Republicans lack the ‘moxie’ to defend America’s Kurdish allies in Syria: Ex-RNC Chair

Republicans will criticize President Donald Trump on foreign policy, but lack the nerve to do anything meaningful to protect America's Kurdish allies in northern Syria, the former chair of the Republican Party explained on MSNBC on Wednesday.

MSNBC's Chuck Todd interviewed Steele about what it would take for Republicans to serve as a check on the president.

"I think the only way to make him change his mind is -- he’s got to think they might walk," Todd said.

"Well, that would require a level of moxie that we haven’t seen from the leadership," Steele replied.

"On the foreign policy space, I think that’s the one area where we’ve seen people actually start to push back rhetorically," he noted. "But I don’t know if internally they’ve really sat down with the president and go, 'This is how damaging this is, this is how troublesome it is, and this is the problem you’re having inside the caucus.' I just don’t — at least from the folks I’ve talked to, I haven’t gotten the sense they’ve gone there yet."

"They’re not there yet," he explained.

"So look, Trump knows how to punk people every day and he does it expertly. And they fall into it and they — and they — and they realize, to your point, after the fact, 'I just got punked again!' And so at some point, you got to realize enough’s enough," Steele explained.

"Does it every time," Todd said.

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