CNN’s Jake Tapper grilled deputy national security adviser Tony Blinken Monday over Bashar al-Assad’s assertion that the Obama administration had “no evidence” that the Syrian government had ordered a chemical attack last month.
Tapper played part of the interview Assad gave Charlie Rose in which he challenged Obama to reproduce evidence of his regime’s involvement in the chemical attack:
How can you talk about what happened if you don’t have evidence? We’re not like the American administration. We’re not social media administration or government. We are the government that deal with reality.
Tapper, who showed the devastating exclusive video of the victims of the chemical attack, has been on top of the story from the beginning and has been asking tough questions about the Administration’s claims regarding the Assad regime’s involvement. He challenged Blinken with Assad’s words:
I don’t like agreeing with Assad, but he’s right. The American people have seen no evidence tying the chemical weapons attack directly to Assad. And Tony, certainly you understand for many of us, it’s not enough for the U.S. government to say, “trust us, the intelligence tells us what we’re saying it does. Please, just believe us.” I mean, you get that.
Blinken claimed that Obama will make his case before the American people Tuesday night and will “be able to lay out in a very compelling way exactly what we know, and he’ll be able to give you some idea of how we know it.”
Watch the segment here: