Asked if the United States is going to get involved in Syria, Trump said: “No. But if I see them using gas and using things that — I mean even some of the worst tyrants in the world didn’t use the kind of gases that they used. And some of the gases are unbelievably potent.”
“So when I saw that, I said we have to do something,” Trump said. Trump said he was dismayed by the images of dying children in last Monday’s alleged chemical attack on the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun, which U.S. officials believe involved a nerve agent.
Obama did consider air strikes in 2013 in response to the alleged use of chemical weapons by the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and at the time Trump on Twitter said the U.S. shouldn’t strike Syria at all, and shouldn’t do so without Congressional approval.
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The matter never came up for a vote amid a Russia-brokered agreement for Syria to hand over its chemical weapons. U.S. Special Forces are operating in Syria to assist forces fighting ISIS, and the United States is leading a coalition conducting air strikes against the terror group in Syria.
“We’re not going into Syria,” Trump said in the interview. “But when I see people using horrible, horrible chemical weapons, which they agreed not to use under the Obama administration, but they violated it.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s “even the worst tyrants” line echoed statements that put his White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer in the middle of an uproar earlier Tuesday.
