TRUE TO HIS WORD: In a speech that was crafted as carefully as the military action it announced, President Trump last night informed the nation and the world that his vow to make Syrian President Bashar Assad pay a price for his use of chemical weapons was not an empty gesture.

“Last Saturday, the Assad regime again deployed chemical weapons to slaughter innocent civilians — this time, in the town of Douma, near the Syrian capital of Damascus,” Trump said, calling the attack “a significant escalation in a pattern of chemical weapons use by that very terrible regime.” The death toll has been reported as more than 40, but Britain has said as many as 75 people died from chemical exposure.