Toobin: Trump doesn't know anything about the Middle East — but his isolationism is appealing to Americans

CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin was aghast at President Donald Trump's explanation of the problems in the Middle East, but acknowledged that the president's solutions have a great appeal to Americans.

Toobin was responding to a statement the president made Wednesday in an attempt to explain why he believed that exiting U.S. forces from Syria and Afghanistan were the best decisions he could make in that region.

"We have an area that I brought up with our generals, four or five weeks ago," the president said to reporters, "where Taliban is here, ISIS is here, and they're fighting each other."

"I said why won't you let them fight?" he said. "Why are we getting in the middle of it? I said let them fight! They're both our enemies! Let them fight!"

"Sir we wanna do it," he continued, mimicking the response from military officials.

"They go in and they end up fighting both of them," he explained, "it's the craziest thing I've ever seen!"

"I think I woulda been a good general, but who knows?" the president concluded.

'The hell with them all, let's just leave'

Wolf Blitzer asked Toobin to comment on the president's claims on whether he would have been a good general.

"I would say I would be on the 'who knows' part of that equation," Toobin joked.

"You know, it is so unbelievable I mean, you know, it's not," Toobin continued, "most presidents have read a book before they became president, and they know something about the history of the region or they listen to people or they read briefing papers."

"The idea that the whole story there is ISIS and Taliban fighting each other and let's just leave, is so incredible that it's really hard to know how to address it," he added.

"The other point though is, isolationism," Toobin said, "like letting the rest of the world go to hell, that has a deep and enduring appeal in the United States."

"And a lot of people will listen to that very truncated history and think, 'you know what, the hell with them all, let's just leave,' and that has a very distinguished pedigree!" he concluded.

Washington Post assistant editor David Swerdlick criticized Trump for not understanding the history of the situation and only looking at the problem from the beginning of his administration.

Former Obama administration official Samantha Vinograd called Trump's statement about the facts in the Middle East "nonsense."

Here's the video of a CNN panel erupting at Trump's statement: