Two conversations President Trump had on Syria in the last seven days — one with French President Emmanuel Macron and the other with British Prime Minister Theresa May — have fueled talk in Washington that he might be in the process of forming a coalition of allies to finally take out Syrian President Bashar al-Assad once and for all.
Along with Macron and May, the president has been in touch with other world leaders who are considered likely candidates for a possible airstrike against Syria.
“We’ve had regular contact with regional allies and partners,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told me on Thursday.
She added, these included: “Israel [and] Saudi Arabia, France, as well as a number of other countries at various levels. We’ve provided readouts of conversations the president has directly had.”
Sanders also pointed out that “the National Security Adviser [John Bolton, on his second day in the job], the secretary of defense [James Mattis], the acting secretary of state [John Sullivan] have had regular contact with their counterparts from other countries.”
Her explanation of the president's contact with fellow world leaders came a day before May concluded a cabinet meeting in which they "agreed on the need to take action to alleviate humanitarian distress and to deter the further use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime. The cabinet also agreed to continue to work with allies in the United States and France to coordinate an international response.”
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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