MEDITERRANEAN SEA - APRIL 7:  In this handout provided by the U.S. Navy,The guided-missile destroyer USS Porter fires a Tomahawk land attack missile on April 7, 2017 in the Mediterranean Sea. The USS Porter was one of two destroyers that fired a total of 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian military airfield in retaliation for a chemical attack that killed scores of civilians this week. The attack was the first direct U.S. assault on Syria and the government of President Bashar al-Assad in the six-year war there.  (Photo by Ford Williams/U.S. Navy via Getty Images)
Trump orders military strike against Syria
02:55 - Source: CNN

Story highlights

Gorka said Trump's perspective is different as president

Trump's past tweets arguing against intervention in Syria resurfaced Thursday

CNN  — 

Deputy assistant to President Donald Trump Sebastian Gorka said Friday that Trump’s past tweets arguing against military action in Syria shouldn’t be held against him because Trump wasn’t president then.

“I think you’d admit that the things you say when you’re in a certain situation without the requisite experience that may come later shouldn’t be held against you,” Gorka told radio host Laura Ingraham. “You may have great ideas about what it means to be a parent, but you have no idea what it means to bear the responsibility once you have children. This is the same situation.”

Gorka said Trump’s perspective is different as president.

“What one says as a businessman who has not had TS/SCI clearance and sat in the situation room, or what one says on the campaign trail in a politically charged environment for a year, is incredibly different to the perspective you may have after you take on the mantle of the commander-in-chief, and you are the person responsible for the safety of all Americans,” Gorka said. “That’s what experience tells us, and to judge based on statements they made when they were not in that position of responsibility.”

Trump’s past tweets arguing against intervention in Syria resurfaced Thursday, when Trump ordered a missile strike on a Syrian airfield in response to the chemical weapons attack by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime on a rebel stronghold that killed civilians, including children, earlier this week.