robert: crisis management. president trump launches air strikes on syria in retaliation for poison gas attacks on civilians. i'm robert costa and we'll look at the significant shift on u.s. intervention tonight on "washington week." >> i ordered a targetted military strike on the airfield in syria from where the chemical attack was launched. robert: president trump says strikes against syria and president bashar al-assad were vital to national security. president trump: assad choked out the lives of helpless women, women and children. robert: russian president vladimir putin calls the blitz an act of aggression.

while at home, the president is finding bipartisan support from many lawmakers and opposition from others who believe he needed congressional authorization. >> it was the right move. assad is willing to use that gas against civilians, why wouldn't he be able to use it against americans? >> his waking up to the atrocities is a good thing but he should not have done this without coming to congress. >> high stakes diplomacy in florida where mr. trump is meeting with the president of china to discuss trade and north korea's nuclear ambitions. plus -- >> neil m. gorsuch of colorado -- robert: the historic confirmation of a supreme court justice. we tackle it out with nancy you receive of "buzz feed." michael scherer of "time" magazine. david sanger and alexis

simendinger. announcer: this is "washington week." funding is provided by. -- >> their leadership is instinctive. they understand the challenges of today and research the technologies of tomorrow. some call them veterans. we call them part of our team. announcer: additional funding is provided by neumann's own foundation, donating profits to charity and nourishing the common good. coup and patricia ewing committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities.

by contributions to your pbs tation from viewers like you. thank you. once again, from washington, robert costa of "the washington post." robert: good evening. barely 100 days into his presidency, donald trump declared to syria and the world that the use of chemical weapons will not be tolerated. syria and its closest ally russia blasted the u.s. for its attack on air basin homes where aircraft launched a series of attacks on innocent civilians. many leaders praised the president's actions and the use of serin. it's a dramatic departure from mr. trump's position when they launched a similar poison attack on the rebel held city of galta. then trump tweeted. president obama do not attack

syria. there's no upside and tremendous downside. save your powder for another and more important day. pentagon correspondent nancy you receive joins us now with the latest on the trump administration's strategy in syria. nancy, you've been at the pentagon day and night since these attacks came about. what can you tell us about the response in syria? does assad have a grip on power and is he planning any retaliation? nancy: assad started the week as a political reality according to the white house and by the end of this week there was talk whether further action needed to be taken against him. strategically one of the challenges he'll face is that he's complicated russia's ability to back him militarily. he has emboldened the opposition who never thought that the united states would intervene and now may feel more 'em bolded to strike back. and technically he's lost about 20 airplanes at that base in

sherat. it air powers the one part of his military operation which he dominates. seeing that the russians are thinking about air defenses, changes tactically how he can carry out a war that up until this will point he had the belief that he could do anything and not face the wrath of the international community. robert: knowing that part of his forces have been depleted, how does that affect the u.s. response in terms of a second wave of attacks or thinking through what's next in terms of sir y and military action? >> well, the u.s. military said there's no intention of conducting further acts. there was a real earth effort in these strikes to send a message deter assad from doing -- using chemical weapons and as at the same time avoiding any further keaslation. that was the fine line that the u.s. military is trying to walk with the strikes. the signal we've gotten is,

unless chemical weapons is used again, there's no intention of further strikes on the syrian force. robert: do your sources at the pentagon have any word whether something besides tomahawk missiles could be used from the u.s. perspective? nancy: they could have used drone strikes. one of the concerns in this strike and in future strikes that potentially endangers personnel. the appeal of using tomahawks from destroyers is that it minimizes the risks to personnel. there's the potential military you should do it but the risk reward ratio comes into effect. is it worth the risk? arguably both the u.s. and russia do not want to escalate in a potential proxy war between two sides. robert: what a turnaround from president trump from seeming

like he wants to be disengaged on the syrian question and now we have military air strikes. what forced the question? what forced the action? >> what forced it is the president of the united states looking at these heart wrenching photographs of children dying. it shows how he reacts to the scene of horror. but that scene of horror as you suggested was nos were when he went against our intervening. he did not want to be the one who did not enforce the red line even if it had been enforced by his predecessor. there was an imprecision of language in that scratchy video you heard from mira lago. he said we did this attack because it was vital to american national security. it's not really vital to our security. nobody thinks that the syrians can do this attack in the united states. it was a humanitarian

intervention. something he hadn't given a great deal of thought to when we did interviews with him and you did as well last year. but now, i think he needs to go demonstrate first that he's willing to use force and second in this case he was given the gift of using force in a cause that no one, democrats, republicans most of the international community would dispute. robert: you've covered the president so long. he's had visceral reactions to thing. david was talking about look for a reaction. he ran as an intervention. karen: he does operate with his gut. all of us see these photos and feel horrified and helpless. the one person who is not helpless, the president of the united states, the commander in chief. but whether this is some sort of, you know, the overused word with donald trump, pivot, is, is this some sort of new direction

for his presidency? or is this some sort of aberration? we don't know and we never know this with donald trump because it seems like all of his actions are much more situational than strategic. robert: he ran as this noninterventionist who was critical of intervening in iraq. >> it wasn't just when he ran. remember in the inaugural speech he said we're not going to worry about people overseas anymore, we're going to put americans first. intervening in a humanitarian basis is very traditional. what is remarkable is you have democrats and republicans, the leaders of both the house and the senate all coming out and supporting this. who would have ever thought nancy pelosi would have praised anything that he would have done a week ago. and you have the right outraged at him embracing traditional foreign policy of the united

states. this is something that bill clinton or george w. bush. he pulled back at the last senate, barack obama doing and so trump is following a very conventional path here. robert: we're talking about congress applauding the president for the moment but a lot of them want the president to come to congress and look for authorization. what's the white house's approach to approaching congress for this? >> they are of the position we did not ask permission. that's a norm that we have seen since president obama decided himself that he was not going to conduct seed in his retreat from actually deploying missile attack against assad and changed his mind and went to congress and found out what he and david cameron in the u.k. discovered which is, it was a very hard lift to try to get that support from the legislative allys that they had hoped to get. and president trump made no bones about the idea that he

thought it was legal. he thought it was supported. he gave conflicting rationales for that. but that he was not asking for permission. robert: i want to go to nancy. you've been reporting what do we know about who actually influenced the president's decision here? was it the national security advisor? i want to get david on this as well. it wasn't defense secretary mattis? or tillis? who is driving this policy? >> when this was being debated on thursday, the sense that we got was secretary mattis and h.r. mcmaster were really key in sort of shaping the strike plan and revying the option put forth this seemed to be going at a much higher level at past operations because the turnaround was so quickly. usually operations takes weeks if not months and this was decided inless than 48 hours. the approach is something of going in and conducting a decisive strike and then leaving

as quintessential mcmaster, that's the sort of operation that he prefers. but in the halls of the pentagon this was at such a high level that it was just a handful of people unanimously secretary mattis and h.r. mcmaster both of whom have a decade long meltary career. robert: david, you're going to be traveling to moscow next week the secretary of state. you look at his statements on syria. you see not just is it about the pictures of the children and what the president's reacting to, but this really is a chess match with russia as the trump administration rethinks perhaps its policies. what does it mean when tillerson talks to putin? what does this episode tell us about the state of the u.s.-russia relations? >> the first thing it tells us we may well be returning to something that's more our custom relationship with russia which is to say not terribly good.

the discussion that president trump had about -- there's a moment to go rebuild relations. why can't with be friends? you're seeing all of that go away. interestingly it's been president trump the least critical of all of the members of his cabinet. nikki haley got up today in the united nations and really let the russians have it. you've heard tillerson do the same. now tillerson himself has got a really interesting dance here. the last time that he was returning into -- running into vladimir putin it was to strike oil deals as the chief executive of exxon. can mr. tillerson, someone who has not shown an interest in human rights, instead of what he was planning to go for weeks ago which was a partnership to go after isis. robert: thanks, nancy for joining us. we want to join on another topic

on foreign policy. north korea, it's pretty quiet down in mira largo. i thought it was a fascinating moment to have the president launch air strikes on syria as he's having dinner with the chinese president. what's the takeaway for the chinese as they deal with this administration? they watched the air strikes happen. what does it mean for north korea? >> it was at ten of the dinner that he leaned over to president xi and said by the way while we've been eating i was watching an attack on syria. you know, i think this whole summit in mira lago has two messages. it's not the donald trump of the campaign who said i'm going beat up on china. this was a very welcoming visit, very cordial. when he met with the chinese leadership would try to force some sort of a press event to put the chinese on the spot. there wasn't anything like that. it was all done privately.

we don't have any big new policies coming out of it. it was and introductory meeting. for trump it's -- there's a hope that by approaching with sort of a softer approach than he had said he was going to do, he can get some cooperation in north korea. there are very few operations in north korea and the best option could be something that involves china in preventing u.s. attack or a dissolution of the u.s. regime putting more economic pressure to pressure them to pull back from their nuclear program -- robert: do they bant to do that? it seems like the chinese are so reluctant because they don't want to have north korea collapse. >> in that sense there, may be a message in the syria attack. china has voted with russia on the u.n. on syria resolutions to block them.

there's a message here to the chinese as well that the united states may take action on its own if -- and donald trump has flat-out said it if nothing is done. robert: it's so different to have military action in north korea, right? because when you attack syria you're attacking the assad regime. but with north korea you could have mass migration into china. you have a possible conflict with south korea -- >> it really caught our attention the white house and the press corps to hear the president's national security advisors and the briefing before the chinese president was visiting talking about how north korea, the clock had unrun out. the time. and we've heard obviously the secretary of state say something similar which it's time to focus on less talk, and you know, more demands on north korea. the white house was trying to say no, the president wasn't trying to send a message but also coming out tonight with some reporting, i think purposeful reporting that the

administration has some plans repaired for the president should he decide to pull some things off the shelf about how to attack north korea, how to sanction north korea, what to do about kim jung-un. so the message is out there. robert: i keep coming back to tillerson ment but it's a black box reading this administration. tillerson's statements said we've said enough. nothing more needs to be said. >> that was before the missile strikes. he hasn't said very much. the fact of the matter is they need leverage with the chinese on north korea. if the chinese was going to solve the north korea problem, they would have involved it 20 years ago. their fear is a collapsed state that ends up with the american forces and the south koreans up on their border. and that geography hasn't changed because of a missile strike in syria. what may change is that president obama -- president trump may go take the steps that president obama talked about but

didn't take. and that is to try a massive increase in both military and economic pressure on north korea and then open the possibility to negotiation. and that seems to be their strategy. how you do that while keeping the north korean problem from ex-clouding or imploding on you, is the trick. because as alexis has pointed out, the north koreans can reach time-out you in a way that the syrians never could. robert: it remain as chess game for president trump. but when you look at russia here at home, it's kind of a cloud over the administration. and there's real issues about president trump making unfounded allegations against the former national security advisor to president obama, susan rice and then you will had the house intelligence community service step deproun his role, though he did remain chairman. you see nunes recusing himself but because he's the target of a

house ethics investigation about whether he improperly exposed classified information. this began two weeks ago when nunez made a missteers you announcement that he had seen evidence that some member of of his transition team were incidental surveillance. when you look at the russia issue for the trump administration, are they moving beyond it with nunes stepping away? or does it remain a cloud in the sense that the president seems to keep reviving allegations against past administration? >> the people on the hill made him step away because he had raised questions as to whether congress is even capable of conducting investigations anymore. but what the president continues to do and we saw again this week when the -- when he sort of conflated susan rice's decision as national security advisor to unmask -- >> talking to the "new york

times." well, unmask which is not the same as leaking. that is she wanted to know the identity of the people that were being contacted. and sorry -- i'm now conflating it. but trump -- trump conflated all of this -- robert: he can't give up the issue. >> and he flat-out told the "new york times" that she had committed an illegal act. robert: and she has denied doing so. you've interviewed trump about truth and about these issues many times. why can't he resist engaging on all of this all the time? >> he thinks he's winning. he's unhappy with the talk about his company's ties with the russians. so he's created a new story line that borders on a telenovela. the president wiretapping maybe, i didn't mean wiretapping. maybe it was unmasking. it looks like a scandal to me.

the whole stagecraft of nunes coming over to the white house. not telling anybody. coming back to the white house. it's a terrific tv show that the president's basically putting on without the help of his own communications staff. he does it by himself calling reporters saying he's upset avenlt and it's created a -- saying he's upset about it. and it's created confusion. >> the russian hack and putin's effort to influence the election as determined by u.s. intelligence is a fairly simple story line. this whole set of stories about obama tried to tap my wires and all of the unmasking issues, it's not a simple story line. robert: it's driven by the president. we'll see if representative conway who will take over, will move in a different direction than nunes. and they're conducting their own

investigation. staying with capitol hill. we're coming to a topic i'm glad we're getting to. finally, the senate confirmed president trump's supreme court nominee, following a bitter 14-th month battle. 49-year-old neil gorsuch now has a lifetime spot on the high court hefment replaces the late justice antonin scalia who died february of last year. the vote was 54-45 largely along partisan lines. the republican exercised the nuclear option and changed the filibuster trule insure gorsuch's confirmation, a move some democrats said would move a lot history of consensus on supreme court nominations. so gorsuch confirmed. the supreme court has been on the back burner in american politics. but this does raise question, alexis about the senate, by changing the filibuster rule? is it destroying the institution? >> one of the fears is that this

isn't where it stons. that when you go down the slippery slope and you're seeing a dedivided nation and senate that it's going to go beyond judges and the supreme court. that it could erode the idea of a filibuster. the cooling saucer concept of our two chambers when it comes to things like, you know, any policy issue or the budget going forward. so one of the things that is worth watching is whether we're now warning something that we've lost or we're acknowledging something that's true which is that the world in which we live in is politically divided, the country is divided and the supreme court is also viewed as a partisan or political body. >> after such a rocky start for the trump administration, my sources keep handling this as a win. that's something that the trump administration has been able to accomplish. this was a make had it happened

15 years ago, neil gorsuch probably -- look at antonin scalia. he passed with a unanimous vote except with two people being absent. he made the most centrist pick that a republican president could have made. the next time around it may not be substituting one conservative for another one. and also now that it only takes 51 votes, it may also well be that he may not feel inclined to play for the middle -- >> donald trump likes to win. his wins are very conventional. he got on the supreme court. he was widely praised. this military strike on syria, also very conventional. foreign poll schism he sees he can get more done, can get the points on the board he wants by behaving like past republican

presidents not like someone trying to disrupt the entire system. >> a conventional win for an unconventional president. our conversation will continue online on the "washington week" extra when we'll show you who was in the room when president trump was briefed on the strike. a look into the president's inner circle of decision makers you can find on pbs.org/washingtonweek. i'm robert costa, thanks so much for watching. and enjoy your weekend.

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