The deafening silence from Democrats and their scurry to change the subject from President Trump’s success in taking out Islamic State leaders has become their predictable response to every accomplishment made by this president.
The news of a raid against an ISIS compound in Syria — which resulted in the death of the terrorist group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi — and the subsequent operations to take out other top ISIS leaders were not well received by many Democrats in Washington. Instead of praising the president for neutralizing the biggest terrorist mastermind of the decade, Democratic politicians sought to attack President Trump and his effective foreign policy.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, for instance, chose to highlight the Democratic Party’s ongoing effort to undermine the commander in chief on the international stage, noting that the Democratic House of Representatives recently passed a resolution condemning the president’s move to withdraw a portion of U.S. forces from Syria.
Although she praised the “dedication and skill of our military and our intelligence professionals,” Pelosi’s statement notably omitted any positive reference to the President’s decision as the Commander-in-Chief to approve the Baghdadi raid, instead condemning him for failing to give advance notice to the notoriously leak-prone Congress.
“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,” Pelosi complained, clearly frustrated by the fact that Donald Trump’s historic military operation convincingly contradicts the core liberal criticism of his foreign policy.
This is the same Pelosi — plagued by a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome — who has used the Speaker’s gavel to undermine every decision the president has made, regardless of reason or substance. If the president had to consult the do-nothing Democrats every time he made a decision that he is constitutionally authorized to make, nothing would get done and ISIS would still exist.
And while Pelosi may feign outrage over not being briefed, President Trump’s successful offensive against the caliphate for the past two and a half years has been well documented. This is just one more — albeit a major one — accomplishment of the foreign policy vision articulated by our president to prevent the terrorist organization from regaining its geopolitical foothold in the Middle East.
Sadly, the Democrats’ didn’t bother to listen, and they won’t bring themselves to accept the wisdom of his strategy or recognize the magnitude of his decision.
Like Pelosi, several prominent Democratic presidential candidates also failed to congratulate the president on his successful strategy to kill al-Baghdadi, including former Vice President Joe Biden, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Of course, the Democratic response to the killing of al-Baghdadi contrasts sharply with the behavior of top Republicans in 2011, when President Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden.
Then-House Speaker John Boehner, for example, praised “President Obama and his team,” along with his predecessor, for “all of their efforts to bring Osama bin Laden to justice.” Using similar language, then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor also commended President Obama for “bringing Bin Laden to justice.”
Even Donald Trump directly lauded President Obama for his role in authorizing the raid on bin Laden. “I want to personally congratulate President Obama and the men [and] women of the Armed Forces for a job very well [done],” he tweeted at the time.
American foreign policy triumphs should never be tainted by blind partisanship, but that’s exactly what the Democrats are doing as they show more concern for international terrorists than their own commander in chief. It’s well past time for Democrats to put the interests of their constituents and their country ahead of their own ambitions for power and partisan hatred for our president.
Kimberly Guilfoyle (@KimGuilfoyle) is a senior adviser to Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.