PRESIDENT OBAMA: You know, over 1,400 people were gassed. Over 400 of them were children. This is not something we've fabricated, this is not something we are looking or using as an excuse for military action. As I said last night, I was elected to end wars, not start them. I've spent the last four and a half years doing everything I can to reduce

"If President Bush had told Bashar Assad, 'You don't use chemical weapons or you are going to be sorry. We are coming after you, this will be a consequence you will not want to bear,' I don't believe he would have used them," Sessions said, adding that he didn't "mean to be partisan about it," Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said at a town hall event i

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: I don't think you've ever seen a greater display of indecision and ambivalence. Sometimes you can study ambiguity to scare the other guy to make it useful. With Nixon, it was said the Soviets though he was so potentially nuts that actually he deterred a lot of action because you never knew what he was going to do. But he could

Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) criticized House Speaker John Boehner for throwing his support behind President Obama's today. "It was a mistake," Rep. Amash said on Laura Ingraham's radio program on Friday. "Our constituents have a very different position and if you’re the speaker of the House or the leader and you’re going to take a position i

MSNBC's RICHARD WOLFFE: "I do think that the president's press conference today was actually embarrassing. It was as muddled and unconvincing as you could possibly imagine. In fact, he looked so dog-tired that he was making me tired just watching him and listening to him."

"The fact is [Syrian President] Bashar Assad has massacred 100,000 people. The conflict is spreading … The Russians are all in, the Iranians are all in, and it’s an unfair fight," McCain told KFYI-AM's Mike Broomhead. “And no one wants American boots on the ground. Nor will there be American boots on the ground because there would be an impea

CNBC's Rick Santelli reacts to the August jobs report, which revealed that the lowest proportion of Americans for decades are part of the workforce. "You can't hide this millions of people forever," he said. "And you can't play this three card monte game for long. To see the stock market rally on crappy data, to me, is just a horrible dynamic, what

QUESTION: Just a follow-up -- must you have full cooperation from Congress? What if the Senate votes yes and the House votes no -- it’s go ahead with the strike? PRESIDENT OBAMA: Brianna, I think it would be a mistake for me to jump the gun and speculate, because right now I’m working to get as much support as possible out of Congress.

Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY) explains his decision to withdraw support for a U.S. strike on Styria. Grimms says he has "lost faith" in President Obama to handle the crisis "appropriately."

"The Daily Show" investigates Anthony Weiner's voter outreach campaign and Carlos Danger defends his wife's honor.

RCP's Scott Conroy and CBS News' Anthony Salvanto discuss the politics of Syria and the foreign policy debate in the Republican Party.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Frankly, if we weren't talking about the need for an international response right now, this wouldn't be what everybody would be asking about. You know, there would be some resolutions that were being proffered in the United Nations and the usual hocus pocus, but the world and the country would have moved on. So trying to imp

Ed Schultz highlights why a growing number of far-right Republicans are now coming out and opposing a strike on Syria. Schultz contends hatred for the first black president is a factor in the Republicans' decision-making process.

Nina Easton, Howard Kurtz, and Charles Krauthammer discuss the costs of the Syrian War, both in dollars and reputation.

Bill O'Reilly gives his take on the big picture surrounding the debate over Syria.

Chris Hayes talks with Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fl., member of the House Foreign Relations Committee, who opposes intervention in Syria. MSNBC host Karen Finney also joins the conversation.