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Week In The News: Trump Meets Xi, Nuclear Senate, Syrian Attack

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Trump launches an attack on Syria. Our nuclear Senate. Bannon bumped. Our weekly news round table goes behind the headlines.

In this image provided by the U.S. Navy, the guided-missile destroyer USS Porter (DDG 78) launches a tomahawk land attack missile in the Mediterranean Sea, Friday, April 7, 2017. (U.S. Navy/AP)
In this image provided by the U.S. Navy, the guided-missile destroyer USS Porter (DDG 78) launches a tomahawk land attack missile in the Mediterranean Sea, Friday, April 7, 2017. (U.S. Navy/AP)

Another torrent of news this week, and then – boom. The US attacked Syria. Missiles raining down on a Syrian airbase accused of deploying chemical weapons. An attack ordered by a president who always said “don’t do it.” It’s done. In the US Senate, the nuclear option is invoked to push through Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch. In Florida, Donald Trump sits down with China’s leader Xi Jinping. Bill O’Reilly’s in trouble. Bannon is bumped. This hour On Point, our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines. — Tom Ashbrook

Guests

Michael Crowley, senior foreign affairs correspondent for POLITICO. (@michaelcrowley)

Molly Ball, national political writer for the Atlantic.

Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst. (@JackBeattyNPR)

From Tom’s Reading List

POLITICO: Trump’s 'red line' reversal hints at Syria shift -- "Appearing next to Jordan’s King Abdullah II at the White House, Trump said Assad must be held accountable for a chemical weapons attack this week in a pro-rebel area that reportedly killed dozens of people, many of them children. U.S. officials believe the Assad regime is likely behind the attack, which bore the hallmarks of nerve gas, though Damascus has denied responsibility."

The Atlantic: Republicans Abandon the Filibuster to Save Neil Gorsuch — "The demise of perhaps the Senate’s most famous rule—on nominations if not yet on legislation—came in a series of procedural votes rendered anti-climatic by the aura of inevitability that had been building for weeks after Trump named the 49-year-old Colorado appellate judge to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court. The move not only ensures the return of a fifth conservative vote to the court but likely will permanently alter the selection of justices going forward: A president whose party controls the majority in the Senate will no longer need to choose a candidate that can receive bipartisan support, empowering liberal and conservative activists over those in the middle."

New York Times: U.S. Said to Weigh Military Responses to Syrian Chemical Attack -- "Senior Defense Department officials are developing options for a military strike in response to the Syrian government’s chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of civilians on Tuesday, officials said on Thursday. The top-level consultations about military options involve Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as military officers at the United States Central Command."

This program aired on April 7, 2017.

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