President Trump makes a surprise visit to the troops in Iraq.

President Trump and Melania Trump pose for a selfie with the troops. Reuters. 

President Donald Trump made a surprised visit to troops at al-Asad air base in Baghdad, Iraq. Reuters. President Trump had come under fire for not visiting the troops yet in his presidency and not visiting the troops on Christmas but quelled those stories by visiting Iraq. Though Iraq has largely defeated the ISIS insurgency, 5200 troops remain the country. Trump will also visit the airbase in Ramstein, Germany on the way back home. The visit comes days after President Trump announced that he was pulling troops out of Syria and reducing the number of troops in Afghanistan. 

.@FLOTUS Melania and I were honored to visit our incredible troops at Al Asad Air Base in Iraq. GOD BLESS THE U.S.A.! pic.twitter.com/rDlhITDvm1

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 26, 2018

My Comment:
A good story to write about after the Christmas holiday. It seems pretty clear that the troops were happy to see the President and First Lady Trump. And it is always good to see a president, regardless of his party, meet with the troops he commands. Regardless of the politics it's important to remind presidents that they have a heavy responsibility to the men and women of our armed forces.

In all honesty, President Trump should have visited a war zone before this point. I know it is a logistical nightmare and that he has had a very busy presidency, but this is one of those things that needs to be done as long as the country is at war. Thankfully, he made the trip this week.

I also think it is hilarious that the media was left holding the bag. They had just put out a bunch of articles saying that Trump was the first since 2002 to not visit the troops during Christmas and were gleeful that they could portray him as not caring about the troops. And now that we find out why he didn't visit, since he was in the air to visit them in a combat zone, the media looks very stupid. Perhaps that was part of the plan?

I do have to say that compared to other presidents, Trump is getting no credit for visiting the troops in the media. The Reuters post was one of the least biased ones I could find but it still was extremely critical of Trump's foreign policy, which doesn't have a whole lot to do with the story. Compared to Obama and Bush, Trump got much more biased coverage.

Iraq was a good choice to do so as well. Syria isn't safe and we hardly have any troops there. Plus there could be a real risk of the Syrians or whoever trying to destroy Air Force One. Afghanistan is safer but not buy much. Iraq was the logical choice.

I'd also like to point out that both President Trump and Melania Trump were supposed to be on vacation over the holidays. That was canceled in part due to the government shutdown but I wonder if this trip might have had something to do with it. Trump had been saying for awhile now that he needed to visit the troops overseas but didn't give a date. Maybe this was planned for longer than we think? It's not like you can plan bringing the President of the United States to a combat zone on the spur of the moment.