sacrifices of war widows and war widowers. we ll introduce you to two gold star wives that say talk is cheap. he need help. good afternoon, everyone. welcome to the lead. i m jake tapper. president trump has made it clear he wants to be president of america and not of the world. he stated this again just this week. now the world is trying to figure out what exactly does that mean? north korea piled on the pressure with a missile launch last night right before president trump is set to host china s president in what mr. trump calls a very difficult meeting with some focus on north korea but nowhere is president trump being tested more than right now than in syria. today the president condemned bashar al assad for the chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of innocent syrians, including babies, and the president again faulted president obama for refusing to attack syria back in september 2013 after drawing that so-called red line on the u.s. of chemical weapons.
i have something to say for the record. we need to have an important discussion. it s about what we are willing to do or not do in syria. you ve now seen the video of the suspected chemical weapons attack against innocent syrians, including children. these videos are not only deeply disturbing but also heart breaking, and we as a nation, because we are the last remaining super power, and because we are good, decent people, need to decide should we act or not? and if so, how? back in 2013 when president obama faced these very difficult questions, most americans were opposed to action. an nbc wall street journal poll showed 58% of americans opposed u.s. military action in syria. that was at a time when our nation was war weary and maybe today many of you are still war weary. i get that. but that should not stop us from now reigniting this all-important debate. we should all be involved in this discussion, including our leaders. by the way, here s what united
further, i think we need to be more actively engaged. we are actively engaged in fighting isis now. there is an ongoing assault against mosul and soon raqqa and the american military is now much more actively engaged in the fight against isis. but i think we need to hold firm against assad. he s committed crimes against humanity and the russians and the iranians have actively participated now for years in the torture, in the murder of thousands of civilians in just unspeakable crimes against people on the ground. innocent syrians and i think we can and should do more for syrian refugees to make sure we re part of the solution to this tragic situation in syria. senator chris coons, thanks so much for being on new day. . thank you. president-elect donald trump meeting with tech titans. now, a lot of them were coming after trump during the campaign. so, what was the agenda?
in an interview with npr president obama responded to some of the strategies for fighting isis that have been suggested by presidential candidates. here s what the president said about donald trump s proposal to bomb the heck out of them and ted cruz proposal to carpet bomb isis. well, when you listen to them, though, and you ask, well, what exactly are you talking about? well, we re going to bomb more. who is it that you re going to bomb? where is it that you re going to bomb? when you talk about something like carpet bombing, what do you mean? if the suggestion is is that we kill tens or hundreds of thousands of innocent syrians and iraqis, that is not who we are and that would be a strategy that would have an enormous backlash against the united states. it would be terrible for our
kill tens or hundreds of thousands of innocent syrians and iraqis, that is not who we are and that would be a strategy that would have an enormous backlash against the united states. it would be terrible for our national security. and here s what the president said about establishing a no-fly zone in syria, a position advocated by hillary clinton, jeb bush, chris christie, john kasich, marco rubio. the other new thing that people have suggested would be some variation of a no-fly zone or a safe zone. this is something we ve been talking about for three or four years. the challenge there is that isil doesn t have an air force so the damage done there is not against isil, it s against the syrian regime. creating a safe zone for syrian refugees, we ve tested. we ve looked at repeatedly.