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So vladimir putin definitely fighting back in the hours in advance of rex tillerson s arrival here. he s due in an hour s time with those talks. of course, rex tillerson arriving with some tough talk of his own saying that russia was either complicit in that attack or incompetent because it didn t know that syria had chemical weapons. so the heat is without question rising in advance of these talks. vladimir putin there suggesting that someone some sources are telling russia that more chemical attacks are planned in damascus. help us to deconstruct this. what it means for this visit and what essentially, bill, do you think this does in terms of the wider picture and the view of the international community? ....
Secretary of state? they re all saying different things. my ultimate concern and i think congressman swalwell put it well, is the president is not laying out a strategy. there is a point where foreign powers won t take us seriously anymore. this is just about leadership and the president is not providing clarity, and a window through which we can understand where he is going. seems to me, jonathan, another part of this problem is that this administration did seem to go through the steps. there were, what, five or six meetings about this with his national security team, if you include the presidential daily briefing when he was first briefed about what had happened in syria. there were serious conversations that took place. a lot of people in the room say he asked a lot of the right kinds of questions before he came to this decision, although it was a pretty quick time frame over the course of 72 hours. it was at least a considered decision, if you look at the number of meetings that ....
Right now. only american leadership working with our allies and with the con vent sent of congress can we go where we need to go and russia is held in check. that means working with our g7 partners and also allies in the region. there s an opportunity for this president to show he is doing that. so far he s been nowhere to be found when it comes to talking about syria. white house press secretary sean spicer talks about syria during his briefing yesterday. let me play part of that for you. if you gas a baby, if you put a barrel bomb in to innocent people, i think you you will see a response from this president. that is unacceptable. he s not the only one in the administration to say that, but the problem obviously is that barrel bombs were used nearly 13,000 times in 2017 by the assad government according to the syrian network for human ....
What s happened is donald trump has fundamentally changed his approach to this part of the world. do you see a fundamental change here and if so what are the implications of that. i think we re waiting to get clarity as to what the administration s policy on syria is because on friday in the immediate aftermath people were saying this is about the use of chemical weapons. since then, including what the press secretary at the white house said yesterday this is about broader goals. is this an expansion of interventionism, something that donald trump clearly said he wanted to get away from. have we gone beyond military strikes that were aimed to punish the specific use of chemical weapons or or is the united states moving to a policy of trying to push assad out which would be difficult. you can t separate international politics from this. now you have putin saying what happened in syria reminds him of the claims in iraq and russia ....
reporter: we ve all been watching and indeed the kremlin has been watching the g-7 meeting which rex tillerson has left for signs of a united front from the west and signs of clarity from washington about what its next step in syria will be. clearly rex tillerson will be arriving here with a clear message and that message to russia is drop president assad. assad is toxic. just a short time before he left, rex tillerson said the days of the assad family s rule in syria are numbered. he said a few other interesting things just before he left. let s take a listen to rex tillerson. i hope that what the russian government concludes is that they have aligned themselves with an unreliable partner in bashar al assad. assad has made the russians look not so good under these ....