Fine Point W/ Guest Host Daniel Baldwin - Assad Regime Falls - W/ Josh Hammer, 12/16/24

welcome back when Bashar al-assad fled Syria he left the country in a strategic vacuum and US Secretary of State Anthony blinkin appears to be looking to capitalize this past weekend blinkin confirmed that the United States had made direct contact with the HTS Rebel group speaking in Jordan this past weekend blinkin signed off on a set of guiding principles for Syria transition with eight officials with officials from eight Arab Nations turkey and the European Union and the United Nations why don't we take a listen America and our partners have an important stake in helping the Syrian people chart this new path we know that what happens inside of Syria can have powerful consequences well beyond its borders from Mass displacement to terrorism and we know that we can't underestimate the challenges of this moment we agreed that the transition process should be Syrian Le and Syrian owned and produce an inclusive and representative government the rights of all syrians including minorities and women spokesperson for the state department Matt Miller elaborated the importance of these guiding transition principles today why don't we take a listen to that the secretary returned this weekend from his latest trip to the Middle East where he discussed the principles that he outlined early last week uh as essential for delivering on the aspirations of the Syrian people after the fall of the brutal dictator Bashar al-assad uh those principles include that the transition process should be Syrian Le and Syrian owned and produce an inclusive and representative government that the rights of all syrians including women and minorities should be respected that humanitarian Aid should be able to reach people who need it that Syria should not be used as a base of Terror for terrorist groups and should have peaceful relations with its neighbors now it's important to keep in mind after these statements that the leader of HTS Abu Muhammad Al jalani has a $10 million bounty on his head as he has tied to Al-Qaeda the state department is also o designated HTS as a terror organization as well elsewhere president-elect Donald Trump cast a bit of a different idea of how he views Syria today when he was taking questions from journalists at maral Lago will you ask to give up Assad well I hadn't thought of it uh I think we have to get on with our lives we'll have to see what happens but uh right now uh Syria has a lot of you know there's a lot of indefinites nobody knows what's going to happen with Syria but I think turkey is going to hold the key to Syria actually I don't think you've heard that from anybody else but I've been pretty good at predicting joining us now to discuss is Josh Hammer senior editor at large of Newsweek sir we appreciate you coming back to the show obviously you wrote not bed about the ongoing situation in Syria it's very clear that Donald Trump wants to put America First he's viewed the situation getting involved specifically with a lot of skepticism there's a lot of indefinites happening right now in that situation where do you believe from your Vantage Point that we stand in regards to Syria at the moment I don't think anyone really knows is is the honest answer I mean Syria is one of the only it's literally one of only four or five US state department recognized States sponsors of terrorism they they are up there with North Korea Iran Cuba other other regimes like that look Bashar al-assad was a was a world historical Tyrant I mean even by the relatively Bleak standards of the Arab world he was a b comes from the same kind of pan Arab nationalism Hue as Saddam Hussein back when he was the dictator of Iraq for multiple decades and and no one should shed any tears whatsoever that Bashar Al Assad is gone the problem is that the people that are replacing him are not necessarily a whole lot better in fact there's actually potential for this to go even more arai and and you know my column which was titled how not to think about Syria I've seen a lot of people just cheering on the the demise of Bashar al- Assad as if this is an unitt a good thing again no one should shed any tears for the fact that this man who has a personal death total of probably 5 to 600,000 people someone who used chemical weapons on his all people I mean some someone who's going to go down the history books a as an all-time historical evil evil person for all our viewers asking where one Amer news is heading in the future we would like to introduce you to o live o live is the best way to stay up toate on all of the hard-hitting straight shooting National and international headlines and the best part is oan live is only $4.99 per month all the credible honest unbiased reporting one americ news offers at a fraction of the cost of cable just go to oann.com to easily sign up for o live and stay informed