Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell notably opposed former President Barack Obama’s 2013 effort to pass a new war resolution authorizing force against Syrian President Bashar Assad, a push that ultimately fizzled on Capitol Hill. | AP Photo McConnell: Trump's airstrike didn't need congressional authorization

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had high praise Friday for President Donald Trump’s decision to order an airstrike in Syria — and said it did not require congressional authorization.

Trump announced late Thursday that he had ordered a targeted military airstrike on the airfield where the Syrian government launched a chemical attack that killed dozens of its own people.


“It was perfectly executed and for the right purpose,” McConnell told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt Friday morning.

Two U.S. warships launched nearly 60 Tomahawk cruise missiles from the Mediterranean Sea in retaliation for what Trump described as a “horrible” attack that “choked the lives of helpless men, women and children.” The U.S. believes the chemical weapons attack was carried out by Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government.

“I support totally what the president did — a precision strike to make it clear to Assad that the use of chemical weapons is unacceptable behavior,” McConnell said. “This step, of course, will be widely applauded by all of our allies, particularly our Sunni Arab allies in the Middle East who really wondered whether America could be depended upon again after eight years of Barack Obama.”

Some lawmakers have since raised questions about the constitutionality of Trump’s unilateral action. But McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, suggested Trump was well within his right as commander in chief to call for the airstrike without congressional action.

“I think that this is not a situation that requires an AUMF, an authorization for the use of military force,” he told Hewitt. “We passed one in back in 2001 and 2002, I believe, and the previous president thought that it authorized what we were doing in that part of the world and I expect this president thinks the same.”

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Indeed, the U.S. military has conducted airstrikes in Syria since 2014, with the Obama administration citing Congress’ authorization for use of military force after 9/11 as legal justification. Those strikes, however, were aimed at the Islamic State. Trump’s airstrike is the first attack on the Syrian regime itself.

McConnell notably opposed Obama’s 2013 effort to pass a new war resolution authorizing force against Assad, a push that ultimately fizzled on Capitol Hill.

“I don’t know that it necessarily settles things in Syria, but it’s a huge message to countries like North Korea and Iran and Russia that the era of American passivity is over,” McConnell said, accepting Hewitt’s comparison of Trump’s airstrike to President Ronald Reagan’s 1986 bombing of Libya. “I think it was a very, very important step and, as you suggest, maybe akin to what Reagan did to Gaddafi back in ’86. And I think it was an image maker for the president but also very much the right thing to do.”

The Kentucky Republican also favorably contrasted Trump’s move with Obama, who drew a “red line” in Syria but never pursued military action in response to the regime's chemical weapons attack.

“I think what the president did with the strike in Syria, ironically, is gonna be reassuring to an awful lot of people — both here at home and around the world — that America is back in terms of being the world’s leader,” McConnell said. “And I think the president did himself a lot of good by making the point that you don’t use chemical weapons and not expect anything to happen from the United States.”