Jake Tapper: Can Obama Guarantee Kiev Consequences After Last ‘Red Line’ Threat?

CNN anchor Jake Tapper joined Hugh Hewitt on his radio show today to talk about Kiev, and specifically, President Obama‘s warning that “there will be consequences if people step over the line.” This evoked comparisons to the president’s infamous “red line” comment about Syria and how that turned out, and so Tapper questioned whether that kind of threat would hold as much weight this time.

He asked, “If you’re Yanukovych, and you’re sitting there and you hear the president talk about lines, how resonant is that?” Tapper told Hewitt he was “surprised” Obama would use the “line” threat again, because if nothing happened after Syria crossed the red line, “what consequences are there?”

Hewitt suspected Obama’s advisors warned him not to say “line” but “he couldn’t help himself” and laid his cards on the table anyway. Tapper noted Obama definitely has a “tremendous reluctance” to get the country into yet another military conflict.

Listen to the audio below, via The Hugh Hewitt Show:

[photo via screengrab]

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Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac

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