The letter criticizes Trump for praising "adversarial dictators" including China's Xi Jinping, North Korea's Kim Jung-un, and Russia's Vladimir Putin, "as well as the terrorist leaders of Hezbollah," while denigrating the U.S.
"The contrast with Mr. Trump is clear: where Vice President Harris is prepared and strategic, he is impulsive and ill-informed. We do not agree on everything, but we all adhere to two fundamental principles," the letter said. "First, we believe America's national security requires a serious and capable Commander-in-Chief. Second, we believe American democracy is invaluable."
"Our endorsement of Harris is an endorsement of freedom and an act of patriotism. It is an endorsement of democratic ideals and of relentless optimism in America's future."
HALEY: When it comes to Iran, what we have to understand, there would be no Hamas without Iran. There would not be Houthis without Iran. There wouldn't be Hezbollah without Iran. And when you look at the strikes that are happening in Iraq and Syria, that is because of Iran. They're pulling the puppet strings. We've had over 130 strikes on our men and women in Iraq and Syria is unconscionable. We're supposed to have their backs.
DESANTIS: After the attacks against Israel, anyone with half a brain knows Iran is behind this. They fund Hamas. They fund Hezbollah. We did a special session of the legislature down in Florida. We expanded sanctions against Iran.
DESANTIS: After the attacks against Israel, anyone with half a brain knows Iran is behind this. They fund Hamas. They fund Hezbollah. We did a special session of the legislature down in Florida. As the 14th largest economy in the world, we expanded sanctions against Iran. The root of this is Biden came into office and he relaxed the sanctions on Iran. They've had massive amounts of money flooding into their country. They take that money and they use it to fund jihad around the world. I would never put our troops in harm's way, like Biden is doing in the Middle East, without defending them with everything they got. If you harm a hair on the head of one of our servicemembers, you are going to have hell to pay.
Haley: No, I was not saying it's time to bomb Iran. But I dealt with Iran every day when I was at the United Nations and they only respond to strength. What they don't respond to is when you weaken the sanctions like they did on Iran that allowed China to send them billions to fill their proxies, what they don't respond to is when you give $6 billion for five hostages, that only makes them want more hostages. What they don't respond to is when they do 140 strikes on our men and women in Syria and Iraq and we do nothing but just some small shots back. You've got to punch them, you've got to punch them hard and let them know that, that's the only way they're going to respond. So the way you do that is you go after their infrastructure in Syria and Iraq where they're hitting our soldiers.
DeSantis: I actually served in Iraq back in the day and we had Al-Qaeda in Iraq, you had Shia militias that were funded by Iran that were killing 100s and 100s of US troops. And as commander-in-chief, I am not going to put our troops in harm's way unless you're willing to defend them with everything you have. Biden has [US naval ships and troops] out there, they're sitting ducks, he's doing glancing blows, that's just inviting more attacks from the Iranians. I would say you harm a hair on the head of an American service member and you are going to have hell to pay. We are not just going to sit there and let our service members be sitting ducks. And that's true whether it's Iran or whether it's any country on the world. We have to be strong and we have to defend the people who defend us.
BURGUM: I think he's running a large criminal organization. And I think we're seeing the tip of that with the Wagner Group. I mean, it's like we can't think of Russia today under Putin like a country. The Wagner Group was operating 65 shell companies all over the world. They controlled gold mines in Central African Republic. When they were down helping out in Syria, there's contracts where they took over 25% of the oil production in Syria. That's a large criminal organization.
Q: Right. So in a President Burgum administration, does Ukraine support change?
BURGUM: Well, we have to win the war in Ukraine.
Q: Period?
BURGUM: Period. We have to do that. And it's unfortunate that we're even in this spot.
Joe Biden: I think I may be, doesn't make me any better or worse, but may be the only person who spent extensive time alone with Putin, as well as with Erdogan. And Erdogan understands that. You talk about should he stay in or out of NATO? He understands that he's out of NATO, he's in real trouble. But the fact of the matter is we have been one willing in this administration because we have an erratic, crazy President who knows not a damn thing about foreign policy, and operates out of fear for his own reelection. Think what's happened. The fact of the matter is you have Russia influencing and trying to break up NATO. What does the president do? He says, "I believe Vladimir Putin. I don't believe our intelligence community."
And with regard to regime change in Syria [Trump withdrew US forces from the Kurdish areas of Syria last week], that has not been the policy. It has been to make sure that the regime did not wipe out hundreds and thousands of innocent people between there and the Iraqi border.
And lastly, what is happening in Afghanistan all the way over to Syria, we have ISIS, it's going to come here. They are going to, in fact, damage the United States of America. That's why we got involved in the first place, and not ceded the whole area to Assad and to the Russians.
Israel administered the Heights through military law until 1981, in the same way in which it administered the West Bank and Gaza Strip, before the Menachem Begin government directly applied Israeli law and effectively annexed the territory to the Israeli state.
Trump continued with his slew of tweets defending the Syria announcement. "We were originally going to be there for three months, and that was seven years ago--we never left. When I became President, ISIS was going wild. Now ISIS is largely defeated and other local countries, including Turkey, should be able to easily take care of whatever remains. We're coming home!" Trump wrote.
Trump's declaration of triumph has alarmed key NATO allies, who said such a change of course on Syria risks damaging the fight against Islamic State.
HALEY: Obviously this was cumulative. Assad had been using chemical weapons multiple times. But more so, this was about the Security Council resolutions--Russia had vetoed all of them. So we felt like we had gone through every diplomatic measure of talking that we could, and it was time for action. We hope Assad got the message [that] the international community will not allow chemical weapons to come back into our everyday life, and the fact that he was making this more normal and that Russia was covering it up, all of that has to stop.
Q: Are there any consequences for Assad's patrons, Russia and Iran, who continue to protect him?
HALEY: Absolutely. So, you will see that Russian sanctions will be coming down. They will go directly to any sort of companies that were dealing with equipment related to Assad and chemical weapons used.
At the time, it seemed unlikely he would ever have to make good on the promise. However, Trump's surprise victory gave him the chance to back up his claim. Many were openly skeptical he could do it.
But one year into the Trump administration, the facts on the ground--in Syria and Iraq--have changed dramatically. The 'Caliphate' announced with such fanfare in the summer of 2014 was in tatters. "We have made, alongside our coalition partners, more progress against these evil terrorists in the past several months than in the past several years," Trump proclaimed last fall. So is ISIS now defeated?
President Trump deserves credit for hastening the downfall of their Caliphate. However, ISIS 2018 will launch an insurgency in its former territory. ISIS has access to electronic spaces where it can continue recruitment efforts.
At the end of the day, it is obvious that it makes far more sense to have a forum in which countries can debate their concerns, work out compromises and agreements. Dialogue and debate are far preferable to bombs, poison gas, and war.
HALEY: Well, I don't think we're the skunk at the party. I think that we watched out for our country. When I was a governor in South Carolina, I know how tough those regulations President Obama put on us, because of the Paris agreement, were on our businesses and on our industries. It directly hit our jobs. We're going to make sure we're looking out for the U.S. first. We will always be a leader in the environment. That's what we do, that's who we are. But we're going to make sure that we're not hurting our companies in the process. And there is a balance. There is clearly a difference between us and Nicaragua, and us and Syria. The world knows that.
The missile strike, in response to a chemical weapons attack, was intended to be a limited, one-time operation, and the president seemed determined to quickly move on. Critics, including Senator Marco Rubio, argued that Syria's President Assad felt free to launch a chemical attack precisely because the Trump administration had given him a green light.
Trump's action in Syria was welcomed by many traditional American allies who had fretted over Obama's reluctance to take a greater leadership role in the Middle East. After the missile strike, Israeli news outlets were filled with headlines like "The Americans Are Back," and European leaders expressed relief both that he had taken action and that he had not gone too far.
Nearly four years later, now president himself and grappling with how to respond to another chemical weapons attack by the Syrian government, Trump ignored his own warnings and did what Obama threatened but never carried out: order a missile strike targeting assets of President Assad.
To understand the magnitude of Trump's reversal, look at his Twitter account. Trump posted dozens of tweets about the conflict in the years before he declared his candidacy for the White House, and frequently did so during the campaign as well. He carved out a staunchly noninterventionist stance on the conflict and criticised Obama's approach as plodding. But he also made one thing clear: If he was in charge, any action would be swift and secretive to catch Assad off guard.
"The Trump administration has conceded that its original Muslim ban was indefensible. Unfortunately, it has replaced it with a scaled-back version that shares the same fatal flaws. The only way to actually fix the Muslim ban is not to have a Muslim ban. Instead, Pres. Trump has recommitted himself to religious discrimination. The changes the Trump administration has made completely undermine the bogus national security justifications the president has tried to hide behind.
STEIN: If you watched the debate the other night, you would have heard Trump saying that he's looking for collaboration with Putin. But I consider the threat of nuclear war not trivial at all, and this is one of the most clear and present dangers to our surroundings.
Q: Why is it more likely under Clinton, though? This is about Trump's hair-trigger temper generally, not just with Putin.
STEIN: Put it this way: The most likely nuclear threat right now is with Russia. And when you have Hillary Clinton then beating the war drums against Russia, and essentially saying that if she's elected that we will declare war on Russia--because that's what a no-fly zone over Syria amounts to. Shooting down Russian warplanes.
Q: Not if the Russians adhere.
STEIN: But our no-fly zone does not adhere to international law. Syria--for better or for worse--invited Russia there.
TRUMP: Assad turned out to be a lot tougher than she thought. Everyone thought he was gone two years ago. He aligned with Russia. He now also aligned with Iran, who we made very powerful. We don't know who the rebels are. But if they overthrow Assad, as bad as Assad is, and he's a bad guy, but you may very well end up with worse than Assad.
CLINTON: I think a no-fly zone could save lives and could hasten the end of the conflict. I'm aware of the concerns that you have expressed. This would not be done on the first day. This would take a lot of negotiation. And it would also take making it clear to the Russians and the Syrians that our purpose here was to provide safe zones on the ground.
TRUMP: We are so outplayed on missiles, on cease-fires. But our country is so outplayed by Putin and Assad, and by the way--and by Iran. Nobody can believe how stupid our leadership is.
Hillary Clinton: I will not let anyone into our country that I think poses a risk to us. But there are a lot of refugees who are women and children.
Jill Stein: There is a refugee crisis created in large part by US military interventions. We need to do our part by taking in refugees.
A: The Muslim ban is something that in some form has morphed into an extreme vetting from certain areas of the world. We are going to areas like Syria where they're coming in by the tens of thousands because of Obama, and Clinton wants to allow a 550% increase. People are coming into our country & we have no idea who they are, where they are from. This is going to be the greatest Trojan Horse of all time. I believe in building safe zones. I believe in having other people pay for them, as an example, the Gulf states, who are not carrying their weight, but they have nothing but money, and take care of people. I don't want to have, with all the problems this country has and you see going on, hundreds of thousands of people coming in from Syria when we know nothing about them. We know nothing about their values and we know nothing about their love for our country.
Jill Stein: A no-fly zone means we'll be shooting down Russian planes.
Donald Trump: She talks tough against Russia. But our nuclear program has fallen way behind, and they've gone wild with their nuclear program. We're exhausted in terms of nuclear. A very bad thing.
Jill Stein: I don't know which is scarier, Hillary who wants to start an air war in Syria or Trump talking about more nuclear weapons.
TRUMP: He and I haven't spoken, and I disagree.
Q: You disagree with your running mate?
TRUMP: I think you have to knock out ISIS. Right now, Syria is fighting ISIS We have people that want to fight both at the same time.
[OnTheIssues note: Russia & the Assad regime are bombing both ISIS & the Syrian rebels; the US is bombing ISIS but supports the Syrian rebels].
TRUMP: But Syria is no longer Syria. Syria is Russia and it's Iran, who [Hillary] made strong and Kerry and Obama made into a very powerful nation. I believe we have to worry about ISIS before we can get too much more involved.
A: Trump has called for extreme vetting for people coming into this country so that we don't bring people into the United States who are hostile to the American way life. Donald Trump and I are committed to suspending the Syrian refugee program and programs and immigration from areas of the world that have been compromised by terrorism.
PENCE: Right. Those judges said it was because there wasn't any evidence yet that ISIS had infiltrated the United States. Well, Germany just arrested three Syrian refugees that were connected to ISIS.
KAINE: But they told you there's a right way and a wrong way to do it.
PENCE: Look, if you're going to be critical of me on that, that's fair game. I will tell you, after two Syrian refugees were involved in the attack in Paris that is called Paris' 9/11, as governor of the state of Indiana, I have no higher priority than the safety and security of the people of my state. So you bet I suspended that program. And I stand by that decision. And if I'm vice president of the United States or Donald Trump is president, we're going to put the safety and security of the American people first.
PENCE: Right. Those judges said it was because there wasn't any evidence yet that ISIS had infiltrated the United States. Well, Germany just arrested three Syrian refugees that were connected to ISIS.
KAINE: But they told you there's a right way and a wrong way to do it.
PENCE: Look, if you're going to be critical of me on that, that's fair game. I will tell you, after two Syrian refugees were involved in the attack in Paris that is called Paris' 9/11, as governor of the state of Indiana, I have no higher priority than the safety and security of the people of my state. So you bet I suspended that program. And I stand by that decision. And if I'm vice president of the United States or Donald Trump is president, we're going to put the safety and security of the American people first.
I just have to tell you that the provocations by Russia need to be met with American strength. It begins by rebuilding our military. And the Russians & the Chinese have been making enormous investments in the military. We have the smallest Navy since 1916. We have the lowest number of troops since the end of the Second World War. We've got to work with Congress, and Donald Trump will, to rebuild our military & project American strength in the world. We've just got to have American strength on the world stage. When Donald Trump becomes president, the Russians and other countries in the world will know they're dealing with a strong American president.
I just have to tell you that the provocations by Russia need to be met with American strength. It begins by rebuilding our military. And the Russians & the Chinese have been making enormous investments in the military. We have the smallest Navy since 1916. We have the lowest number of troops since the end of the Second World War. We've got to work with Congress, and Donald Trump will, to rebuild our military & project American strength in the world. We've just got to have American strength on the world stage. When Donald Trump becomes president, the Russians and other countries in the world will know they're dealing with a strong American president.
PENCE: The United States of America needs to begin to exercise strong leadership to protect the vulnerable citizens in Aleppo. What America ought to do right now is immediately establish safe zones, so that families and vulnerable families with children can move out of those areas, work with our Arab partners, real time, right now, to make that happen. And if Russia chooses to be involved and continue to be involved in this barbaric attack on civilians in Aleppo, the US should be prepared to use military force to strike military targets of the Assad regime to prevent them from this humanitarian crisis that is taking place in Aleppo. There's a broad range of other things that we ought to do, as well [to pressure Russia, such as] to deploy a missile defense shield to the Czech Republic and Poland.
PENCE: The United States of America needs to begin to exercise strong leadership to protect the vulnerable citizens in Aleppo. What America ought to do right now is immediately establish safe zones, so that families and vulnerable families with children can move out of those areas, work with our Arab partners, real time, right now, to make that happen. And if Russia chooses to be involved and continue to be involved in this barbaric attack on civilians in Aleppo, the US should be prepared to use military force to strike military targets of the Assad regime to prevent them from this humanitarian crisis that is taking place in Aleppo. There's a broad range of other things that we ought to do, as well [to pressure Russia, such as] to deploy a missile defense shield to the Czech Republic and Poland.
Instead of spending a trillion dollars creating a new generation of nuclear weapons and modes of delivery, it's time to instead change direction here and move as quickly as humanly possible towards nuclear disarmament. And instead of blaming the Russians, we need to acknowledge it was actually the Russians who tried to engage us in a nuclear disarmament process, again, several decades ago. We need to revive that proposal, take them up on it and move to nuclear disarmament as quickly as we possibly can.
Stein pointed to the Syrian conflict as an example of the failure of US diplomacy in the region. "It's no secret that the Saudis have been behind the terror groups tearing Syria apart," she explained, citing US patronage of the oil-rich kingdom as a driving force behind instability in the war-torn country. "Saudi Arabia has been given blanket permission to instigate religious extremism to the tune of $100 billion in US weapons," she said, "Freely distributed to whichever terrorists they want to support." Stein believes that there needs to be a full weapons boycott in Syria and a freeze on the bank accounts of countries sponsoring terror, including Saudi Arabia.
It's not only the Saudis, though. Stein argued that US involvement in sectarian conflicts in the Middle East, like the ongoing Syrian civil war, only exacerbate tensions in an already volatile region. "We're funding the 'good-guy terrorists' now, they might become 'bad-guy terrorists' later." Stein went on to draw a more complex picture of forces on the ground in the conflict: "They're hybrids of freedom fighters, resistance fighters. Then there are the religious extremists and the warlords. It's complicated."
One thing's for sure, said Stein: constant US meddling in the region is "putting a flamethrower to Middle East."
TRUMP: What we want to do, when we want to do it, and how hard do we want to hit? We are going to have to hit hard to knock out ISIS. We're going to have to learn who our allies are. We have allies, we have no idea who they are in Syria. Do we want to stay that route, or do we want to go and make something with Russia?
SANDERS: I went to a Turkish refugee camp on the border of Syria. What a sad sight: Men, women, children forced out of their homes. Turkey did a decent thing, providing reasonable housing and conditions for people. Given our history as a nation that has been a beacon of hope for the oppressed, for the downtrodden, that I very strongly disagree with those Republican candidates who say we've got to turn our backs on women and children who left their home with nothing. That is not what America is supposed to be about. I think that the entire world needs to come together to deal with this horrific refugee crisis.
SANDERS: I concede that Secretary Clinton, who was secretary of State for four years, has more experience in foreign affairs. But experience is not the only point, judgment is. In terms of Iran and in terms of Saudi Arabia, of course they hate each other. That's no great secret. But John Kerry, who is I think doing a very good job, has tried to at least get these people in the room together because both of them are being threatened by ISIS.
CLINTON: Absolutely. We have to figure out how to deal with Iran as the principal state sponsor of terrorism in the world. They are destabilizing governments in the region. They continue to support Hezbollah and Hamas in Lebanon against Israel. If we were to normalize relations right now, we would remove one of the biggest pieces of leverage we have to try to influence and change Iranian behaviour. The president doesn't think we should. I certainly don't think we should. I believe we have to take this step by step to try to reign in Iranian aggression.
SANDERS: I never said that. I think we should move forward as quickly as we can. They are a sponsor of terrorism around the world and we have to address that. A number of years ago, people were saying, "normal relationship with Cuba, what a bad and silly idea." Well, change has come.
SANDERS: I think we do have an honest disagreement: in the incredible quagmire of Syria, where it's hard to know who's fighting who and if you give arms to this guy, it may end up in ISIS' hand the next day. And we all know--the secretary is absolutely right--Assad is a butcher of his own people, a man using chemical weapons against his own people. But I think in terms of our priorities in the region, our first priority must be the destruction of ISIS. Our second priority must be getting rid of Assad, through some political settlement, working with Iran, working with Russia. But the immediate task is to bring all interests together who want to destroy ISIS, including Russia, including Iran, including our Muslim allies to make that the major priority.
SANDERS: Of course the United States must lead. But the US is not the policeman of the world. The US must not be involved in perpetual warfare in the Middle East. The United States, at the same time, cannot successfully fight Assad and ISIS. ISIS, now, is the major priority. Let's get rid of Assad later. Let's have a Democratic Syria. But the first task is to bring countries together to destroy ISIS.
SANDERS: I have a difference of opinion with Secretary Clinton on this. I worry that Secretary Clinton is too much into regime change without knowing what the unintended consequences might be. Yes, we could get rid of Saddam Hussein, but that destabilized the entire region. Yes, we could get rid of Gadhafi, a terrible dictator, but that created a vacuum for ISIS. Yes, we could get rid of Assad tomorrow, but that would create another political vacuum that would benefit ISIS. Getting rid of dictators is easy. But before you do that, you've got to think about what happens the day after. We need to put together broad coalitions to [avoid having a] political vacuum filled by terrorists. In Syria the primary focus now must be on destroying ISIS and [it's a] secondary issue to get rid of Assad.
CHRISTIE: Not only would I be prepared to do it, I would do it. A no-fly zone means a no-fly zone. That's what it means. See, maybe because I'm from New Jersey, I just have this kind of plain language hangup. But I would make very clear--I'd say to Vladimir Putin, "Listen, there's a no-fly zone in Syria; you fly in, it applies to you." And yes, we would shoot down the planes of Russian pilots if in fact they were stupid enough to think that this president was the same feckless weakling that the president we have in the Oval Office is right now.
PAUL: Well, I think if you're in favor of World War III, you have your candidate. Russia already flies in that airspace. If we announce we're going to have a no-fly zone, it is a recipe for disaster. It's a recipe for World War III.
California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris said in an interview that she opposed the GOP measure because it set up an "untenable" system. Beyond the current 18-to-24 month vetting process, it would have required top federal officials to certify that individual refugees pose no threat. She recalled a heart-rending photo of a drowned Syrian toddler, part of a refugee family torn apart while trying to escape: "We can't allow the images of the tragedy of what happened in Paris to blind us to the image of a 3-year-old child who washed up on a Mediterranean beach." She said, "There is a drum beating, that the way to keep us safe is to keep outsiders out. That scares me. Ask native Americans: We are a country of immigrants." But, she added, "there's no question that we have to be vigilant."
CHRISTIE: This is part of the problem with this administration. They're an imperial administration that just decides they're going to place people in individual states and not even inform the state of government of the fact that they have done it. And they're placing them through nongovernmental organizations and not giving any information to the state governments. We should set up a safe haven in Syria, so these folks don't have to leave their country in the first place. This is something that the president has created and now he wants the American people to absorb this crisis that he has created.
CHRISTIE: First of all, the FBI director himself said they can't vet these folks. Secondly, we had a woman who was wearing an explosive vest in Paris who blew herself up when approached by police this week.
Q: The police actually have said that, as they have studied that crime scene further, she was not wearing a suicide vest, although her role with the terrorists is still unknown. CHRISTIE: [With vetting orphans], I don't understand the distinction, quite frankly. And what we need to do is to protect the homeland first.
SANDERS: I believe that the US has the moral responsibility with Europe, with Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia to make sure that when people leave countries like Afghanistan and Syria with nothing more than the clothing on their back that, of course, we reach out. Now, what the magic number is, I don't know, because we don't know the extent of the problem. But I certainly think that the US should take its full responsibility in helping those people.
Q: Gov. O'Malley, you have a magic number. I think it's 65,000.
O'MALLEY: I was the first person on this stage to say that we should accept the 65,000 Syrian refugees that were fleeing the sort of murder of ISIL, and I believe that that needs to be done with proper screening. But accommodating 65,000 refugees in our country today, people of 320 million, is akin to making room for 6.5 more people in a baseball stadium with 32,000.
TRUMP: As far as Syria, if Putin wants to go and knock the hell out of ISIS, I am all for it, 100%, and I can't understand how anybody would be against it.
Q: They're not doing that.
TRUMP: They blew up a Russian airplane. He cannot be in love with these people. He's going in, and we can go in, and everybody should go in. As far as the Ukraine is concerned, we have a group of people, and a group of countries, including Germany--why are we always doing the work? I'm all for protecting Ukraine--but, we have countries that are surrounding the Ukraine that aren't doing anything. They say, "Keep going, keep going, you dummies, keep going. Protect us." And we have to get smart. We can't continue to be the policeman of the world.
TRUMP: Assad is a bad guy, but we have no idea who the so-called rebels--nobody even knows who they are.
Carly FIORINA: Governor Bush is correct. We must have a no fly zone in Syria.
TRUMP: So, I don't like Assad. Who's going to like Assad? But, we have no idea who these people, and what they're going to be, and what they're going to represent. They may be far worse than Assad. Look at Libya. Look at Iraq. Look at the mess we have after spending $2 trillion dollars, thousands of lives, wounded warriors all over the place--we have nothing. And, I said, keep the oil. And we should have kept the oil, believe me. We should have kept the oil. And, you know what? We should have given big chunks of the oil to the people that lost their arms, their legs, and their families, and their sons, and daughters, because right now, you know who has a lot of that oil? Iran, and ISIS.
SANDERS: What the president is trying to do is to thread a very difficult needle. He's trying to defeat ISIS. He's trying to get rid of this horrendous dictator, Assad. But at the same time, he doesn't want our troops stuck on the ground. And I agree with that. But I am maybe a little bit more conservative on this than he is. I worry that once we get sucked into this, once some of our troops get killed and once maybe a plane gets shot down, that we send more in and more in. But I will say this. ISIS must be defeated primarily by the Muslim nations in that region. America can't do it all. And we need an international coalition. Russia should be part of it--U.K., France, the entire world--supporting Muslim troops on the ground, fighting for the soul of Islam and defeating this terrible ISIS organization.
CLINTON: We have an opportunity here--and inside the administration this is being hotly debated--to get that leverage to try to get the Russians to have to deal with everybody in the region and begin to move toward a political, diplomatic solution in Syria.
Q [to Sanders]: Putin in Syria?
SANDERS: I think Mr. Putin is going to regret what he is doing.
Q: He doesn't seem to be the type of guy to regret a lot.
SANDERS: I think he's already regretting what he did in Crimea and what he is doing in the Ukraine. I think he is really regretting the decline of his economy. And I think what he is trying to do now is save some face. But I think when Russians get killed in Syria and when he gets bogged down, I think the Russian people are going to give him a message that maybe they should come home, maybe they should start working with the United States to rectify the situation now.
CLINTON: I applaud the administration because they are engaged in talks right now with the Russians to make it clear that they've got to be part of the solution to try to end that bloody conflict. And, to provide safe zones so that people are not going to have to be flooding out of Syria at the rate they are.
SANDERS: Well, let's understand that when we talk about Syria, you're talking about a quagmire in a quagmire. You're talking about groups of people trying to overthrow Assad, other groups of people fighting ISIS. You're talking about people who are fighting ISIS using their guns to overthrow Assad, and vice versa. I will do everything that I can to make sure that the U.S. does not get involved in another quagmire like we did in Iraq, the worst foreign policy blunder in the history of this country. We should be putting together a coalition of Arab countries who should be leading the effort. We should be supportive, but I do not support American ground troops in Syria.
SANDERS: Well, it failed. I mean, the president acknowledged that. Syria is a quagmire inside of a quagmire. I think what the president has tried to do is thread a very difficult needle. And that is keep American troops from engaging in combat and getting killed there. And I think that is the right thing to do. So I think we continue to try to do everything that we can, focusing primarily on trying to defeat ISIS. But I am worried about American troops getting sucked into a never ending war in the Middle East and particularly in, you know, Iraq and Syria. I don't think the United States can or should be doi
TRUMP: I want our military to be beyond anything, no contest, and technologically, most importantly. But we are going to get bogged down in Syria. If you look at what happened with the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, that's when they went bankrupt.
Q: So, you think Putin's going to get suckered into--
TRUMP: They're going to get bogged down. Everybody that's touched the Middle East, they've gotten bogged down. Now, Putin wants to go in and I like that Putin is bombing the hell out of ISIS. Putin has to get rid of ISIS because Putin doesn't want ISIS coming into Russia.
Q: Why do you trust him and nobody else does?
TRUMP: I don't trust him. But the truth is, it's not a question of trust. I don't want to see the United States get bogged down. We've spent now $2 trillion in Iraq, probably a trillion in Afghanistan. We're destroying our country.
CHRISTIE: Well, we don't need to be friends with Vladimir Putin and we don't need to be worried about whether he's in a quagmire. After 40 years, we allowed Russia back into the Middle East. And now who are they partnered with? Iran.
Q: So how do you push them out?
CHRISTIE: America's got to re-establish its presence in that area. We should be the ones leading the fight on ISIS. And by the way, we know Putin's not fighting ISIS. Putin's there to prop up Assad.
Q: Would you put in a no-fly zone?
CHRISTIE: Absolutely. And I'll tell you this, there's now 300,000 nearly dead in Syria because of Assad and now Putin is going in and teaming with the Iranians to prop up Assad.
The International Rescue Committee has called for the US to take at least 65,000 refugees from Syria's civil war rather than the 10,000 proposed by Obama. Stein criticized the Obama administration plan to take up to 18 months to screen refugees as "a bureaucratic nightmare than will only increase pain & suffering."
TRUMP: Number one, they have to respect you. He has absolutely no respect for President Obama. Zero. I would talk to him. I would get along with him. I believe I would get along with a lot of the world leaders that this country is not getting along with. I think I will get along with Putin, and I will get along with others, and we will have a much more stable world.
SANDERS: I think it's impossible to give a proper number until we understand the dimensions of the problem. What I do believe is that Europe, the United States and, by the way, countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, must address this humanitarian crisis. People are leaving Iraq, they're leaving Syria with just the clothes on their backs. The world has got to respond. The United States should be part of that response.
Q: When it comes to Syria, how much of the problem is the United States' fault, of policy, whether Bush in Iraq or Obama in Syria?
SANDERS: Look, I voted against the war in Iraq; much of what I feared would happen, in fact, did happen: Massive destabilization in that region. The issue now is not who is at fault. The issue is now what we do. And what we do is bring the region together.
SANDERS: No. I voted also for the war in Afghanistan, because I believed that Osama bin Laden needed to be captured, needed to be brought to trial.
Q: Yes, sir, I apologize for that, yes, you did.
SANDERS: But I am very concerned about a lot of the war talk that I'm hearing from my Republican colleagues, who apparently have forgotten the cost of war and the errors made in Afghanistan and Iraq. And what I believe, very much, is that the most powerful military on Earth, the United States of America, that our government should do everything that we can to resolve international conflict in a way that does not require war.
CHRISTIE: You know, I'm the governor of New Jersey. There a lot of people who are significantly better briefed on this than I am. And I think when guys like me start to shoot off on opinions about this kind of stuff, it's really ill-advised. So I'll leave it to Secretary Kerry and the folks that are in charge of this to make decisions about where we go. And then once they put something together, if they do, then I'll make a judgment on that. But it's just I'm not the right person to be asking that question to, with all due respect.
Q: But you're a national political figure. You're a leader in the Republican Party. You may someday run for president. Do you have a view about whether Iran should continue to enrich uranium?
CHRISTIE: Like I said, I think the folks who are involved in this on a day to day basis should be making those kind of opinions known publicly. I'm just not going to engage in that.
"We know that the Syrian regime are the only ones who have the weapons--have used chemical weapons multiple times in the past, have the means of delivering those weapons, have been determined to wipe out exactly the places that were attacked by chemical weapons," he continued. "And instead of allowing U.N. inspectors immediate access, the government has repeatedly shelled the sites of the attack and blocked the investigation for five days."
That's why our focus is on supporting a legitimate opposition not only committed to a peaceful Syria but to a peaceful region. We're carefully vetting those to whom we provide assistance. That's why, while putting relentless pressure on Assad and sanctioning the pro-regime, Iranian-backed militia, we've also designated al-Nusra Front as a terrorist organization.
And because we recognize the great danger Assad's chemical and biological arsenals pose to Israel and the US, to the whole world, we've set a clear red line against the use of the transfer of the those weapons. And we will work together to prevent this conflict and these horrific weapons from threatening Israel's security.
We can all agree on the increasingly desperate plight of the Syrian people and the responsibility of the international community to address that plight. Just this week the international community came together to pledge $1.5 billion for humanitarian support for the Syrian people and refugees fleeing the violence. As part of that effort, President Obama announced that we would be contributing $155 million.
In Libya, NATO acted quickly, effectively and decisively. And now we are working together to support Libya in building effective institutions of governance. We've joined forces in response to the unprecedented promise & unresolved turmoil of the Arab Spring--from Tunis to Tripoli to Sana'a--and it's going to be required to continue.
ROMNEY: The right course is to identify responsible parties within Syria, organize them, bring them together, and then make sure they have the arms necessary to defend themselves.
STEIN: It's as if there's collective amnesia here, as if we didn't just go through a decade, $5 trillion and thousands of U.S. soldiers whose lives have been sacrificed, and far more civilians whose lives have been lost, in an attempted military resolution in Iraq and in Afghanistan. So with a far smaller commitment, how in the world are they thinking that a lesser degree of military intervention is going to solve the problem? This is a failed policy from its very conception. With arms flowing in to both sides in Syria, you have really a catastrophe in the making. We need to stop the flow of the arms.
BIDEN: It's a different country. It's a different country. It is five times as large geographically. It has 1/5 the population that is Libya. It's in a part of the world where you're not going to see whatever would come from that war. If it blows up and the wrong people gain control, it's going to have impact on the entire region, causing potentially regional wars. And all this loose talk of [Ryan and] Romney, about how we could do so much more there, what more would they do other than put American boots on the ground? The last thing America needs is to get into another ground war in the Middle East.
RYAN: Nobody is proposing to send American troops to Syria. But we would not be going through the UN.
Biden said the "number one objective" was to get the Syrian regime to stop killing civilians and for Assad to quit power. "The US position on Syria is clear. The Syrian regime must end its brutality against its own people and President Assad must step down so a peaceful transition that respects the will of the people can take place," Biden said.
Biden called for a peaceful transition in Syria and broader global sanctions over the crackdown. "Syria's stability is important. That is exactly why we are insisting on change -- it is the current situation that is unstable," Biden said in response to emailed questions from a Turkish newspaper.
BIDEN: Well, the argument was made early on that we removed two of Iran`s most greatest concerns, Saddam in Iraq, and the Taliban in Afghanistan. But the result now, in part because of some really outrageous moves that Iran has made, it actually has lost power in the entire region. The fact of the matter is its only ally left in the region is about to be toppled. That is in Syria with Bashar Assad. But the biggest thing that`s happened is the president has been able to unite the world, including Russia and China, in continuing to ostracize and to isolate Iran. So, the truth is, the capacity of Iran to project power in the Gulf is actually diminished. They are less feared. They have less influence than they have had any time, I would argue, in the last 20 years.
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