Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, a 2020 presidential candidate, declined to label Syrian President Bashar al-Assad an enemy of the United States.
Gabbard appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday.
“Assad is not the enemy of the United States because Syria does not pose a direct threat to the United States,” she said.
Pressed on whether she would describe him a an “adversary” of the U.S. she said: “We have to look to who poses a threat to the United States.”
And asked again about whether he was an adversary of the U.S. and how she would describe his relationship with the U.S., Gabbard replied: “You can describe it however you want to describe it.”
Politico noted Gabbard had met in 2017 with the Syrian leader.
But it pointed out she had invited Syrian Kurdish leader Ilham Ahmed, co-president of the Syrian Democratic Council, as her guest to watch President Donald Trump’s state of the Union speech on Tuesday.