In Bob Woodward's previous book, Fear, the journalist describes a scene from 2017 in which President Trump pushed then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis to "kill" Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after he launched a chemical attack on civilians. Mattis, Woodward reported, opted for a more measured approach in the end.
Trump responded at the time that assassinating Assad "was never even contemplated, nor would it be contemplated," while generally describing the book as "fiction."
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