but continues to engage in terrorist behavior and activity. chris: would you agree that president obama is much more responsible for the disaster and the humanitarian slaughter in syria than president trump is? the time when i was in congress i called on the president and supported the idea chris: president obama. president obama and supported the idea we should be on the side of the syrian people who were facing exactly the same kinds of atrocities and it s come to this point. but the fact is that today in april 2018 president trump is the president and it s his obligation to act and not just reflect on what a bad job he think that president obama. chris: we have less than a minute left. michael? i think that president trump shouldld act as karl said. i think president trump needs to see things through syria. unwe should give president trump credit for having a husband musd strong policy towards syria and towards russia which is backing
order to send a second signal that just because a year has passed doesn t mean can engage in this behavior again. chris: your reaction to what appears it s not confirmed yet what appears to be an attack and if so, what action president trump is going to need to take? the president is the president today and i think thaa the american people and the congress actually have to be engaged in a discussion about syria, that is a moral discussion when it comes to the use, if this is true, of poison gas. this is a human rights crisis and the president has an obligation to act. that said, over this last year and-a-half our policy actually allowed assad with russia s help to consolidate his power and that leaves open the door to dot these kind to engage in these kind of atrocities because we think we ve rolled back the islamic state. in fact what we ve done is we actually created an environment where it goes underground. it s not consolidating land.
they haven t. they have requirements that american companies give up intellectual property. integrating them into a trade framework has not worked. we need to be tough. i think what some of the president laid out has not been targeted and smart. chris: ila understand the concern about tariffs. on the other hand, as michael points out, china has continued with unfair trade practices, stealing or threatening, pressuring to get our intellectual property. i asked congressman crowley that and didn t get much of an answer. do you have a specific idea of how to get them to clean up their act? i don t think tariffs are a trade policy. one of the things that scojo mig here is a trade policy. we had an opportunity i think under the obama administration of a tpp that was fairly negotiated. i didn t support that because i
the region is going to be greatly diminished. chris: let me pick up on that. he said the reason this has fallen apart is because president obama did not enforce the red line when he was president when it came to gasas attacks by assad. and when the president did launch that attack, i think it was 59 missiles back in the spring of 2017, he said if it happens again i ll strike again. how much is he on the line now? he s on the line. i think there is some there s some reason why he said, some evidence that he s correct when he said president obama should have acted. it s unseemly for the president, however, to be reflecting on that in my opinion. he ought to act. it was one of the most important moments in the definition of his foreign policy last year when this attack did occur, he reacted and 25% of the air capacity of the syrian air force disappeared in a matter of moments. he has to exact another price in
attack in syria, area of atrocity is in lockdown and encircled by syrian army, making it completely inaccessible to outside world. president putin, russia and iran are responsible for backing animal assad. big price. it s interesting, karl, there has not been outside confirmation that this was a poison attack. it s interesting that, one, the president is saying it and two, not only condemning it but also in maybe the strongest terms i ve ever heard, condemning president putin s support for assad. the president is obligated to act. so confirm if this was a poison gas attack, which it looks like it was, the estimates are at least 70 dead, maybe as many as 150, a number of them children, all of them civilians. now the united states will have to act as the president acted in the aftermath of the gas attack in early 2017. otherwise, our credibility in