WASHINGTON (AP) – The Latest on the Trump administration and Syria (all times local):
12:05 p.m.
Senate Democrats are criticizing President Donald Trump’s response to the chemical attack in Syria that killed 72 people.
Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania calls a White House statement on the attack weak because it omits any mention of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Casey says Trump should “finally tell it like it is – that these are war crimes” by Syrian President Bashar Assad against his own people.
The senator says the attack “was a moment the president could have spoken with moral authority and with the beginning of an outline of a strategy. And we don’t see it.”
Casey and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York say Trump is being undermined by the cloud of an ongoing investigation into possible Russian interference in the election.
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11:40 a.m.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis says a suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria “was a heinous act and will be treated as such.”
He did not elaborate on what the U.S. may do in response.
Mattis was speaking at the start of a meeting in the Pentagon with Singapore’s minister of defense.
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10:42 a.m.
President Donald Trump will speak Wednesday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, as concerns echo across Europe over the urgent need to respond to violence in Syria.
A suspected chemical attack in rebel-held northern Idlib killed dozens of civilians Tuesday in one of the worst attacks since the civil war began.
Trump will also speak with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe hours, hours after North Korea fired a newly developed powerful ballistic missile into its eastern waters Wednesday.
Abe’s phone call also comes ahead of the president’s planned meeting Thursday with China’s president Xi Jinping during which various east Asian security issues may be addressed, including a territorial dispute in the South China Sea.
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10:35 a.m.
President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka is tweeting about the chemical weapons attack in Syria.
Ivanka Trump, a top adviser to the president, tweeted Wednesday that she is “Heartbroken and outraged by the images coming out of Syria following the atrocious chemical attack yesterday.”
The president released a statement Tuesday condemning the attack as “reprehensible.”
The White House has not said how the Trump administration intends to respond to the crisis in Syria.
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10:30 a.m.
The United States and Russia are trading conflicting assertions about who launched a chemical weapons attack in Syria that killed 72 people.
The White House says Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government is responsible. But Russia says anti-Assad rebels are to blame. Russia’s military says the chemicals were dispersed when Syrian warplanes bombed a facility where rebels were building chemical weapons.
Officials say Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will discuss Syria with Russian leaders next week when he visits Moscow. It’s the first announced visit by a top U.S. official to Russia since President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
The U.N. Security Council plans an emergency session midday Wednesday on the attack. And Trump is expected to face questions about it during an afternoon news conference with Jordan’s King Abdullah II.