we are prepared to strike whenever we choose. it will be peckive tomorrow, or next week, or one month from now. i'm prepared to give that order. >> not time tense sieve the president said. in the rose garden bringing reaction from the panel here to what the president said. again, fox news sunday host chris wallace. i want williams. fox news contributor steve hayes of the weekly standard and syndicated columnist, fox contributor charles krauthammer. charles, you had time to digest and listen to our reactions. my more thoughts on this action and where we stand? >> my astonishment has only increased here. it is not about forensics. who cares about the details of the attack. we are way beyond the theatrics. you know, i grieve for the dead children, hundreds of thousands

of others who died from weapons. and we -- we are, i think, beyond even the military strategics in this. i would have opposed a limited strike because i think it is not what you want to do. you wouldn't do a strike that will affect the battle that's happening in syria today that's tilted against the government. at this point what's at stake is the word of the united states. and that overrides everything, can you imagine we talked about the jubilation, we heard about jubilation. in damascus, obviously, in iraq, russia and imagine the demoralization, not just among the rebels looking up to the sky and looking for assistance, but among all the states in the region who live on the word of the united states, jordan, saudi, kuwaitis, israel, egypt, to a large extent. and they hear a president who has no idea what he is doing and

speaks about this and will take off in a couple of days and end up in sweden and moscow. all of this is happening. what the president ought to do -- i can't believe that he actually decided otherwise, look to bring it to congress tomorrow. we have reagan airport, national airport, dulles, bwi. you can use the airports. you bring in the members of congress and you have a debate for two days. and you have a resolution. you can't leave the region hanging. it looks absolutely as if the united states has chickened out. and that's the work of the president. because of the way he did this even though i think a limited attack is not the right thing to do, at this point he has to do something. or we will have reached the lowest ebb of american influence in the region since 1970. zblks i want, to that point why not call congress back? you know. give them labor day and get them back here tuesday. >> look, i think that -- you are all operating from a belief that

somehow time makes a difference. you see a value -- >> but for -- if you live in charleston the neighborhood, and the guy just deployed chemical weapons, makes a difference. >> i think the argument would be to charles if you think that the president mishandled situation initially, and should have gone in earlier when he could have done more in terms of arming the rebels or somehow defeating the military capability of the you a sawed regime let it be. at this point you have to zeal with the realities. we don't know about the consequences of missile strikes inside of syria. we don't know it helps the rebels or al qaeda. will are a lot of questions. this has a very strong political taint. if you wouldn't say obama is weak, you know why he is weak, it is not because of failure to act. it is because 80% of the american people think he shouldn't act. >> you were on this panel on special report this week saying

the president can't operate by polls. >> correct. >> is this president operating by polls? >> i don't think there is any question that he's responding to polls and responding to people within his own party. he is responding to manchin, carl levin. responding to libertarians like rand paul who oppose it. she not listening to john kerry, he is not listening to john mccain. they are hard line and they want him to go and go now. >> the time he should have been listening is before he made the announcement we have to act. before kerry said in front of the world the word of america is at stake. before the entire administration leaked the plan to explain exactly were it had to act. right now we are way beyond the other arguments, we are way beyond the polls. way beyond the issues, is this the best way to attack. i this it is not. the only -- >> it doesn't matter --

>> cannot be -- >> you have to listen for a second to martin dempsey if the chairman of joint chiefs of staff says to you, it doesn't matter if we go tomorrow, it doesn't matter if we go next week, we will still have an effective military strike against assad. we will hurt assad. then that open it is window to this that so many americans want to take place. >> why? there is no gap that we can hurt assad. and i don't think that the chairman of the joint chiefs is the one who decides how america should act as a way to uphold its word and strength in the region. he tells the president what to work -- what works and what doesn't. we agree it could work, depending how you design it. the question is once you announced a week ago you are about to do a coalition, this cannot stand. everything hinges on american response. and will. can you not step away and say, well, i'm going to sweden.

we will talk about this and perhaps we are going to act object monday. everybody in the region understands what is happening here. the president flinched. >> chris wallace. >> well, i have -- guys, if i'm the tiebreaker here i'm going to go with charles krauthammer. i would just love to know what happened in the last 24 hours between john kerry's speech and the president's speech today. >> the context of listening to john kerry's speech and then to listen to the rose garden today, he dash strike. >> when john kerry spoke yesterday, it was a call to arm. he said, we know -- i think he said we know -- 2,000 times we know thing fact, we know this fact, we know that this matters. we know it matters to not just the syrians. matters to countries throughout the region. matters to north korea and hezbollah and iran. it was a call to arms. all the papers in america and all the news cast last night were all talking about we a the brink of taking military

action. was it going to be today or tomorrow? it was about to happen. for the president, less than 24 hours later, to come out and say, well, i decided, we are going to act but while i have that authority as a commander in chief i will wait for two weeks, not call congress into special session within a day, two i will wait for a week, ten days, go off to sweden, europe, all of these other events, all he is other distractions, and then congress will get back and they are going to discuss it and the real possibility that congress will vote it down, yes, that will get the president off the hooshg, but if you believe what john kerry said about yesterday the world is listening and waiting to see what america's word is worth, does the commander in chief want to take that risk? >> i talked to democrats and republicans after yesterday's speech by john kerry. where they said boy, he looked presidential. when he delivered that

impassioned call to arms, as chris wallace talks about. and then the statements by the president and the cabinet room, seemed like it was -- an add-on. added it on later. to chris' point it would be interesting to see the dynamics of how this evolved from that to this. >> absolutely right. i think that's a key question. if -- i will go further than that. there were senior white house officials who believed this would had this weekend. something clearly changed. i don't know what it was. i don't know what the press i-tating event was there. clearly the president seems to have changed his mind. it should be said that the white house officials and public have been saying we have come to no decision, we haven't decided what we are going to do. i think they left themselves that out. i there was momentum inside of the administration at the highest levels that this was likely to take place. and i think that the other key question is one you asked earlier, why would a president of the united states do this in this context having seen what

happened to david cameron and i think the answer could be, cynical one, but the answer could be, if your main objective from the start with respect to syria, was to a avoid any involvement if that's where the president has been for the bet are part of two years, he didn't want to be involved no matter what. you take this move because you think that it could actually fail. congress is unlikely to vote to unauthorize this war. final question of the three why does the president of the united states feel the immediate to get authorization for congress for this act which by all accounts was likely very limited and very narrow, what he didn't feel the immediate to get similar authorization to do what the united states did in libya. it is a hard argument the president will have to make. he will have to reconcile those would points. >> libya and syria. the president also said, charles, i have to -- less than two minutes here, he was going to take the case to the world and listen to the united nations weapons inspectors and as they

get their information from the ground. use of chemical weapons. it is important to point out weapons inspectors were not tasked with finding out who launched the chemical weapons, only if chemical weapons were used. and that is what they are going to come back with. definitively. they just got out syria as of today. >> example of dither which the world can see. this isn't an episode of "csi." who cares about the details. as you say the u.n. inspectors -- aren't going have a conclusion as to who did it. everybody knows something of the sort happened. imagine what is happening in the region today. if the united states, president of the united states, who said definitively this will not stand and then flinches, imagine in terms of the nuclear capacity of the eiran. require a much larger military operation and p the united states president will not

even -- the pinprick he was proposing and looking for a way out, over syria, which is easier to attack, i think the israelis today reck maze that the only way of stopping iran is going to be a strike on the part of israel itself, lit not get any help, saudis are scared to death about the eiranian nuclear program. we are going to enter a period now of high tension over that as a collateral damage. >> panel, stand by. we will bring the u.s. ambassador, former u.s. ambassador to the united nations, john bolton. the president's statement he wants military action in syria. but, first will go to congress for authorization. >> i believe the people's le

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[ female announcer ] at 100 calories, not all food choices add up. some are giant. some not so giant. when managing your weight, bigger is always better. ♪ ho ho ho ♪ green giant i'm confident in the case our government made without waiting for u.n. inspectors. i'm comfortable going forward without the approval of a united nations security council that so far has been completely paralyzed and willing to hold assad accountable. >> president obama in the rose garden earlier this afternoon. let's bring in fox news contributor former u.s. am bass score to the united nations john bolton. first, your thoughts overall about the whole thing. >> this is absolutely stunning. i have been trying to fill in the blank in the following sentence. barack obama is the weakest president since -- i have to stay the best i can come up with the is james buchanan which watched the

country dissolve into civil war. we are watching the collapse of american influence in the middle east and more broadly, and i say that as somebody who has been opposed to the use of force in syria. i have to ask the question, if your secretary of state john kerry, given the two strong statements he made on the subject since the first indication of the chemical weapons used ten days ago took place, are you now thinking of resigning as matter of principle, having laid out the case whether you agree or disagree, that the united states has to use force here to see the president take this step. i will leave to it others to say whether congress can approve it. you know, he needs 60 votes in the senate to authorize force. and it is very hard to see that he is going to get it. having said that i made up my mind, to use force, now i will ask congress, the ayatollahs in tehran, it is smooth sailing towards nuclear weapons unless

israel strikes. >> just to be clear, you oppose military force in this environment. you have been talking about that. >> yes. absolutely. i also favor strong president, strong foreign policy, strong american -- >> people watch would go say you can't have it both ways. that this president is the president. and he's choosing to do what actually congress asked him to do. go to congress and ask for authorization. and now he's doing just that. >> well, it was a very foolish thing to make the statement about the red line and last august. he did it in the heat of a presidential campaign. but the fact section that the economists say that -- in the -- just because you do one very foolish thing, as you look ahead on your policy, you don't make things better by doinging the second foolish thing. we are going to take a hit for his -- misstatement last august but we don't need to compound it. he now compounded it twice over. he is saying, again, today, that the military strike will be very

limited and -- but he is going further in saying that he is in the even sure he is willing to do it. unless he gets authority. i think that this is a mistake twice compounded now. >> last thing, he is leaving tuesday evening for sweden and hen russia. in the midst of this hanging basically in limbo until congress gets back september 9. that in and of itself presents some foreign policy changes. >> no. it is a mistake to go. if it is -- serious as he says it is, he is willing to use american millter force, he should call congress back into session now. >> thank you, as always. just in, congressman peter king. chairman of the homeland security subcommittee. said this. president obama is a advocating responsibility as commander in chief and undermining the authority of future presidents. the president does not need congress to authorize a strike syria. if the president is seeking congressional approval, then he should call congress back into a

special session at the earliest date. the president his earliest date. the president doesn't need 535 members of congress to enforce his own red line. peter king, final thoughts after this break. female narrator: through labor day at sleep train,

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welcome back, we'll bring in our panel now for some final thoughts. back with the panel, steve? >> i think this is -- we heard a lot of talk before president obama was the president of the united states about how many times he voted president. this is the commander in chief voting. the way that he's zigzagged suggests an ad-hoc decision making process for the past two years and an objective of

remaining out of the fight. remaining out of syria all together. i do think that the long term implications will be that this is in effect a green light for iran. >> chris? >> there had been some talk even before today, about the clock management, if you will, the way that over the last ten days this administration has managed and this president has managed this whole crisis. and the mixed message -- the messages that have been set. we thought we were going to get a coalition of the willing, after britain voted it down, the parliament. we heard the president was going to go ahead. there were demands for congressional approval. the white house podium said. we'll consult, but we don't need approval. yesterday we had this extraordinary call to arms from secretary of state kerry, and i think part of the astonishment today is that this seems so out of keeping with the way this administration has managed this, or mismanaged it up to this point. we talked about shock and awe, there was shock today, but it

came from the president at the podium in the rose garden. >> and i think the shock is not so much a negative here. disagreeing with my colleagues who think this is evidence of the weak president. i think this is the president who is responding to the will of the american people, even the will of the british people in terms of their decision not to go. here in the united states, the american people are war weary as the president said in remarks in the rose garden, and he is having to build support for this effort. and he needs the american people's support. why? because this is not likely to end with a simple military missile strike. this could start a larger confulco confligration in that entire nation. that's a serious act. if he was to take the first step, he would be endangering ourselves and himself. >> he should have support. he should be acting immediately. have congress in session within 12 hours, and have it done.

the world understands what he's doing here. he's abdicating. this is the low point of the american stature in the region. our allies are clearly in disarray now. the iran axis is in decen densecy as a result of what obama has done. >> charles, juan, chris, steve, thank you very much. and thank you for staying with us, throughout our special coverage today of the growing crisis in syria, and what the u.s. will or will not do about it, continue to stay with fox for breaking coverage throughout the day. i'll be back with a special edition of special reports tonight. live reports from the white house, the pentagon, the state department and the region, we'll update you from capitol hill as well. please join me and the entire news team, thanks for watching. fox news channel. to fly home for the big family reunion. you must be garth's father? hello. mother. mother! traveling is easy with the venture card because you can fly any airline anytime. two words. double miles! this guy can act. wanna play dodge rock?

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just over an hour ago, president obama saying there should be military action in syria. take a listen. >> this attack is it an assault on human dignity. it also presents a serious danger to our national security. it risks making a mochrie of the global prohibition of the use of chemical weapons. it endangers our friends and partners along syria's borders, including israel, jordan, turkey, lebanon and iraq. it could lead to escalating use of chemical weapons. or their proliferation to terrorist groups who would do our people