On Wednesday, President Donald Trump made a surprise trip to Iraq to visit with troops. Yet, according to CNN National Security Analyst Sam Vinograd, while the president physically made the journey, he seemed to have confused a campaign rally for a presidential visit with those spending Christmas away from their families to keep America safe.

“I mean I suppose, you know, folks can stop knocking him for this, right, that it took him this long to get to a war zone,” Jim Acosta, who was filling in for Wolf Blitzer said. “He has done it.”

Acosta then asked: “What benefit do you think he’ll take away from this?”

“Well, Jim, he can certainly check the box that he physically made it to Iraq, but what he actually did on the ground while he was there is just as important,” Vinograd replied.

She then noted that presidential trips are usually aimed at telling “the military how much their service matters to the country and why their ongoing mission is so critical to the safety and security of the American people.”

Trump’s trip, though, she said, was a bit different.

“The president seems to have confused in some way this troop visit with a campaign rally by raising things like the border wall and things he has done for them,” she continued on.

What he really failed to do, she further stressed, was “at least as far as we know right now, is really make very clear why their ongoing presence in Iraq, Syria aside, is critical to the safety and security of the American people.”

Then, summing up Trump’s brief trip, the CNN Security analyst concluded, “There was a lot of gaslighting about what U.S. forces are doing in other theaters and less of a focus, frankly, on the ongoing stabilization mission and counterterrorism mission that the forces in Iraq are performing.”

Watch above, via CNN

[image via screengrab]

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