Sen. Graham Had Quite the Lunch With Trump

Seems Sen. Lindsey Graham had a productive lunch with the president. Emerging from a White House meal Sunday, he said President Trump is putting the brakes on US troop withdrawal from Syria: "I think we're slowing things down in a smart way," he said, per CNN. "I think we're in a pause situation where we are reevaluating what's the best way to achieve the President's objective of having people pay more and do more." He apparently buttered up Trump a little ("I assured him that nobody has done more to defeat ISIS than he has") but didn't portray him too well afterward, saying it was "eye-opening" for Trump to learn on his Iraq trip that ISIS wasn't "completely destroyed."

"I'm going to ask him to sit down with his generals and reconsider how to do this," said Graham, per the Wall Street Journal. Apropos, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford was also at today's lunch. The Journal looks at Syria news since Trump's withdrawal announcement, with Turkey vowing lead the ISIS fight, experts wondering whether Turkey can do it, experts suggesting Turkish President Erdogan would rather attack the Kurds, and America's Kurdish allies saying they might stop fighting ISIS and make friends with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad—no friend of the US. (Graham turned heads today by uttering something we won't print.)