President Trump's
successful operation
to take out Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi sent Democrats
scrambling on Sunday, as several top party leaders had complained
publicly in recent days that the White House had no "real plan" to combat the terror group following the U.S. pullout in Syria.
In
a dramatic sign of how Democrats' messaging apparently backfired, NBC's
"Saturday Night Live" ran an ill-timed sketch suggesting that Trump had
created "jobs" for ISIS -- just hours before the president held a news
conference announcing al-Baghdadi's demise. The sketch aired around the
time the two-hour late-night raid in northwest Syria was underway.
"It's
genuinely fascinating watching Democrats in real-time struggle to
figure out what to say about this," journalist Glenn Greenwald wrote on
Sunday. "They want to be patriotic and anti-ISIS, but also need a way to
malign Trump without contradicting their gushing Obama praise over
[Usama bin Laden]: not an easy balancing act. Good luck!"
Through
the day, the Democrats -- including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate
Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Bob Menendez and former Vice
President Joe Biden -- seemingly settled on a new strategy. They praised
the troops who executed the historic raid, while pointedly avoiding
complimenting the president in any way.
Congressional Democrats
also lamented that they were not informed in advance of the operation,
while the Russian military was told so that their airspace could be
used. The president suggested Sunday that Democrats in Congress, who
have been conducting an impeachment inquiry against him that has been fraught with leaked information to the media, were not notified before the raid because of concerns they might compromise the operation with leaks.
"I
congratulate our special forces, our intelligence community, and all
our brave military professionals on delivering justice to the terrorist
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi," Biden, one of the many Democrats seeking to
unseat Trump in 2020, said. He went on to call on Trump to "keep up the
pressure to prevent ISIS from ever regrouping or again threatening the
United States."
Pelosi, meanwhile, praised the "heroism,
dedication and skill of our military and our intelligence professionals
and acknowledge the work of our partners in the region," then condemned
Trump's "green-lighting of Turkish aggression into Syria against our
Kurdish partners."
However, in May 2011, when President Obama announced Usama bin Laden's death, Pelosi, D-Calif., was much less reluctant to praise the commander-in-chief.
"I
salute President Obama, his national security team, Director Panetta,
our men and women in the intelligence community and military, and other
nations who supported this effort for their leadership in achieving this
major accomplishment," Pelosi said at the time.
Some
commentators also noted that The Washington Post also had applied a
different standard on Sunday than it did when bin Laden was killed. "Abu
Bakr al-Baghdadi, austere religious scholar at helm of Islamic State,
dies at 48," read a head-turning, since-changed headline in the Post.
The
sympathetic obituary described the terror leader as “a shy, nearsighted
youth who liked soccer but preferred to spend his free time at the
local mosque” and noted that "despite the group’s extremist views and
vicious tactics, Mr. Baghdadi maintained a canny pragmatism as leader."
But in 2011, the Post's headline announcing bin Laden's death flatly called him the leader of a "terrorist group."
In
her statement Sunday, Pelosi further demanded that the "House must be
briefed on this raid, which the Russians but not top congressional
leadership were notified of in advance, and on the administration’s
overall strategy in the region."
That was a line of attack that
had already resonated among progressive commentators and journalists on
Twitter. CNBC reporter John Harwood remarked: "Trump didn’t give Pelosi
advance word, indicating he didn’t trust her to keep intel secrets
Pelosi was ranking Dem on Intel Committee. ... Trump gave top Russian
officials classified info in Oval Office."
For his part, Menendez,
D-N.J., on Sunday also steered clear of praising or saluting Trump, and
instead exalted "our men and women in uniform who successfully executed
the attack on a brutal murderer who mercilessly killed Americans,
terrorized populations across the Middle East, and threatened regional
peace and security."
The operation, Menendez said, "is a testament
to the courage of our military who put their lives at risk every day to
protect our nation, and a sobering reminder of the importance of
sustained American leadership with reliable and capable partners on the
ground, including the Syrian Democratic Forces and Iraqi military."
Republicans,
on the other hand, called the ISIS leader's death the culmination of
the Trump administration's campaign against the terror group. The
so-called ISIS caliphate that dominated Iraq has largely crumbled under a
withering barrage of airpower from U.S. and allied forces in the
region.
GOP Tennessee Rep. Mark Green, a member of the House
Homeland Security Committee, praised the soldiers who carried out the
raid, then added: "Of course, I commend the president. I mean, we got
one bada-- president to make this kind of decision, and his statement
this morning was awesome. It was awesome."
"We got one bada-- president to make this kind of decision, and his statement this morning was awesome. It was awesome."
— GOP Tennessee Rep. Mark Green
Other Republicans echoed that sentiment, although with somewhat less colorful language.
"President
Trump and the Trump administration had already largely decimated and
destroyed ISIS -- the body of the snake," GOP Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe
told Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures." "But, yesterday they cut off the head of the snake in killing Baghdadi. "
Georgia
GOP Rep. Doug Collins, the top Republican on the House Judiciary
Committee, suggested Trump's decision not to inform congressional
Democrats in advance of the raid was sound.
"Anybody who looks to
ISIS right now ought to look to their leader who went pretty, cowered in
a corner and blew himself up," Collins said. He added that the "bigger
story" was that Trump "can't get information from his own intel
committee about Syria. It goes to show you that this president who has
been attacked and who has been harassed by an impeachment probe for the
last 10 months, while all of this is going on in the House... this
president... kept his eye on the ball."
The spin commenced
immediately after Trump's speech to the nation Sunday morning, when he
announced that the ISIS leader -- a notorious murderer and rapist whom
Trump called a "gutless animal" -- had died "in a vicious and violent
way, as a coward, running and crying.”
al-Baghdadi detonated an
explosive vest as U.S. Special Operations Forces stormed his compound in
the Idlib Province, Trump said, killing him and three of his children.
"No
personnel were lost in the operation, while a large number of
Baghdadi’s fighters and companions were killed with him," Trump
announced, adding that the U.S. recovered "highly sensitive" materials
related to ISIS. "You are the very best anywhere in the world," Trump
later said of the U.S. forces.
Trump said al-Baghdadi died while
being chased down by U.S. forces in a tunnel, and that the ISIS leader
was "whimpering and crying and screaming all the way."