Vice President Mike Pence and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are holding a joint press conference following discussions with President Recep Erdogan of Turkey.  The Turks invasion of Syria and regional conflict with Kurdish forces are the primary issue.
UPDATE: Video Added

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House minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Mike McCaul, Rankimg Member of House Committee on Homeland Security, hold a press conference with the media pool immediately following the bipartisan White House briefing on Syria.
Apparently once Nancy Pelosi finished her political meltdown and stomped out of the briefing, the remaining democrats and republicans engaged in a healthy discussion with U.S. military leadership and President Trump about the purpose of the U.S. draw-down.

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The level of political nonsense today from the House of Representatives is off-the-charts.  Speaker Pelosi calls a resolution to the House floor to denounce President Trump for removing 28 troops from a foreign war never authorized by the same House.
If Pelosi wants to have a war with Syria, then declare one.  Or, Pelosi could call a resolution to the House floor to condemn Turkish President Erdogan for invading Syria. Instead, the House votes to denounce President Trump for getting our military out of the way.   The Democrats are the party of war, and a whole bunch of republicans are supporting them.  Why?  Simply, because war is a big business from K-Street.

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Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and Steny Hoyer walk out of a meeting with President Trump because, according to them, the president called the speaker a “third-rate politician”. Speaker Pelosi replied “I wish you were a politician”…. How typical is that?
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President Trump prefers to use targeted economic weapons instead of the U.S. military forces against foreign adversaries.  This is especially true if foreign actions are taking place amid the complex circle of geopolitical interests, against the interests of allies.
Today the White House has released a letter sent by President Trump to President Erdogan of Turkey dated October 9th.   The letter was sent two days after President Trump made the decision to pull 28 members of the U.S. military out of harms way; two days before President Trump outlined the sanctions against Turkey; and five days before President Trump initiated those sanctions through Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
The warning is clear.  President Trump is clear-eyed about the motives and intentions of the Turkish president, and Ergodan’s ideological alignment with political Islam, via The Muslim Brotherhood.
One of the reasons this strategy is better than any military action is simply because Turkey is a unique NATO ally, and the NATO alliance within Europe is insufferably incapable and unwilling to take action to defend their interests.
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President Trump has played this out perfectly.  By isolating Turkish President Recep Erdogan, and effectively leaving him naked to an alliance of his enemies, Erdogan is now urgently asking for the U.S. to mediate peace negotiations with Kurdish forces.
This request happens immediately after President Trump signed an executive order [See Here] triggering the sanction authority of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.  Erdogan called the White House requesting an urgent phone call with President Trump.
After President Trump talked to Kurdish General Mazloum Kobani Abdi, the commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, President Trump then discussed the options available to President Erdogan.  As a result of that conversation, Erdogan requested the U.S. mediate negotiations.  Vice-President Mike Pence announces he will be traveling to the region with National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien to lead that effort.  WATCH:

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Last night and again this morning ABC News aired shocking footage supposedly from the frontline battle between Syrian Kurds and the invading Turkish troops.  The report and footage was described in shock-filled breathless language, intended to provoke the audience.  ABC News anchor Tom Llamas aired the allegedly shocking footage, claiming it showed a fierce Turkish attack on Kurdish civilians.
However, there is a very big problem. The footage is 100% fake…. it never happened.
The footage ABC News used in their broadcast comes from a nighttime machine gun demonstration at the Knob Creek Gun Range in West Point, Kentucky.  The stunning propaganda effort was first caught by Twitter user PolishPatriot.  WATCH:

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Again, this footage is 100% fake.  The Washington Examiner’s journalist Becket Adams called ABC and asked them what was going on.
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President Trump prefers to use targeted economic weapons instead of the U.S. military forces against foreign adversaries.  In keeping with this strategy President Trump is announcing a set of economic sanctions and tariffs against Turkey for their decision to cross into Syria and create a crisis amid all regional interests.  (Source)
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The background protestations, grumbles and sounds of the insufferable Chuck Todd while his ‘Share Blue’ talking points are being deconstructed is actually a little funny.
In this interview Senator Rand Paul explains the pragmatic policy of withdrawing 50 U.S. troops from Northern Syria to avoid them becoming victims to a cross-border incursion by a NATO ally, Turkey, while the ridiculously pontificating European collective does nothing except criticize the U.S. for not defending their interests.  Chuck Todd is flummoxed.
Additionally, Senator Paul creates a ‘splodey head when the conversation turns to the Ukraine and Rand Paul points out the hypocrisy of Democrats trying to impeach President Trump for political foreign policy the Democrats initiated.  Quite Funny:

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On the Saudi troop support, Rand Paul misses the bigger picture of a simple policy that President Trump is maintaining. Remember during the 2017 Trump visit to the 50 nation Arab-American Summit, President Trump asked them to “drive out” the extremists within political Islam and said the U.S. would support their efforts.
The Arab coalition has been doing exactly what President Trump requested; the GCC confrontation with Qatar was a specific outcome of that request. The U.S. troops to support the ongoing “drive out” is simply President Trump keeping his word with Saudi Arabia and Mohammed bin Salman (MbS). [Big Picture Here]
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Eight years ago Zurich Mike penned an analogy of the ‘Islamist Spring’ that still rings true today, when he said: President Obama helped kill the zookeepers and unleashed the big cats…. The Turkish movement into Syria is all part of this continuum.
When President Obama ignited the “Islamist Spring” with his speech in Cairo Egypt, what he really articulated was a shift in U.S. foreign policy to support The Muslim Brotherhood.

Political Islam, writ large, is represented by The Brotherhood.  Turkish President Recep Erdogan sees himself as the modern leader of political Islam using the Brotherhood to recreate the Ottoman Empire.
Ben Ali (Tunis), Hosni Mubarak (Egypt) and Khadaffi (Libya), were the first zookeepers removed.  Obama’s U.S. foreign policy supported Muslim Brotherhood replacements like Mohamed Morsi in Egypt.  However, Obama failed in the effort to remove Bashir Assad in Syria; as a result all extremist factions of the Brotherhood gathered to form ISIS.
Factions like al-Qaeda, al-Nusra and ISIS all fall under the umbrella of The Muslim Brotherhood.  The exiled Brotherhood leaders initially fled Egypt to Qatar until they were further driven-out by the Gulf Cooperation Council and ultimately given safe-harbor in Turkey, by Recep Erdogan.
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Defense Secretary Mark Esper discusses and defends President Trump’s smart decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Northern Syria in advance of Turkish forces launching an assault into Syria against Kurdish forces and the SDF.
The background here goes back to Turkish President Recep Ergodan, a gatekeeper between the middle-east and Europe; and his intention to use his ideological alignment with political Islam, via the Muslim Brotherhood, to recreate the Ottoman Empire.

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