich, Germany, over the administration’s plans on Syria, that could affect his chances to become President Trump’s permanent defense secretary.
At one point during the meeting, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who was leading a delegation of U.S. senators and lawmakers to the security conference, told him, “That’s the dumbest f-cking idea I’ve ever heard,” according to several who were in the room.
Another senator allegedly told him, “You just lost the Senate.”
The meeting happened inside the Bayerischer Hof Hotel, a luxurious five-star hotel where world leaders and officials gathered for the three-day annual conference to discuss world affairs and hold official meetings on the sidelines. More than 50 members of Congress attended, as part of several delegations from the House and Senate.
The meeting with Shanahan took place Saturday morning at the hotel in a meeting room with more than a dozen members of Congress, both from the House and Senate, Republicans and Democrats.
Several members of Congress recounted details of the meeting to journalists from Breitbart and the Washington Post, as they flew home from Munich aboard a military aircraft.
The exchange was centered on the Trump administration plan to withdraw all U.S. troops from Syria by April 30.
Graham’s goal at the conference was to convince key military allies to leave a couple hundred troops in Syria each, to prevent the reemergence of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. If successful, Graham would report back to Trump and possibly get him to do the same.
“So I came in and sat down, and said I’m sorry I’m late, but I got a question, ‘Are you telling all of our allies that we’re going to go to zero [troops in Syria] by April 30th?” Graham recalled.
“Yes, that’s been our direction,” Shanahan said, according to Graham. “And I said, ‘That’s the dumbest f-cking idea I’ve ever heard.’” READ MORE
