GORDON ROBERTSON: Welcome to the 700 Club.

President Trump's surprise attack has made it clear.

He won't tolerate Syria using chemical weapons

on innocent civilians.

And he's calling on other nations

to help stop the slaughter in that country.

TERRY MEEUWSEN: Many countries approve the president's action.

But a few, like Russia, criticized it.

Charlene Aaron has the story.

CHARLENE AARON: The US launched 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles

at Syria from two warships in response

to a chemical weapons attack that

killed dozens of civilians.

DONALD TRUMP: Tonight, I ordered a targeted military strike

on the airfield in Syria from where the chemical

attack was launched.

CHARLENE AARON: President Trump, at his Mar-a-Lago resort,

said there was no doubt Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was

responsible for the use of illegal Sarin gas

against his own people.

The president had been clearly affected

by the pictures of suffering children

from that deadly chemical strike.

DONALD TRUMP: Even beautiful babies

were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack.

No child of God should ever suffer such horror.

CHARLENE AARON: Officials say the missiles were

aimed at the air base that was home to the warplanes that

carried out the chemical attacks earlier this week, killing

more than 70 people.

The strike received both bipartisan support

and criticism on Capitol Hill.

Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham

applauded the action.

"We salute the skill and professionalism

of the US armed forces who carried out

tonight's strikes in Syria.

Acting on the orders of their Commander-In-Chief,

they have sent an important message:

The United States will no longer stand idly

by as Assad, aided and abetted by Putin's Russia,

slaughters innocent Syrians with chemical weapons and barrel

bombs," the senators said.

But Republican Senator Rand Paul tweeted,

"While we all condemn the atrocities in Syria,

the United States was not attacked."

Some Democrats applauded the president's move,

while others said he needs to consult with Congress

on future military actions.

The Kremlin is condemning the military strike,

calling it aggression against a sovereign nation in violation

of international law.

Pentagon officials say Russia was informed before the attack.

The President also said, we ask for God's wisdom

and he said the world needs to work together to stop

the bloody fighting in Syria.

DONALD TRUMP: Tonight I call on all civilized nations

to join us in seeking to end the slaughter

and bloodshed in Syria.

And also, to end terrorism of all kinds and all types.

CHARLENE AARON: Charlene Aaron, CBN News.

GORDON ROBERTSON: Well, there was another piece

to Donald Trump's speech last night

that I don't think any other news organization is

going to show you.

But we're going to show it to you

and we're going to do that right now.

DONALD TRUMP: We ask for God's wisdom

as we face the challenge of our very troubled world.

We pray for the lives of the wounded

and for the souls of those who have passed.

And we hope that as long as America stands for justice,

then peace and harmony will, in the end, prevail.

GORDON ROBERTSON: I think we can all join with that prayer

that we need to stand for justice.

There was a line, it was drawn in the sand, if you will,

by the Obama administration.

And then Syria crossed that line and there was no retaliation,

there was no judgment, if you will, for crossing it.

They did this three years ago and we blinked.

And here, they are doing it again

and here we're responding.

We need to pray for God's wisdom.

And we also need to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly

before the Lord our God.

So please, be in prayer for our leaders,

be in prayer for our President, be in prayer

for all members of Congress and the Senate.

Now, more than ever, in our troubled world, we need God

and we need his wisdom.

Well, with us now for more on the missile strike in Syria

is our CBN News international correspondent, Gary Lane.

And then later, joining us on Capitol Hill,

will be our political correspondent, David Brody.

Well, Gary tell us.

What's your opinion on this?

How's the world going to line up?

Are they going to be with us on this,

or are they going to say, no.

You know you can't violate Syria's sovereignty.

GARY LANE: I would say the Sunni Arab

states are lining up with us.

Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt.

Those that are against this, of course, Iran and Russia.

Also, the Western European governments.

I think there's going to be a consensus that Trump will

seek on taking future action.

GORDON ROBERTSON: What about Russia on this one?

They have a strategic base now in Syria.

Do you think they're going to try

to protect the Syrian regime or are

they going to try to protect their interests there?

GARY LANE: They will try to do both

and I think their interest is to keep Assad in power.

That's always been their interest.

They've been involved with Syria for many, many years,

as you know.

But they are likely to beef up the anti-aircraft systems

that Syria has.

They've already canceled the Open Skies agreement

that they have with the United States.

And what that is, is an agreement

where the US can hit ISIS targets in the north of Syria

and not run into interference with Russian or Syrian pilots

in the Open Skies there.

But now Russia is saying that's dead, so what happens now,

Gordon?

If we end up doing another strike,

what if we hit Russian troops on the ground?

What if we destroy one of their planes accidentally?

Well there's a conflict-

GORDON ROBERTSON: There was notice that

went to Russia specifically--

GARY LANE: Yes, there was.

GORDON ROBERTSON: --to avoid Russian casualties.

GARY LANE: But as you know, accidents can happen.

GORDON ROBERTSON: They do but--

GARY LANE: It could easily escalate.

But--

GORDON ROBERTSON: Do they have the military capability

to stop our cruise missiles?

GARY LANE: No.

GORDON ROBERTSON: OK.

GARY LANE: No, they don't have that capability.

GORDON ROBERTSON: So if--

GARY LANE: Not in Syria as far as we know at this point.

GORDON ROBERTSON: I assume we'll launch further strikes if Assad

continues to attack his own civilian, and we'll do that.

So if they don't have the capability of stopping it,

what do you think would be their next move.

GARY LANE: Russia's next move?

GORDON ROBERTSON: Yeah.

GARY LANE: Well, look, there's going

to be a lot of pressure on them.

They've already said that their support for Assad

isn't unconditional.

And they've been negotiating with Russia and Iran,

and Syria, the three of them have been negotiating also

with Turkey to end this war.

But those talks have gone nowhere, Gordon.

And the President knows that, he wants

to bring an end to this war.

We're going on to 6 years now and nothing

has been done to stop it.

It's been getting worse, we saw major strikes

in Aleppo several months ago.

And this thing has not come to an end.

Now, the opposition says Assad has to go.

We can't have any post-war Syria with Assad in power.

GORDON ROBERTSON: Now the US has said the same thing.

President Trump said the same thing.

GARY LANE: How do we get him out of there?

GORDON ROBERTSON: I mean you have to read

between the lines a little bit.

Is Russia in danger of becoming further isolated

from the world community?

Are they are they going to be tagged yet again

as some kind of evil empire backing a dictator who

wants to use chemical weapons?

GARY LANE: I think they already are.

I think the isolation is starting and they see that.

They see they're being labeled.

Why did they make the statement that their support for Assad

is not necessarily unconditional?

I think you're going to see them starting to distance.

They have not been so opposed to seeing

someone else come into power there, it's just who.

Who would replace Assad?

What kind of government will you have?

GORDON ROBERTSON: That's the open question

for all of us, who would do it.

Let's go to David Brody on Capitol Hill.

David, what what's happening in Congress?

What's their reaction to this?

DAVID BRODY: Well, Gordon, it's not every day

where you see Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House,

and Nancy Pelosi, the leader in the house for the Democrats,

actually agree.

And while Paul Ryan is agreeing a lot more with the President's

actions in Syria than Nancy Pelosi,

there is at least some agreement from leadership

on the Democrats side that look, that Donald Trump

did what he needed to do.

Chuck Schumer, the Democrat leader in the Senate,

is calling it the right thing to do.

Nancy Pelosi is calling the strikes

in Syria a proportional response, those are her words.

And so any time you get any sort of cover

from Democrats at the highest ranks of Congress,

that's a good day if you're the President the United States.

Having said that, obviously there's

a lot of varying opinions all over the gamut

up here, as you might imagine.

We did speak with Marco Rubio this morning.

We were up here early and with Donald Trump

it's always an early morning wake up call for sure.

And so we talked to Rubio about all

of this including the actual specific attack in Syria,

and he talked about it being a hopeful and a proud moment.

Have a look.

MARCO RUBIO: Innocent men and women and children

were gassed and killed.

And last night, the United States,

and they should be very proud of this, our men

and women in uniform under the command

of the Commander-In-Chief, took action

to remove the ability of Assad to do that.

Now, he still has other air bases he can use,

but this was an air base that they had been using

and were going to use again to conduct Sarin gas attacks

and we destroyed large portions of that airbase.

So the United States today took away

some of the capacity he had to commit

those sorts of atrocities.

DAVID BRODY: You know, one of the other questions

I asked Marco Rubio was about Russia and how concerned we

should be about this whole situation between Russia

and the United States.

And Marco Rubio looked at me and said, you know,

it's about time Russia is concerned more about us

than we about them.

And so, I thought it was some pretty fighting words

from Marco Rubio here, Gordon.

GORDON ROBERTSON: About the isolation this way,

there seems to be sort of a tendency

within definitely the Republican Party to isolate,

and even the comment, well, we weren't attacked so why

are we attacking.

Is that going to get any traction here?

DAVID BRODY: Yes, and it's already getting traction.

We talked about Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer

coming out in support in essence of the president's move.

But a lot of voices up here, Senator Tim Kaine

on the Democrat side, Senator Rand Paul and Mike

Lee and some of the other libertarian

folks up here on the Republican side

all saying hey, Mr President.

If you're going to declare war, if you're going to do something

as it relates to a war type of act, as an act of aggression,

if you will, you need to come to Congress.

Well, of course, we know with the War Powers Act from 1973

that this has been debated time and time again.

President Obama didn't feel like he needed it,

clearly President Trump didn't either.

And so there will be that rigorous debate up here.

The question becomes what is war,

what is an act of aggression?

There is something in the War Powers

Act, Gordon, as you know, about National emergencies

and there's some leeway there.

And so this will be of a big part of the discussion.

The question really, going forward,

is how long does this continue?

What's the escalation looking like in a week from now,

a month from now, and quite frankly, six months

and beyond from now.

And I think that's the big unknown

up here on Capitol Hill.

GORDON ROBERTSON: I think we crossed that bridge a long time

ago with the War Powers Act.

And then, when the Bush administration

didn't seek congressional authorization

for the invasion of Iraq, that was sort of the end of it.

After that one, I don't see anything going on.

What about just enforcing international law,

are you seeing any response from Congress

that when a government uses a banned chemical weapon.

Sarin gas is absolutely banned, no one

has a right to use it in any conflict.

What about that argument, that we need

to enforce international law?

DAVID BRODY: Well, you know, it's interesting.

You're hearing some of that talk on the Republican side.

But when it comes to the Democrats, especially

the Liberal Democrats, who complain all the time.

Elizabeth Warren, for example, some

of the other folks on the far left complaining

about human rights and chemical weapons and gases

used on their own people.

These are the folks, right now, saying, well, actually,

President Trump was wrong to do what he did based on the fact

that he needs to come to Congress first.

And so they're kind of, in essence, bypassing that issue.

At least on the Democrat side.

I think the main traction up here

will be more congressional authority overall, not as much

with international law and norms.