Launched by the United States against syria. If you support the strike, 202 7488000. If you oppose it, 202 7488001. If you are not sure about the strikes and ultimately what it will mean for that area of the world, 202 7488002. If you want to tweet about this to us, post at cspan wj, and if you want to post on our facebook page, it is facebook. Com cspan. Last night it was President Trump at maralago who made a statement to press about the strikes that took lace yesterday. Place yesterday. Tuesday, syrian dictator Bashar Alassad launched a horrible chemical weapons attack on innocent civilian. Agent, deadly nerve assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women, and children. It was a slow and brutal death for so many. Werebeautiful babies cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack. No child of god should ever suffer such horror. Tonight i ordered a targeted military strike on the airfield in syria from where the chemical attack was launched. Vital National Security interests of the united deter theprevent and spread and use of deadly chemical weapon. There can be no dispute that chemicald banned weapons, violated its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention, and ignored the urging of the un Security Council. Years of previous attempts at ssads behavior have failed and failed very dramatically. As a result, the refugee crisis continues to deepen and the region continues to destabilize, threatening the United States and its allies. Tonight i call on all civilized nations to join us in seeking to end the slaughter and bloodshed in syria. Terrorism ofend all kinds and all types. Wisdom as weds face the challenge of our very troubled world. We pray for the lives of the wounded and for the souls of those who have passed. And we hope that as long as america stands for justice, then peace and harmony will in the end prevail. Good night, and God Bless America, and the entire world. Thank you. Placefrom the president s at maralago, that statement occurring last night. ,ince then, a couple of updates specifically the Russian Militarys response, saying it will help syria strengthen its air defenses after the u. S. Strike. That is from the Associated Press. Aids. Official says operations are currently unaffected by the missile strike on the air base. You can call on the lines stay on them. If you are calling us, we will get to shortly. To give us an update on the president s use of force in as a whiteing us house reporter from Bloomberg News to give us the latest. Guest thank you. Host the president called this a vital National Security interest. Can you go further about what he believes that interest is to the u. S. . ,uest i am here in palm beach following the store yesterday and speaking with the number of u. S. Officials who echoed that sentiment from the president that the use of chemical weapons is so far afield from normal, that the u. S. Felt compelled to take action. The president said it is in the vital interest of the United States to make sure that chemical weapons are not used normally in the battlefield. He felt that he needed to take the step to send this message not only to the syrian president , but to the Global Community that of chemical weapons are used there will be consequences. While these chemical weapons were not used against the united typically,ur allies the use of chemical weapons against civilians is a war crime. The president wanted to send a message that the u. S. Will take action when that happens and he felt it was in the international interest. Host when did we see the change in thinking . Earlier they put out statements about standing with the community and calling for solidarity with other members of the world about this attacked, but when was the change in heart and mind, and what was part of that process . Guest as you know, the president is a very serious consumer of media and he saw the same images that everyone else in the country with the, images of Young Children and women the, dealing with the effects of a chemical agent that was used. He said see those images, seeing what he called beautiful babies being killed changed his calculus, changed his mind. He has warned in the past against military action in faraway lands but obviously getting the National Security intelligence he get, it changed his calculus and he felt he needed to do something. Heheard him say repeatedly would not say what he was going to do in advance, but he started to hit that something hint that something would happen. To change his calculus, seeing the images and the effect of what had happened in syria. It was a very swift change from his previous policies of nonintervention. He was presented with options by his National Security team and was pretty swift in approving those options, within 48 hours of the chemical strike. You saw the u. S. Taking action against those airfield. Host we have the strike taking place but are you learning about officials from officials about what happens now . Guest we are still waiting to get a better sense of that we spoke to the secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, last night who said the public should not read into this that this is a change in overall policy for the syrian conflict. This is not a sign that the u. S. Is going to start sending a mass number of troops on the ground or trying to topple the regime by force. There is a big question about what happens after this. It does seem to be that the u. S. Wanted to send the message that assad will not have free range to use chemical weapons, but it is not clear what happens if syria continues these types of weapons, or other weapons against civilian populations, what happens with the relationship with russia, which obviously is backing the Syrian Regime and was not happy the u. S. Took this unilateral action. There could be some changes into the relationship there. We have been trying to avoid any conflict with russia on the battlefield in syria, and it seems like that may be under threat now that we have taken this action. It is not necessarily clear how this is going to play out and what the u. S. Is going to do after this strike leads to whatever global reverberation are caused by taking this unilateral action. Host your story this morning goes a little further, saying this strike sends a message to other countries as well. What are those countries and what is the message . Guest you have to remember this actually happened in the middle of one of President Trumps most important bilateral meetings with the chinese president and florida. Supposed to be a get to know you heting but in the middle sends this huge message to the global stage that he is willing to take unilateral action, to send a message to north korea which President Trump said in an interview last week he would be willing to take action on his own to stop north korea about obtaining a nuclear missile. That is something he was supposed to be talking with the chinese president about, helping the chinese getting the chinese to help curb north Koreas Nuclear ambitions so it probably sends the message to north korea, to the russians who were hoping when President Trump was elected that there would be better relations. I think that hope has largely faded. It would send a message to the chinese that the president is willing to interrupt and overshadow this important meeting to conduct his strike. Largely it would overshadow anything to come out of the meeting. It probably also sends a message to iran as well, another backer of the a shot assad machine regime. It sends a message that maybe the u. S. Is willing to take action there as well if the president believes they are obtaining a weapon that he is not, he finds to be not acceptable. It does reverberate all around the world and it will be interesting to see how Different Countries react in the hours ahead today. Host do you expect any more information from the president , secretary of state, or anyone in the administration about the strike and what happened next westmark next . Guest there are several reporters in palm beach, florida , and we will be pressing for those answers. He came tomorrow lago with four or five of his top security he came to maralago with four or five of his top security advisers and we are waiting to hear the next steps, whether it be from leaders at the pentagon or National Security leaders, including the secretary of state that is here, and the National Security adviser as well as a number of top aides to the president. They have had some time to digest this strike and we are hoping to hear the Damage Assessment the pentagon has made , and what the next steps may be diplomatically and what the impact is on this meeting with the chinese president , who obviously the chinese are probably not too happy with the idea that the president took unilateral action against the syrian leader during the meeting with the chinese president. Were expecting to hear all of this in the middle of this meeting with the chinese president , and we will have some opportunities to see the president meeting with the chinese today and he will be asked about the strike. One reporter host a White House Reporter in florida covering the president and discussing the strikes on syria, thank you for your time this morning. Guest thanks. Host your calls for three hours this morning, no guess, we will guests. R no guess 202 7488000 for those who support the strikes, 202 7488001 for those who oppose it, 202 7488002 for those who are not sure. Samuel is in alaska, opposing the strikes. Caller i want to say first real quick, happy april 8, ninth, and 10th. I want to say for trump to go on television and talk about beautiful babies being massacred which is ironic, when one of his first acts was to massacre a bunch of beautiful girls in yemen who were such a threat to National Security. Killingve a hand to little girls to protect our freedom. What a joke. Host eric is next from maryland on the line for folks who support the strike. Caller good morning, cspan. I agree with the gentleman from alaska. He is talking about innocent babies. The first strike, he was authorized under obama. It was not even through trump. Now when it comes to these strikes in syria, at least we know that we have a man in the white house now. He drew a redline and he and forced the redline. The only language people like assad here is the language of force. We learned something, trump tried to work with russia and the have already signaled their opposition. Assad, sobe helping the world now has to make a choice because something has to be done. Thank you. Host what do you think about, as our guest talked about, future relations with russia, concerns with north korea . How do you think those situations will be did by the actions from yesterday . Caller russia, the president tried to work with russia he really tried hard to start a fresh relationship with russia, and the response to the strike tells everything. Russia is not going to work with the United States. Russia will always oppose the United States. President trump tried to work with other countries who are willing to tackle not only a sod sad, but to take on north korea and russia because they are threats to security. Not doing anything is not the solution. Someone needs to do something. Host from oxford, massachusetts, on our oppose line, carl. Caller donald trump is acting just as obama would or hillary would where bush. I am totally against this. This is very, very dangerous. Since when does he care about innocent children . Come on, give me a break. The guy is not my president. I better stop talking before i use host specifically what do you oppose . Guest what are we doing the caller what are we doing there . I do not know what we are doing their. I bet you donald trump does not even know what we are doing there. Let a sod take care of it assad take care of it. Do you think they want isis . Syria israel the doorstep of russia. Rightavent syria is on the doorstep of russia. We do not have any business over there unless it is oil or pipeline. As far as humanitarian or innocent people, he does not care. Host david in macintosh, new mexico supports the strike. Caller good morning, cspan. Some interesting calls. I do definitely support the move. I think it was incisive, bold, direct, sends a message. I certainly support that. I think that to allow us to the on, we have had to go have had so much that has not been addressed. When you have got people that are constantly pushing like russia has been doing, we helped them a great deal after world war ii just like we help them. At least germany seems to have some gratitude for that. Russias reaction was to turn right around and support north korea. As china did. , think the past hundred years if you look at russia and their behavior, right now they are apporting a sod in iraq ssad and iran and i do not think they have done anything to curb back isis. They had an agreement time after time after time. I just think that we need to push back and i think the time is now. It has got to happen sooner or later. None of us like war and hopefully that can be avoided. There is a better chance to avoid that by acting now and making our statement, saying this is not going to happen. You are doing these type of cruelties toward women and elderly people, and especially Young Children and babies, that is a nightmare. Host david in new mexico. The Associated Press reported that a syrian officials said the missile strike on that base has killed seven people. That is the governor of the area where the base is located, and said the attacks also wounded nine. The attack also caused an extensive damage to the air base. The Syrian Military calling the attack a blatant aggression that would undermine its war on terror. Dans camino, assistant to donald trump posting a picture with secretary of state Rex Tillerson after Donald Trumps statement yesterday, Rex Tillerson made a statement about the attacks and what it means for u. S. Policy. I think in this particular case, the use of prohibited chemical weapons which violates a number of International Norms and violates existing agreements, called for this type of a response. This is a kinetic military response. I would not in any way attempt to extrapolate this to a change in our policy relative to military activities in syria. There has been no change in that. I think it does demonstrate that President Trump is willing to act when governments and actors crossed the line. They crossed the line in the most heinous of ways. I think it is clear and President Trump made that statement to the world tonight. Host we will hear from michael, columbia, maryland, who is not sure about the attacks. Caller i actually do support the actual action. I am not sure about what the overwhelming response, or how it is going to play out in the long run, and that is my biggest concern. ,learly we do not like assad but toppling a dictator in the middle east does not always lead to a vibrant democracy. 3. 0, andad to isis then what are we going to do . Then will be stuck with another terrorist nation that we do not know how to handle. I think it is important that we do set a line that it is not ok to use chemical weapons. I do not know how getting rid of assad is going to strengthen that region. Host the office of the present president commenting, denouncing the u. S. Strikes, calling it reckless, irresponsible behavior. That is from the Associated Press. Carol says President Trump is getting praised for the action he took against syrias despicable use of poison gas. Another viewer asking the question what is the long game in syria . Cspan at wj is how you post. You can call us on the lines this morning. Gary is from new york and he opposes yesterdays attack. Caller pedro, lets talk about the motivation of whoever used those chemical devices. The last one in the world to do domething like that is the assa government because they were winning the Syrian Civil War with russias help and irans help. Isis was on its heels. The Syrian Rebels were on its heels. The government was acquiring more and more of the syrian territory. The last one in the world to use that to inflame the west and give them a chance to intervene was the Assad Government. In listening to msnbc, cnn, even the fox channel, including the trunk haters come trump haters, not one newscaster, not one is saying, is making the analysis like im i am. Adat in the world with the ass government have to gain . They are making the assumption that is going to come out that perhaps the government was not guilty, but they are all making the assumption. Nobody is questioning who in the world is doing it, including our representative at the u. N. I think a lot of people made just be surprised. Perhaps a dirty trick, to up even by our own cia permit the United States to intervene, because our plan all along going back to the obama administration, was regime change in syria. Host lets move on to steve, ridgeway, pennsylvania, supports the strike. Caller that was quite a stress from our last caller, the cia coordinated the attack. Support the attack tenets of our country is strength, and when we show weakness which the