Syria strike disappoints Trump backers in media

President Trump railed against military intervention in Syria before he even launched his presidential campaign. Attacks in Syria, he warned President Obama in 2013, would only lead to “more debt and a possible long term conflict.”

Trump carried that notion with him on the campaign trail last year, blasting what he deemed unnecessary military intervention and vowing to implement an “America first” foreign policy.

Trump’s decision to launch a missile strike at a Syrian air base on Thursday night was seen as a departure from that stance, leaving some of the president’s biggest right-wing media boosters furious and feeling betrayed.

{mosads}

“Those who wanted us meddling in the Middle East voted for other candidates,” Ann Coulter, a conservative media personality and longtime Trump backer, wrote on Twitter.

Those who wanted us meddling in the Middle East voted for other candidates.

— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) April 7, 2017

“Trump campaigned on not getting involved in Mideast. Said it always helps our enemies & creates more refugees. Then he saw a picture on TV,” she wrote in another tweet.

Trump campaigned on not getting involved in Mideast. Said it always helps our enemies & creates more refugees. Then he saw a picture on TV.

— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) April 7, 2017

Milo Yiannopoulos, the far-right provocateur and controversy-prone former Breitbart editor, wrote in a brief Facebook post, referring to Trump, that “There comes a day in every child’s life when his Daddy bitterly disappoints him.”

And Paul Joseph Watson, a right-wing radio host and contributor to the conspiracy website Infowars, wrote on Twitter that he was “officially OFF the Trump train.” Instead, he said in another post, he would focus his attention on far-right French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen ahead of that country’s elections later this month.

I guess Trump wasn’t “Putin’s puppet” after all, he was just another deep state/Neo-Con puppet.

I’m officially OFF the Trump train.

— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) April 7, 2017

It’s been fun lads, but the fun is over. I’ll be focusing my efforts on Le Pen, who tried to warn Trump against this disaster.

— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) April 7, 2017

Right-wing blogger and filmmaker Mike Cernovich, whose reporting this week led Donald Trump Jr. to call for him to win the Pulitzer, also chimed in to criticize the attack. 

“Today over 500,000 people have watched my videos and streams. 90% are @realDonaldTrump supporters, none want war with Syria. #NoMoreWars,” he wrote on Twitter.

Today over 500,000 people have watched my videos and streams. 90% are @realDonaldTrump supporters, none want war with Syria. #NoMoreWars

— Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) April 7, 2017

The decision to launch the strike, which hit Syria’s Shayrat Air Base near the city of Homs early Friday morning, came after a chemical weapons attack allegedly carried out by the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad killed more than 70 civilians in northern Syria earlier this week.

The U.S. retaliation was generally met with praise by world leaders and many U.S. lawmakers and marked Trump’s first major military effort since taking office in January. The strike also drastically escalates the U.S. role in Syria, which has until now primarily focused on fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

The attack could also further complicate relations with Russia, who is providing military support for Assad and is one of the Syrian government’s fiercest allies in its ongoing civil war. Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, called the strike an act of “aggression against a sovereign state in violation of international law.”