President Donald Trump's overall goal is to bring U.S. soldiers home, and he will be doing that as "prudently as can be done," while making sure oilfields in Syria remain secure, White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley said Monday.
"The president ran on a platform of pulling people back out of these endless wars, but he also understands the importance of making sure these oilfields are secure," Gidley told Fox News' "Overtime Outnumbered."
The weekend raid in Syria that ended with the death of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was part of that strategy, and as Trump has "great relationships across the globe," the mission was a success, Gidley said.
"What happened over the weekend was historic in so many ways, and (took place) to protect the world at large," Gidley said. "Thousands of lives, countless lives are going to be saved because of their successful mission."
He also took issue with a headline in Tthe Washington Post that initially referred to al-Baghdadi as a religious scholar.
"He was a disgusting man with a record of death and viciousness and destruction," Gidley said. "He would put people in cages and set them on fire. He would decapitate people and put that video on the Internet, and who could forget that precious girl, Kayla Mueller, and what he did to her? It was unspeakable.
She was a Christian missionary professing the Bible and Christ. Because she refused to denounce her religion, she was killed for it. She's a modern-day martyr and there's a special place for Kayla in Heaven, and a special place for al-Baghdadi in Hell."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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