russia and iran providing, and turkey, providing the type of involvement in north korea as we see in syria. in north korea, we have kim jong-un, he traveled to china. south koreans are taking more active role in that effort. the dynamics are different, hopefully we are able to have productive talks. we all have to be cautious continuing a maximum pressure campaign on noerrth koreans. tough to compare it to. i want to move to another topic, something happening in your party you have certainly been witness to, that s question of the support of the leader of your party at the moment, president trump. you re aware of this, want to play a little bit from a conservative blogger that said this about a clandestine meeting at a grocery store with a gop congress member, secretly frustrated with president trump.
as you know so well, we know assad is fighting isis in syria, latest u.s. strike not targeting isis. when you put it all together, courtney, how will this complicate the administration s message to the american people? well, this is why we saw a very targeted strike. a lot of people focus on the fact that in april of 2017, the u.s. took a strike against one syrian military airfield. they popped the runway. they took out a number of syrian military jets and aircraft. this one was bigger. what we saw two days ago now was the u.s. military in conjunction with two alleys, french and british, took a broader strike. it involved three targets, rather than going after the syrian military delivery mechanism, the way they were able to deliver the chemicals in 2017, this time the strikes targeted their ability to produce some chemicals. their ability to store chemicals. and they went after what is a
i am richard lui in for alex witt at nbc world headquarters in new york city. the pentagon saying strikes on syria were successful in taking out the heart of bashar al assad s chemical weapons program. rubble remains where the research facility once stood. the u.s. says it was a chemical weapons lab. syrian officials say it was a center for research and development. meanwhile, president bashar al assad arrived to work this weekend, giving off the appearance there with his briefcase of business as usual arriving to work. state department spokesperson says syria is now engaged in a disinformation campaign. the regime is trying to convince people and pressure people to change their stories, to basically imply that syria was not responsible for the attack. it is disgusting disinformation. the responsibility for the attacks rests solely on the syrian regime, but also backed by russia. joining me, congressman, a
unfortunately it turns out they did not fully abide and provide all information to opcw, so you have an international effort here. it should not be the united states alone, and frankly really needs more involvement from arab nations within the mideast. some nations are wealthy, uae, saudi arabia, qatar for their effort to take a leadership role in their own region, this can t be the united states role to get involved in a syrian civil war, to be responsible for replacing assad or having responsibility long term to fix syria. what s amazing about the video you played of assad showing up to work, look how beautiful that building is that he is arriving in. i don t know where else in syria you re going to find a video of anyone arriving to work in a suit and briefcase to big beautiful buildings. it will cost a lot of money, can t be the united states responsibility to do alone. quickly, should the united
question is what is the greater strategic mission, and was that accomplished in any way. interestingly, one syrian defector, a man who worked on syria s chemical weapons program has spoken out today, and he says that the attempt to get rid of chemical weapons in syria wasn t wholly successful, that stocks of chemical weapons are in warehouses across the country, these raids were of limited success. he said they hit parts of the chemical weapons program but not the heart of it, and he says syria s determination and intent to use chemical weapons is undiminished. nikki haley has been speaking as you said yesterday and today at the united nations saying the u.s. is locked and loaded. she spoke again today with words of warning to president assad. take a listen to nikki haley.