<p><em>See more in the <a href="http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2017/04/07/msnbcs-madd…; target="_blank">cross-post</a> on the NewsBusters blog.</em></p>
<p>MSNBC was in full spin mode Thursday night following the U.S. airstrikes in Syria, denouncing President Trump for an<strong> “awkward”</strong> speech and strikes that may not have been legal, but also chiding him for doing something that might embolden Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to retaliate by inflicting more pain on his own people.</p>
<p>Breaking news co-host Rachel Maddow contended that Assad’s Tuesday Sarin gas attack against his own people was <strong>“designed for an audience of one...to test this new President to see how he will behave in that region, in which case this has to have been anticipated as a potential response to what they did on Tuesday.”</strong></p>