Fox News Host Grills Guest Over Trump’s ‘Emotional’ Syria Strike: Was it ‘Subservient’ to Russia?
Fox News host Leland Vittert grilled a pro-Trump talk radio host over the U.S. strike in Syria on Saturday, asking whether the “emotional” display of foreign policy was the result of the administration being “subservient” Russia.
Vittert first pressed Dan O’Donnell, a Milwaukee radio host, on Trump’s abrupt decision to strike Syria, when the regime has used chemical weapons multiple times since 2017.
“Is emotion the way to make these serious foreign policy decisions, is that why we elected this president?” he asked.
O’Donnell argued that “we’re seeing the foreign policy equivalent” of Trump’s retaliatory Twitter activity.
“What I’m not hearing from you, and what I don’t hear from a lot of even ardent Trump supporters is a full throated endorsement of this,” Vittert noted, and O’Donnell replied it was too early to make a call on that front.
Vittert pointed out that Fox News analyst Jack Keane, a retired general, said the strike on Assad’s chemical weapons program “is anything but a strong message.”
“We have to walk the line, we don’t want to provoke World War III with Russia and its allies [by] destroying a whole lot of Russian defense personnel or anything like that,” O’Donnell contended.
“Is the last thing we want, to send a strong message and actually poke the bear or is the last thing we want to be seen as being subservient to whatever Russia tells us we can and can’t do?” Vittert interjected. “Which one’s worse?”
“I don’t think this is seen as subservient to Russia, remember we killed how many hundred Russian forces a couple of weeks ago,” O’Donnell replied.
“Hold on, a Russian general basically said, if you endanger any Russian troops or Russian assets in Syria, then we’ll retaliate, otherwise we won’t,” Vittert shot back. “So you can read that, essentially, as go ahead and hit whatever you want as long as it’s not Russia.”
“That seems pretty subservient,” he added. “That kind of sounds like tip-toeing around the Russians.”
Watch above, via Fox News.
[image via screengrab]
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