A stunned Kate Bolduan looked on in disbelief when Rep. Tom Massie (R-KY) repeated Russia's excuses for how the Syrian people were attacked with chemical weapons, a war crime, which defends the embattled Syrian president.
Listen, I agree that starting a war with Syria is bad news, but I wouldn't go as far as the Kentucky Republican Congressman when he supported Russia's defense minister, who said that release of chemicals was because an ammunition depot was struck which caused the catastrophe.
Nobody in the world is taking Igor Konoshenkov's word on this attack at all, except Rep. Massie.
The segment opened up with CNN's Kate Bolduan playing video of Sen. McCain bashing Trump over his Syrian policy and response to the attacks and Massie rebuked him. Rep. Massie voted against aggression against Syria in 2014. (Ed Note: Actually, there was no formal vote on military action in Syria. He voted against arming the rebels)
Then Kate played video of 7-year-old Bana Alabed, who has documented the horrors of the Syrian war on Twitter, asking for help and saying, “I want to stop the war, and I want the children of Syria play and go to school, live in peace. We can — we can help them. Together, we can save them.”
Bolduan said, “She wants for the children of Syria to play and go to school. She’s pleading for help. What do you say to her, congressman?”
Rep. Massie said attacking Syria would make things worse if we launch air strikes and then made these remarkable comments.
He said, " The first casualty of war is the truth and it's hard to know exactly what's happening in Syria right now."
"I would like to know specifically how the release of chemical gas, if it did occur, and it looks like it did, how that occurred, "He said.
Massie continued, "Frankly I don't know if Assad would have had done that. It does not serve his interests, it would tend to draw us into that civil war even further."
The look on Kate's face tells it all.
Bolduan said, "Who, who do you think, who do you think is behind it?"
"Supposedly that air strike was on an ammo dump, and so I don't know if it was released because there was gas stored in the ammo dump or not. That's plausible. I'm not saying that's what I think happened, but -- "
Bolduan replied, "You're more inclined to believe the position of what Bashar al Assad is saying and what the Russians are saying than more inclined to believe what even your colleagues here in the united states believe is true, that this is Assad and what human rights observers say is Assad?"
He reiterated that he didn't think "it served Assad's purposes to do a chemical attack on his people. so it's hard for me to understand why he would do that if he did."
Kate paused to take that in.
"Congressman Tom Massie, thanks for your time."
A congress critter could be against military intervention into Syria and still rebuke them and Russia for committing a war crime.
Nothing seems to make sense anymore.
