pointed out, the most horrendous war in living memory. you re talking about world war ii style of combat and casualties. that s why, while there may be military options, there are no military solutions to the crisis. wow. all right. that s unsettling. but on that unsettling note we re going to have to end this segment. thank you very much. we ll be back. up next, a decision trump is about to make that could tear nearly 1 million families apart.
sara, a top administration official when briefing senators yesterday on this said, essentially the policy is reaction, military reaction when chemical weapons are used. but to josh s point there s a lot of these quote-unquote new friend, some previous critics of donald trump like john mccain they don t want to see just a response to chemical weapons attacks. they want to see a response to barrel bomb attacks and other attacks on syrians. right. the only thing we know about trump s approach to syria is that the administration is not interested in regime change. they are not interested in taking out president assad. they don t want to have to deal with the aftermath of putting together a new government in syria. that s really the only thing we know. that s what the administration has been telegraphing for several weeks now. that is not a line with mccain or graham or even some of these democratic critics who are
there, the strikes there were happening on that syrian airfield. what do you think president xi gleaned from president trump s decision to strike syria in the context of the president saying that if china doesn t take care of north korea, we will. this now is not just bluster i guess. absolutely. i think the chinese like everybody will be concerned by the potential unpredictability of trump and i think the americans will be pleased that in a sense the military option is put on the table because it s useful to have your adversaries slightly worried. i think we both know that north korea is a very different case. sending cruise missiles to an airfield in syria is one thing. china trying to take out the north korea nuclear program is a completely different deal. i m sure xi tried to make that point to trump that this is not an easy thing to do or wise thing to do. good to have you. thanks. brianna.
change or whether he s going to go back to the more aggressive. but for the most it went surprisingly well. you write that this america first strategy from president trump is really going to, from your perspective, lead to the decline of the u.s. as it compares to and competes with asia, namely china. it depends how it goes but i think one of the risky things it s done is pull america out of the transpacific partnership. and one can understand given trump s rhetoric on the campaign trail he had to do it and he did do it on day one. for china, it leaves a big gap and they re trying to build a new area of free trade and one of the most interesting developments in asia is that all of america s security allies now have their biggest trading relationship with china and that s really changing the balance of power in the region. it s interesting, these two
remains uncertain this morning after two u.s. war ships launched a total of 59 tom milwaukee missiles in syria. with that decision trump joined a long list of kidnappeder and chief who used missile attacks to punish another country or send a message. here s a look. reporter: five years before the 2003 war against u.s.-led coalition, saddam hussein s iraq was punished by bombing tomahawk missile strikes. a punitive four day campaign ordered by president bill clinton, following iraq s refusal to comply with u.n. security council resolutions. much of iraq s military infrastructure destroyed. iraq said hundreds of its civilians and troops were killed. it wasn t the first strike to punish the iraqi regime.