Trump says he wanted to assassinate Bashar al-Assad but Mattis was opposed to it – Axios

Trump says he wanted to assassinate Bashar al-Assad but Mattis was opposed to it - Axios 2President Trump on Tuesday confirmed that he wanted to order an assassination against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but former Secretary of Defense James Mattis “was against it.”

What he’s saying: “I would have rather taken him out. I had him all set. Mattis didn’t want to do it,” Trump said on “Fox & Friends.” His comments confirm a detail reported in journalist Bob Woodward’s 2018 book “Fear.”

“No, I don’t regret that. I could have lived either way with that. I considered him, certainly not a good person. But I had a shot to take him out if I wanted and Mattis was against it. Mattis was against most of that stuff. He’d keep you in military but he didn’t know how to win.”

Reality check: Trump’s comments Tuesday contradicted his own statement to reporters in 2018, when Trump said an operation to kill Assad “was never even contemplated.”

Context: Trump wanted the assassination after it was believed the Syrian government used chemical weapons in an attack in Douma, Syria, according to Woodward’s reporting.

The administration instead eventually conducted targeted airstrikes on Syria’s chemical weapons sites.

Source: Trump says he wanted to assassinate Bashar al-Assad but Mattis was opposed to it – Axios


The article was originally published here!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pier 1 Closing All Stores For Good, Cites ‘New Reality, Uncertainty Of Post-COVID World’

Image
Pier 1 Imports has become the latest retailer knocked against the ropes by the “new reality” of online shopping and finished off by COVID-19. Nearly 60 years after its first store opened — and three months after filing for bankruptcy — the company announced Tuesday that it wants to close all retail operations “as soon as reasonably possible.” The explosion in online shopping, intense competition from larger chains and the coronavirus pandemic “are requiring us to wind down,” Robert Riesbeck, Pier 1’s chief executive and chief financial officer, said in a statement. “This decision follows months of working to identify a buyer who would continue to operate our business going forward,” Riesbeck said. Source: Pier 1 Closing All Stores For Good, Cites ‘New Reality, Uncertainty Of Post-COVID World’ The article was originally published here!
Read more

Republican gubernatorial candidate, a physician, goes to court to stop youth COVID vaccinations

Scott Jensen, a prominent Minnesota Republican candidate for governor with a track record of COVID-19 theories not shared by the medical community, has signed onto an effort to stop vaccinations for 12- to 16-year-olds. Jensen, a family physician from Chaska who served in the state Senate from 2017 to 2021, is the first named plaintiff in a petition filed in federal court in Alabama by America’s Frontline Doctors, a group that has attempted to diminish the pandemic that has killed more than 590,000 Americans and pushed misleading and false information about the coronavirus, its lethality and debunked treatments and preventions, such as the use of hydroxychloroquine. The group’s leader, Simone Gold, was among those who entered the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection that sought to halt the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory over then-President Donald Trump, Gold has confirmed to the Washington Post . She was later arrested and faces charges of entering a restric...
Read more