GOP lawmaker flails wildly after CNN's Poppy Harlow calls him out for excusing Trump's Syria debacle

Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) on Monday flailed wildly after CNN's Poppy Harlow called him out for defending President Donald Trump's decision to abandon America's Kurdish allies in northern Syria.

Harlow began her interview with Burgess by reading reports showing the situation in northern Syria quickly turning into a humanitarian catastrophe that could be linked directly to Trump's decision to give Turkey the green light to invade the area.

Burgess responded by blaming Congress.

"Well, what I will tell you is this was a very poor time for Congress to be out of town for two weeks," he said.

Later in the interview, Harlow read Burgess a quote from a Kurdish leader who accused Trump of betraying his people and leaving them to be slaughtered by the Turkish military. Burgess responded by once again deflecting blame from the president.

"Well, look, the United States has asked for help from its European allies in policing this area," he said. "We've asked our European allies to take those ISIS fighters that were being held in the prisons in northern Syria -- no help from our European allies. The president was essentially having to do this entirely on his own, no help from congress, no help from European allies."

Harlow, however, would not let him off the hook.

"The facts matter here, congressman!" she said. "And Defense Secretary Mark Esper said that he spoke with the president over the weekend and it was the president's decision to remove nearly all, if not all, of those U.S. troops from northern Syria."

Watch the video below.