{"id":4191,"date":"2020-01-13T15:18:03","date_gmt":"2020-01-13T19:18:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=4191"},"modified":"2020-01-13T15:19:42","modified_gmt":"2020-01-13T19:19:42","slug":"rep-amash-smashes-trump-for-running-a-protection-racket-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=4191","title":{"rendered":"Rep. Amash Smashes Trump for Running a Multi-Billion Dollar Protection Racket (Video)"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>&#8220;He Sells Troops&#8221; &#8211; Amash Blasts Trump&#8217;s Boast That Saudis Paying $1BN For Protection<\/h1>\n<p><!--more-->ZeroHedge.com<\/p>\n<p>Independent firebrand Rep.\u00a0Justin Amash\u00a0(I-Mich.), a longtime critic of the president, has charged Trump with using the US military as private mercenaries.\u00a0<strong>&#8220;He sells troops,&#8221;<\/strong>\u00a0Amash commented provocatively of Trump&#8217;s Friday night interview with Fox&#8217;s Laura Ingraham.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSaudi Arabia is paying us for [our troops]. We have a very good relationship with Saudi Arabia,\u201d Trump said. \u201cI said, listen, you\u2019re a very rich country. You want more troops? I\u2019m going to send them to you, but you\u2019ve got to pay us.\u00a0<strong>They\u2019re paying us. They\u2019ve already deposited $1 billion in the bank<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"SandboxRoot env-bp-350\" data-twitter-event-id=\"0\">\n<div id=\"twitter-widget-0\" class=\"EmbeddedTweet EmbeddedTweet--cta js-clickToOpenTarget\" lang=\"en\" data-click-to-open-target=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/justinamash\/status\/1216054398138376192\" data-iframe-title=\"Twitter Tweet\" data-scribe=\"page:tweet\" data-twitter-event-id=\"2\">\n<div class=\"EmbeddedTweet-tweetContainer\">\n<div class=\"EmbeddedTweet-tweet\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">He sells troops.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have a very good relationship with Saudi Arabia\u2014I said, listen, you\u2019re a very rich country. You want more troops? I\u2019m going to send them to you, but you\u2019ve got to pay us. They\u2019re paying us. They\u2019ve already deposited $1B in the bank.\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/rc1f7heyCP\">pic.twitter.com\/rc1f7heyCP<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Justin Amash (@justinamash) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/justinamash\/status\/1216054398138376192?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 11, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Following the Sept.14 Aramco facility attacks, which the US blamed on Iran,\u00a0<strong>the US has sent up to 3,000 troops to Saudi Arabia<\/strong>, with likely more to follow after Iran has vowed to continue avenging the death of Qasem Soleimani.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s unclear in what capacity or with what intent the Saudis may have\u00a0\u201cdeposited $1 billion in the bank\u201d according to Trump&#8217;s claim. And then there&#8217;s the question of what bank and under what authorization this supposed exchange happened.<\/p>\n<p>In the same interview Trump went on to describe a similar\u00a0<em>quid pro quo<\/em>\u00a0scenario in play with US troops stationed in South Korea.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/arisroussinos\/status\/1216065388322181120?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1216065388322181120&#038;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fhe-sells-troops-amash-blasts-trumps-boast-saudis-paying-1bn-protection<\/p>\n<p>He boasts that South Korea pays $500 million to host the tens of thousands of American troops defending the country from North Korea.<\/p>\n<p>Other outlandish moments from the interview included the president again boasting on Syria that,\u00a0<strong>\u201cI took the oil.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, he was\u00a0<strong>attempting to deflect widespread criticism that he&#8217;s turned hawk<\/strong>\u00a0after on the campaign trail winning over his base by promises of getting out of the Middle East and &#8220;bringing the troops home&#8221;.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cAnd then they say \u2018he left troops in Syria\u2019, you know what I did? I left troops to take the oil. I took the oil. The only troops I have are taking the oil. They\u2019re protecting the oil. I took over the oil,\u201d Trump boasted.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Trump admits his intentions of keeping occupying troops in Syria..  Stealing Oil\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HYc8UXhjLH0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>____<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/political\/he-sells-troops-amash-blasts-trumps-boast-saudis-paying-1bn-protection\">https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/political\/he-sells-troops-amash-blasts-trumps-boast-saudis-paying-1bn-protection<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;He Sells Troops&#8221; &#8211; Amash Blasts Trump&#8217;s Boast That Saudis Paying $1BN For Protection<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4191\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}