After Donald Trump’s first attack on Syria as President of the United States, many citizens are questioning if his ‘America first’ mentality is still intact.
President Trump opted to launch an attack of 59 U.S cruise missiles on a Syrian military airfield in response to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons attack that killed hundreds of innocent civilians in his own country.
Trump’s reaction to the images of innocent, suffering children in Syria drove him into an action that will change the course of his Presidency according to the New York Times.
“I will tell you, that attack on children yesterday had a big impact on me. That was a horrible, horrible thing. I’ve been watching it and seeing it, and it doesn’t get any worse than that,” Trump said to reporters in the White House Rose Garden on Apr. 5.
On Mar. 6, Trump signed an executive order banning refugees from six countries including Syria. In 2013, former President Barak Obama elected not to issue an attack on Syria after a chemical weapon attack occurred in the suburbs of Damascus but Trump would not let the United States turn away again according to the New York Times.
“I do not view it as an emotional reaction at all. Mr. Trump had looked back on Mr. Obama’s decision not to carry out a strike and decided that the United States could not yet again turn away, turn a blind eye,” Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson said in the same New York Times article.
Despite his instinctive reaction to the images of the children, Trump tweeted out to America congratulating the military men and women who represented the United States during the attack.
“Congratulations to our great military men and women for representing the United States and the world, so well in the Syria attack,” he tweeted.
The McNicholas Milestone 