President Donald Trump slammed Russian President Vladimir Putin for supporting Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, saying in an interview Wednesday that "Putin is backing a person that's truly an evil person," adding, "this is an animal."
It is "very bad for Russia" and "very bad for mankind," Trump told Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo.
Even so, Trump said he does not plan sending troops into Syria, despite his order for Tomahawk missile strikes on a Syrian airbase last week in retribution for a deadly chemical attack launched a few days before.
"We're not going into Syria," Trump said.
He explained his decision on the missile strike, saying that "when I see people using horrible, horrible chemical weapons … and see these beautiful kids that are dead in their father's arms, or you see kids gasping for life. When you see that, I immediately called General [James] Mattis."
Trump said he did what the Obama administration should have done "a long time before I did it. I think Syria would be a lot better off right now than it has been."
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is continuing his Moscow meetings Wednesday, and Trump said he will lay out the difference and the common objectives where ISIS and Syria are concerned.
"We are going to lay out what the red lines are," said Trump. "There cannot be any more chemical attacks on their own people, in addition some of the barrel bombs and those things, we need to start drawing those lines. Syria has always had a bubble, it's time for the bubble to go away."
Russia had said Syria's chemical weapons were gone, Bartiromo pointed out, but Trump said "we can absolutely believe them again" by going "back to the Reagan-era statement of 'trust and verify.'"
However, it's been proven as for now that the Russians "cannot be trusted" with Syria, as "they were responsible to make sure the Assad regime got rid of all [chemical] weapons," which clearly did not happen.
"They're either complicit or incompetent that these weapons were there, especially at a base that they're cooperating in, and they allowed the attack to occur," Trump said.
There is a sense of "military escalation" with Russia after the airstrikes on the Syrian airfields, because Russia is showing it's going to stand up for Syria, one of its proxy states, said Trump.
"The bottom line is I don't think there's going to be an attack," said Trump, because the chemical weapons attack "embarrassed them...they should not have been in the position where they should have done that to begin."
"Clearly the Assad regime put the Russians into an awkward position," said Trump. "They are quietly behind closed doors going to grab Assad and say, you will not do that again and that's exactly, that's the objective that everyone wants at the end."
Trump also addressed the tensions with North Korea, including redirecting Navy ships to the Korean peninsula.
"I don't talk about the military," said Trump."I'm not like [President Barack] Obama saying in four months we are going to hit Mosul and they should get ready," said Trump. "We are sending an armada, very powerful, we have submarines, very powerful, far more powerful than the aircraft carrier, that I can tell you, and we have the best military people on Earth."
Meanwhile, Trump said North Korean President Kim Jong Un is "doing the wrong thing," although, he said he does not know him when Bartiromo asked if the North Korean leader is "mentally fit."
"I don't know him but he's doing the wrong thing," said Trump.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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