Trump rips WSJ editorial warning him not to be 'impulsive' on Afghanistan

President Trump slammed the Wall Street Journal's editorial board on Monday, a day after it warned him against being "impulsive" when making decisions on Afghanistan.

"The Wall Street Journal Editorial states that it doesn’t want me to act in an 'impulsive' manner in Afghanistan. Could somebody please explain to them that we have been there for 19 years, and while soldier counts are way down now, hardly impulsive," the president tweeted to his 80 million followers.

"Besides, the Taliban is mixed about even wanting us to get out," Trump added. "They make a fortune $$$ by having us stay, and except at the beginning, we never really fought to win. We are more of a police force than the mighty military that we are, especially now as rebuilt. No, I am not acting impulsively!"

The Journal editorial board wrote on Sunday that the Taliban know Trump is "eager" to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan before Election Day so that he can declare "a diplomatic victory."

"But that gives the Taliban an incentive to bide their time in the hope of goading Mr. Trump to do something impulsive," the board wrote.

The U.S. has maintained a troop presence in Afghanistan since shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

The Trump administration has announced a drawdown of approximately 4,000 troops in Afghanistan, leaving between 8,000 and 9,000 U.S. military personnel in the country.

The president has clashed with the Journal in recent months, including in April when the publication ripped his coronavirus task force briefings as time "wasted" on scoring political points and being "off-key" in tone. The Journal also argued that Trump should cede the briefings to Vice President Pence, who leads the task force.

"The Wall Street Journal always 'forgets' to mention that the ratings for the White House Press Briefings are 'through the roof,'" Trump tweeted at the time.

“The WSJ (and the Murdochs) should understand that Trump runs USA foreign policy...not them.”

I am no fan of the Murdochs but the deal they got buying Dow Jones (owner of Wall Street Journal and Barrons) left the editorial board of the opinion section/page under the control of the previous owners. It is the one section of the paper that is more the old Wall Street Journal than any other section.

That said, I neither agree nor disagree with the the WSJ oped page editors on the subject of Afghanistan. I am a mugwump - a fence sitter - mug on one side wump on the other, as I can see good arguments both ways.

“Impulsive” is not a word I would have chosen, as they could have defended their position differently by using “premature” as that term is totally about conditions and not time frames. That said, I think any president at this time is in a damned if you do, damned if you don’t position on Afghanistan.

Trump alludes to the real problem - why we have been left with the current status - when he says “except at the beginning, we never really fought to win”.

We should never go to war if we do not, or cannot, or are unwilling (popular sentiment) to do it WWII style - total war until unconditional surrender. Less than that we leave conditions that plague global peace and security afterwards.

the deal they got buying Dow Jones (owner of Wall Street Journal and Barrons) left the editorial board of the opinion section/page under the control of the previous owners.

I had a long chat w/ a WJS letters editor who wanted to vet some facts in a letter I sent (published). He previously worked on the journalism side, well before the Murdoch purchase, and said it was as bad as it is today, just overrun by the leftist perspective. He's much happier working editorial now.

I'd love to hear more about the DJ / Murdoch deal -- what was the incentive for each side on that one? Regardless, thank God for it, and we still get each Thanksgiving and Christmas the classic editorials.

“I’d love to hear more about the DJ / Murdoch deal — what was the incentive for each side on that one?”

I think I understand the incentive of the sellers (as far as keeping hold of the oped page - they had grown to think of the WSJ and particularly the stewardship of the editorials as like their own “baby”. In other words is was personal.

What $$$ incentives they had to give Murdoch to keep that hat in, I do not know.

What IS interesting from what I have read hits one of the points you made. As far as the main section “journalists” not as much has changed, at least not as much as I thought. Not only much of the WSJ staff was already at the time of the merger on “the Left”, the descendants of the old-line shareholders were on the side of the staff - who collectively opposed the deal, and feared Murdoch was going to make it over into a Conservative print version of Fox news. Those fears were raised directly by certain board members who either voiced disapproval of the deal or voted against it, or both. But much of the share power was in the hands of a law firm that represented a family trust, more so than the surviving family members and the law firm was squarely for the deal. Obviously, the fears the journals staff had have never come to pass.

In fact the Murdochs created some new “columns” within the main section, that are not called editorials but they are, and they are very Liberal. It’s like the Murdochs decided to start competing with the editorial page of their own paper, within their own paper.

I guess their is one area where the main sections of the WSJ are more Liberal than they were before. That is less in terms of the writing and the editorship of what is written than it is the editors choices of subject matter. There are more articles than before that have less to do with the business of the business world and more to with discussing “diversity”, “equity”, “social responsibility” and the like. And, the Murdochs use the WSJ in their own “climate change” agenda, not least of which is not a mere “reporting” of “electric” vehicles, but what is clearly unabashed promoting of electric vehicles with a poor attempt to disguise it as “reporting”,

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