atrocities of employing chemical weapons. but also it sends a signal to the fact that the united states is not only in the region but is going to remain in the region. and that you have now the united states in the leading role, certainly over the skies and the battle space of syria but also in the region so that putin will not be able to operate from this point on with his own impunity and own desires to wherever he wants to certainly in syria. pete: colonel, you said if we wanted to we could have taken out their entire air force. do you think part of the reason this was so targeted and proportional because we are not yet at a point where strategically we want to get rid of bashar al assad? no. i don t think it had to do with decapitation of the assad regime. i think it was specifically on the chemical attack that occurred the day before. i disagree by the way with the general. we re not sending message to
are you my uber? [ horn honks ] hold on. [ upbeat music playing ] the biggest week in tv is back. [ doorbell rings ] who s that? show me watchathon. xfinity watchathon week now until april 9. get unlimited access to all of netflix and more, free with xfinity on demand. we have been very clear to the outside regime but also to other players on the ground that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. steve: president obama may have backed off his own declared red line but president trump took action after a chea chemical weapon atk on tuesday. ainsley: what message does
and there is a democrat senator, democratic senator who is still looking at last night s actions before he looks too far ahead that is bill nelson from florida. he says i support the administration s strike on the air base that launched the chemical attack. i hope this teaches assad not to use chemical weapons again. there are now some scattered calls for speaker ryan to recall lawmakers from the easter recess that started last night so they can debate this. but so far no sign of that actually happening. back to you in new york. steve: i bet that s not going to happen. all right, peter, thank you. pete: president trump s critics complained he has changed his message when it comes to taking action in syria. but has the presiden president-d the importance of flexibility in decision making? i like to think of myself as a very flexible person. i don t have to have one specific way and if the world
what are your message to moms and dads who have kids in our military? well, the president took action not only against assad and his use of chemical weapons against his own people, but he also we have also taken action to protect our forces that are there. as colonel hunt alluded to, we have nearly a thousand troops in syria. we have 5,000 or so plus in iraq and also elsewhere in the region. we took steps to protect our men and women serving over there in certainly within arm s reach of assad and his use and ability to deliver chemical weapons by destroying that airfield. but there is a mess seaj not only to assad, there is a message to putin as i stated. there is also a message to our friends in the region, particularly jordan and egypt and so forth. that we re there to make sure that should, you know, u.s. national security objectives be threatened, that we will act. we will act decisively. we will act with precision. we will act also with discipline. i may also add, again, as th
zareef as the only mass use of chemical weapons in the 80 s. iran condemns the use of all weapons of mass destruction of begin next begin. let s hope he is referring to mr. assad and the weapons of mass destruction he used on his own people. steve, i think that s one of the key issues here. look, john kerry declared in july of 2014 all chemical weapons were gone. and that was an agreement between the united states and russia which clearly was either a ruiz or more importantly the russians may have allowed the syrians to manufacture more. either way it s a direct violation of that look, i support my liberty caucus friends and rand paul. we need to bring this to congress and have a debate on it i do understand why mr. trump was feeling the necessity to both strike the target, which the chemical weapons came from as well as changing the narrative, regarding the fact that we ll not sit back and allow