country. russia is going to represent the interests of its country. and our interests in some areas coincide, and others they don t. you have to understand we ve pressed for democracy in eastern europe and throughout the world. we support democratic institutions. putin doesn t, and so he s striking back against us. there s a struggle going on underneath, but nations work through this. you have to understand this really is about russia. assad is on decline. putin knows that. i m certain putin is tired of propping him up, and the united states understands that. so what we have is a situation where if you look at civil war in history, within the next few years we might expect to see
kind. it is very bad for this world. but when you drop gas or bombs or barrel bombs, have massive barrels with dynamite and they drop them right in the middle of a group of people, and in all fairness you see the same kids, no arms, no legs, no face, this is an animal. so, kimberly today, tillerson made it clear, to russian foreign minister lavarev that president syrian assad cannot stay in power. president trump making the same connection here. do you think the u.s. and russia can find common ground to get assad out? well the interesting thing is, white house official told us today that trump actually sees an opportunity in this chaos. in laying out his position to russia, they made sure to leave russia a way out with the strikes last week. they have been careful in speaking to reporters. not to say they re sure that russia knew there was sarin being dropped on that town.
revolved around, but clearly the key topic of conversation here at the white house has been syria and trying to determine what those next steps will be and now, of course, we have our answer to that question. this is president trump s first biggest major foreign policy crisis and test, brian, and it also marks a shift in tone in terms of how the president has discussed and thought about intervention in syria. just several days ago, his secretary of state said it s up to the people of syria to determine the future of bashar al assad. we heard him change that stance today, brian. the secretary of state now saying essentially that assad cannot stay in power and that the united states is working on a political solution with its allies abroad and that was a point echoed by president trump who made it very clear yesterday in the rose garden during a press conference that he was horrified by the images that he saw coming out of syria in the wake of that chemical weapons attack. he described h
accountable for his war crimes and others. mr. putin needs to be looked at for how complicit he s been on these attacks and it s not just this latest attack with using chemical weapons which just violates the chemical weapons convention and violates international humanitarian norms. it s a war crime, but they ve been doing barrel bombing and they ve been targeting hospitals and it is well past time that mr. assad is indicted for his war crimes. so you think he should be tried at the hague. you have british prime minister theresa may saying there can be no future for assad in a stable syria. will any words less than that ease any of your concerns from the trump administration or do you need to hear, do the american people need to hear that directly from the president? what i want to hear from the trump administration is first that our policy is that assad cannot stay as the leader of syria. mr. tillerson left that door
horrific, but it s not the only thing he s done. look at the barrel bombing and look at the thousands of children and women who have been killed, civilians have been killed and hospitals have been targeted. mr. assad cannot remain in syria and the u.s. policy has to be clear about it and last week s comments by the secretary of state was not clear at all. in fact, it was counterproductive. this is a crisis that spans administrations, senator, clearly, and does not appear to be getting better. ben card in, thank you so much. an emergency united nations meeting under way. u.s. ambassador to the u.n. nicki haley will speak any minute. what will she say? will she address the concerns of senator cardin? earlier she made it sound like the united states was okay if assad stays in power. and a team of experienced traders ready to help if you need it. it s like having the power of a trading floor, wherever you are.