 On January 5, 2017, the United States House of Representatives voted 342-80 to condemn the UN Resolution.In 2012, Obama, who had previously demanded the resignation of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, said that the use of chemical weapons by the Assad government would be crossing a red line and would entail U.S. military action.After reports on 21 August 2013 about the usage of chemical weapons in Syria, the Obama administration formally blamed the incident on the Syrian government and sought Congressional approval for military action in Syria.