Hello and welcome to another broadcast of the Spectator Americano podcast. I'm joined today by Kurt Mills, who is a Spectator USA contributor and also covers the White House for the national interest.

And we are in a hotel in Washington, D.C., and we're going to be talking about Trump's serious strikes.

So, Kurt, let's start with the first question. Why do you think Donald Trump launched

missiles at Syria? Why do you think France and America launched missiles at Syria? Why do you think

Britain is involved? I think there was considerable foreign policy, establishment, consensus, and pressure that this is the right thing to do.

The norm against chemical weapons use is one of the strongest norms and one of the most

agreed upon norms among the Western powers. That being said, I think that the president is also quite fond of and deferential

to military advice and shows of military force. And then additionally, this is right out of the

playbook of new national security advisors to the president, John Bolton, who's often conflated

with being a neo-conservative.

He's quite friendly with many of them and sort of an ideological fellow traveler, but he is not one. He is a nationalist, dare I say, Uber-Hawk. And his view on this kind of thing is very

much what we did on Saturday morning, which is...

Because that's an important stuff for British listeners to understand that's important.

That Bolton arrives and how many days are you willing to...

It is...

The chemical attack occurred on, I believe, Saturday the 7th.

Yeah.

And Bolton showed up for his first day on Monday the 9th and by 11 in the morning

he had already had two meetings on Syria. So the timing couldn't have been more comically preposterous

Bolton is tired and then a chemical attack happens in Syria and then a fresh foreign policy

crisis for him to dive in on day one.

You're not saying that that would be the only factor.

...