Hillary Clinton: We Can’t Protect Syrian Babies While Banning Refugees

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton weighed in on the United States’ airstrikes in Syria Friday, saying it was hypocritical to lament the loss of innocent Syrian children in chemical attacks while simultaneously forbidding those those children from entering the United States.

Clinton criticized President Donald Trump’s attempts to ban Syrian refugees from the U.S. She also emphasized the attacks need to be accompanied by a plan to end Syria’s civil war, which the country has been embroiled in since 2011, when she was Secretary of State.

“I hope this administration will move forward in a way that is both strategic and consistent with our values,” she said at a luncheon in Texas. “And I also hope that they will recognize that we cannot in one breath speak of protecting Syrian babies and in the next close America’s doors to them.”

Clinton was referring to President Trump’s executive order banning Syrian refugees from entering the United States for three months.

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Clinton had expressed support for bombing Syria Thursday, before Trump announced them. “I really believe that we should have and still should take out his air fields and prevent him from being able to use them to bomb innocent people and drop sarin gas on them,” she told New York Times Columnist Nick Kristof at the Women in the World conference.

Clinton was speaking at an event for Annie’s List, an organization that aims to prepare progressive women for office, in Houston Texas.