Fox News’ Cavuto to GOP Rep.: Doesn’t Trump’s ‘Mission Accomplished’ Give ‘False Sense of Security’?

President Trump‘s use of the phrase “Mission Accomplished” was a little stunning to many people––including some Bush White House alumni––and even Fox News’ Neil Cavuto was a bit thrown by it.

In speaking with Congressman Lee Zeldin, Cavuto asked the New York Republican about that particular word choice.

“The mission to degrade the capability of the Syrians to conduct chemical warfare,” Zeldin responded, “that particular mission last night was accomplished. The mission was not to completely eliminate the chemical weapons program of Syria, it was not a mission to replace the Assad regime, it wasn’t to inject ourselves in a Syrian civil war.”

As Zeldin continued, Cavuto jumped in and pointed out the problem of using that particular phrase:

“When George W. Bush used that term back in 2003, the clear inference from that was, ‘That’s it, we’re done, the battle and the toppling of Sadaam Hussein and a better and freer Iraq was at hand.’ We know in retrospect it wasn’t. I’m not here certainly to bash President Trump or to second-guess President Trump, but do you think using those words, Mission Accomplished, gives Americans a false sense of security that this is done?”

“I think we need to understand what the definition of ‘mission’ was that the President was saying was accomplished,” Zeldin responded. “The mission for last night’s operation was one to degrade the chemical weapons capability of the Syrians and that mission was accomplished. We should not define mission more broadly, more permanently, we should not define it as one that was destroying Syrians’ capability or replacing Assad or permanently changing his behavior.”

Interpreting it more broadly, he added, would be to “wrongly” understand what the President meant.

Watch above, via Fox News.

[image via screengrab]

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Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac

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