As Justin Amash tweeted in response, “He sells troops.”
Even after all this time, with Republican officials all turning themselves into quivering supplicants and Republican voters becoming unprincipled cult members, this one surprises me. And, honestly, it shouldn’t. The GOP embraced the “private” contractors” during the Iraq war and they are fine with unaccountable covert CIA operations. It’s a short hop to selling the troops to foreign countries for money.
Eric Prince has been on the inside influencing Republicans for a long time. His family is highly influential and his willingness to wage privatized war has been extremely appealing. He was with Trump on election night and he’s offered a serious proposal to turn Afghanistan over to mercenaries under his control and make himself the Viceroy. He promised the US would “take the minerals.” (“To the victors go the spoils”)
So, this principle isn’t something that strays too far from traditional GOP orthodoxy. But literally selling US troops for money isn’t something I anticipated. And even if he’s just blathering dishonestly, and the troops were part of a defense against Iran after the oil fields were hit a few months ago, the fact that the president of the US believes that sending US troops overseas in exchange for money is perfectly normal and right is disturbing.
But hey, GOP voters, including those in the military, have fallen under his spell and as far as I can tell will go along with anything he does, so I don’t know how much it matters electorally. Nonetheless, it’s really something to see a US president say such a thing and get absolutely no blowback from the flag-waving patriots on the right.