Last week, President Donald Trump ordered a missile strike on a Syrian airbase after Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad killed civilians with chemical weapons.
The Turkish health ministry, after examining victims of the Assad regime’s attack, confirmed that it was carried out with the banned nerve agent Sarin. Syrian Opposition health officials and humanitarian groups on the ground estimated the death toll at 70–100 people. Many of the dead were children.
Trump cited their deaths repeatedly while explaining his decision to attack the Assad regime.
“Assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women, and children. It was a slow and brutal death for so many,” he said, according to press pool reports. “Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered at this very barbaric attack. No child of God should ever suffer such horror.”
The president ordered the attack from Mar-A-Lago, his private club in Florida, and could not stream his comments due to technical restrictions.
But Trump — much like the lawmakers now publicly praising his decision to retaliate against Assad — has not always displayed this level of concern for the people suffering over the course of Syria’s six-year war.
Trump has tried, twice, to stop Syrians from entering the United States. In the first version of his Muslim ban executive order, he temporarily suspended visas for Syrian citizens and suspended Syrian refugee resettlement indefinitely. After that ban was struck down by the courts, he tried once more, again suspending visas and refugee resettlement for Syrians.
Trump apparently doesn’t see a contradiction between condemning Assad’s brutality and turning away those who flee it. And he’s not the only one. Many lawmakers in Congress rushed to condemn Assad’s latest attack and applaud Trump’s action — while also supporting Trump’s proposal to ban all Syrian refugees from the United States.
ThinkProgress reviewed the statements of every member of Congress to gather their previous statements on Trump’s Muslim ban, as well as their recent responses to the Sarin attack and Trump’s retaliatory airstrikes.
139 members of Congress expressed support for at least one version of Trump’s ban as well as for his airstrikes on the Assad regime’s al-Shayrat airbase last week. An additional 28 members of Congress did not make clear statements on Trump’s ban, but supported his airstrikes.
The vast majority of those who applauded the bombings did so as a measured response to a humanitarian tragedy, and did not acknowledge the hypocrisy in simultaneously backing a ban on refugees fleeing a war zone.
Take Rep. Dennis Ross (R-FL), who tweeted this on Thursday:
I support @POTUS military action in Syria. The U.S. will not tolerate Assad's evil attacks on innocent lives, including babies and children.
— Dennis Ross (@RepDennisRoss) April 7, 2017
But when Trump proposed to ban Syrian refugees — including those babies and children —Ross called it “long overdue.”
This is long overdue. We must ensure our country is safe from radical Islamic jihadists who want to kill Americans. https://t.co/xBioxNVQYh
— Dennis Ross (@RepDennisRoss) January 27, 2017
Or Rep. Steve Knight (R-CA), who said in a statement last Thursday that “time and again, Bashar al-Assad has proven to be monstrously cruel to his own people. This recent sarin gas attack is further evidence that his disregard for international law and human decency has no place in the modern world.”
In January, Knight came out in support of Trump’s ban. And in 2015, when President Obama proposed increasing the United States’ intake of Syrian refugees, Knight called it an “existential” question that went against “the best interest of the American people.”
Rep. Jacki Walorski (R-IN), tweeted that “tonight’s U.S. military airstrikes on targets in Syria send a clear message that America will not stand for such atrocities.” In 2015, she commended then-Governor Mike Pence for suspending the resettlement of Syrian refugees to Indiana.
There’s also Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), who tweeted Friday morning, “The United States sent a clear message that we will not tolerate the slaughter of innocent citizens by the Assad regime.” While defending the Muslim ban on CNN in January, he specifically called it the “Syria ban.”
ThinkProgress only looked at members of Congress who supported or did not make clear statements condemning Trump’s ban on refugees. Both versions of his ban call for a 120 day suspension of all refugee resettlement, as well as a 90 day ban on visas for Syrian nationals. We focused on the responses to Trump’s recent ban, because while the courts have temporarily halted the latest ban, it may still become reality.
The number of Congress members who have previously expressed broad support for halting Syrian refugees and also supported Trump’s recent airstrikes is likely far higher. In 2015, 289 Representatives voted to toughen the already rigorous screening for refugees from Iraq and Syria. Under the bill, refugees would only be allowed to enter the country if the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and Director of National Intelligence all agreed that a refugee posed no threat to the United States, which would make entry nearly impossible. The bill’s supporters included 47 Democrats, and vocal backers of Assad, like Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI). A number of Senators, including Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), also expressed support for the tougher screening progress. Many of these members of Congress also expressed support for Trump’s airstrikes in Syria.
Speaking to press in Mar-A-Lago last Thursday, Sean Spicer attempted to reconcile Trump’s stance on Syrian refugees with his framing of the attack on Assad as humanitarian, saying that Trump supports setting up “safe zones” so that Syrians can safely stay in their country.
Trump has never given details as to how he would actually set up such safe zones, nor has he made them a policy priority for his administration. His administration’s foreign policy approach towards Syria is still largely incoherent, and he is still looking to ban Syrian refugees from the United States.
You can see ThinkProgress’ full data set and links to the lawmakers’ statements here.
The list of the lawmakers who support both a version of the Muslim ban and the airstrikes — the vast majority of whom couched their support in terms of humanitarian outrage — is as follows:
Alabama
Sen. Richard Shelby
Sen. Luther Strange
Rep. Bradley Byrne
Rep. Roger Aderholt
Alaska
Sen. Dan Sullivan
Rep. Don Young
Arizona
Sen. John McCain
Rep. Martha McSally
Rep. Andy Biggs
Rep. Trent Franks
Arkansas
Sen. John Boozman
Sen. Tom Cotton
Rep. French Hill
Rep. Steve Womack
Rep. Bruce Westerman
California
Rep. Doug LaMalfa
Rep. Kevin McCarthy
Rep. Steve Knight
Rep. Ed Royce
Rep. Ken Calvert
Rep. Darrell Issa
Rep. Paul Cook
Colorado
Sen. Cory Gardner
Rep. Doug Lamborn
Florida
Rep. Matt Gaetz
Rep. Dennis Ross
Rep. Vern Buchanan
Rep. Brian Mast
Rep. Francis Rooney
Rep. Neal Dunn
Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart
Rep. Carlos Curbelo
Rep. Ted Yoho
Rep. John Rutherford
Georgia
Sen. David Perdue
Sen. Johnny Isakson
Rep. Buddy Carter
Rep. Barry Loudermilk
Rep. Drew Ferguson
Rep. Doug Collins
Illinois
Rep. Mike Bost
Rep. Rodney Davis
Rep. Darin LaHood
Indiana
Rep. Jackie Walorski
Rep. Todd Rokita
Rep. Luke Messer
Rep. Larry Bucshon
Iowa
Sen. Chuck Grassley
Rep. Rod Blum
Rep. Steve King
Kansas
Rep. Roger Marshall
Kentucky
Rep. Andy Barr
Louisiana
Sen. John N. Kennedy
Rep. Steve Scalise
Rep. Clay Higgins
Rep. Mike Johnson
Rep. Ralph Abraham
Rep. Garret Graves
Maine
Sen. Susan Collins
Rep. Bruce Poliquin
Maryland
Rep. Andy Harris
Michigan
Rep. Jack Bergman
Rep. Paul Mitchell
Rep. David Trott
Rep. Tim Walberg
Mississippi
Rep. Trent Kelly
Missouri
Sen. Roy Blunt
Rep. Vicky Hartzler
Rep. Sam Graves
Montana
Sen. Steve Daines
Nebraska
Sen. Deb Fischer
Rep. Jeff Fortenberry
Rep. Don Bacon
New Jersey
Rep. Frank LoBiondo
Rep. Tom MacArthur
Rep. Chris Smith
Rep. Leonard Lance
New York
Rep. Lee Zeldin
Rep. John Faso
Rep. Peter King
Rep. Claudia Tenney
Rep. Tom Reed
Rep. John Katko
Rep. Chris Collins
North Carolina
Sen. Thom Tillis
Rep. Ted Budd
Rep. Mark Walker
Rep. David Rouzer
Ohio
Rep. Brad Wenstrup
Rep. Bill Johnson
Oklahoma
Sen. Jim Inhofe
Rep. Tom Cole
Pennsylvania
Sen. Pat Toomey
Rep. Lou Barletta
Rep. Lloyd Smucker
Rep. Mike Kelly
Rep. Scott Perry
Rep. Bill Shuster
South Carolina
Sen. Lindsey Graham
Rep. Joe Wilson
Rep. Jeff Duncan
South Dakota
Rep. Mike Rounds
Tennessee
Sen. Bob Corker
Sen. Lamar Alexander
Rep. Phil Roe
Rep. Jimmy Duncan
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann
Rep. Diane Black
Rep. David Kustoff
Texas
Rep. Louie Gohmert
Rep. Kay Granger
Rep. Jodey Arrington
Rep. Ted Poe
Rep. Lamar S. Smith
Rep. Pete Olson
Rep. Roger Williams
Rep. Michael Burgess
Rep. Blake Farenthold
Rep. Pete Sessions
Rep. Brian Babin
Rep. John Ratcliffe
Rep. Jeb Hensarling
Rep. John Culberson
Rep. Kevin Brady
Utah
Sen. Orrin Hatch
Rep. Chris Stewart
Rep. Jason Chaffetz
Rep. Mia Love
Virginia
Rep. Rob Wittman
Rep. Scott Taylor
Rep. Dave Brat
Washington
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers
West Virginia
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito
Rep. David McKinley
Rep. Alex Mooney
Wisconsin
Sen. Ron Johnson
Rep. Paul Ryan
Rep. Glenn Grothman
Wyoming
Rep. Liz Cheney