Donald Trump wants to remove US troops from northern Syria rather than leaving them as “cannon fodder” if fighting broke out between Turkey and Kurdish fighters, Robert F Kennedy Jr said on Wednesday.

Speaking to Tucker Carlson during a live broadcast covering the US presidential election result, the Trump ally, who is expected to play a major role in his government, said the president-elect had expressed his intentions for northern Syria during a plane journey.

“We were talking about the Middle East, and he took a piece of paper and he drew on it [a] map of the Middle East with all the nations on it, which most Americans couldn’t do,” he told the right-wing broadcaster.

“He was he was particularly looking at the border between Syria and Turkey, and he said, ‘We have 500 men on the border of of Syria and Turkey and a little encampment that was bombed.’”

Kennedy said Trump told him there were 750,000 troops in Turkey and 250,000 in Syria