Vladimir putin, for iran and also for president obama who he pinpointed as the person responsible for putting him and the united states in this position. here s what he said about president obama specifically. he said if president obama had crossed his stated red line in the sand, the syrian disaster would have ended long ago. animal assad would have been history. now, of course, president trump promising that there will be a big price to pay. he appears to be drawing his own line in the sand. his national his homeland security adviser tom bossert are saying all options are on the table. thank you. some republicans on capitol hill say the president s choice is clear. fire back or look weak. well, it s a defining moment in his presidency because he has challenged assad in the past not to use chemical weapons. we had a one and done missile attack, so assad sed a it again.
Consequences. gayle, what would be the consequences, do you think, of a u.s. strike in syria this time, especially if russia troops were caught up in the damage? listen, it s so fascinating because for years since the isis fight started, deconfliction has been the norm between the united states and russia. they have gone out of their way on the military side to truly avoid any direct engagement, and now you see the situation where it is nearly unavoidable, right. you have the president really calling out the russian regime the russian president by name saying that they back the assad regime to the nth degree and show no signs of backing down and will be held responsible for it. the question we now see is will deconfliction give way to direct engagement between these two powers? elise, you mentioned this emergency u.n. security council meeting that was called. should we expect a different outcome this time around? i don t think so, ana. i mean, look, the russians are a permanent member of the u.n.
Unless it s olay. our breaking news. john bolton just got a big assignment for his first day as trump s national security adviser. he ll lead the national security council in a meeting on syria tomorrow just a day after the president called out russia s vladimir putin by name for backing bashar assad after a suspected chemical weapons attack in syria. the president now warning of a big price to pay. what that big price is we don t yet know and that brings us to your weekend presidential brief, a segment we ve been bringing you every sunday negotiate with the president s most pressing foreign policy issues and here to bring it to you is former national security adviser sam vinaigrette. she spent two years with the obama administration. we normally cover many top nicks this segment but because of the gravity of the situation in
Majority speech. vietnam becomes his war. barack obama, november 2009, decides for the surge in afghanistan, it becomes his war. in april of last year, president trump sent a missile strike, launched a missile strike against syrian targets, and at that point the syrian conflict became his problem. clearly the russians didn t hear the message and assad didn t hear the message. now the united nations investigated that chemical attack last year and said that it was done by the syrian government, so we know that assad is a war criminal. so the question is now are we just going to launch missiles again, which, of course, assad and the russians will ignore, or is the united states prepared to deal with the fact that there s a war criminal running syria? i don t know if president trump has the understanding of foreign policy to deal with this kind of problem. he is pointing fingers at russia though. he is tweeting russian president putin s name condemning him directly. that is a change. that s a change, but what s the follow-through?
Russia and iran are standing behind bashar al assad and allowing essentially the suffering of these people to continue. what exactly are they do to prop up the assad government? well, ana, to the road to damascus leads through moscow and tehran. assad is a war criminal. he would not have been able to kill hundreds of thousand of people without support from russia and iran. russia, we know, for example, has provided military support, logistical support and diplomatic cover. we had treasury sanctions that came out last week against russian officials solely focused on their support for the regime. it s interesting, ana, you and i have talked about potential military intervention. the very presence of russian troops on the ground in syria is a deterrent in some ways for more direct military action by the united states because the administration is worried about direct confrontation between u.s. forces and the russians. so we saw the president look back and go after president barack obama and his lack of