[Sen. Tulsi Gabbard , Presidential Candidate:] There's trillions more dollars, so means meeting with a dictator or meeting with an adversary. Absolutely, I would do it.
[Anderson Cooper, Cnn:] Bashar al-Assad is a murderer and a torturer. Do you not agree with that?
[Gabbard:] I don't dispute that.
[Brianna Keilar, Cnn:] She's been criticized for not having sort of a full-throated condemnation of that, however. But again, here we have a moment that we didn't see on the debate stage, that might have been more effective on the debate stage.
[A.b. Stoddard, Associate Editor, Realclearpoltics:] Kamala Harris should have been ready for that. There's been a long-standing criticism of her record aside from Tulsi Gabbard. So she needed to be ready to defend her record on prosecutions of what other liberals believe are petty crimes. That's the first thing.
[Keilar:] But maybe she didn't think it would come from Gabbard, so she wasn't armed.
[Stoddard:] And she right. So she was surprised, and I should get out of the window.
[Wajahat Ali, Cnn Contributor:] She shouldn't have enough of surprise.
[Stoddard:] But she should have been ready for it to come from somebody.
[Ali:] She should have been ready.
[Stoddard:] Number one and number two, she should have been ready with her response about Assad. People were hoping that the moderators were going to ask about Tulsi Gabbard's relationship with Assad. And it is all over the internet today that the Russian bots are helping Tulsi Gabbard and going after Kamala Harris. And that Tulsi Gabbard refuses to condemn Assad because she's doing the work of the Russians and is going to run as a third-party spoiler and reelect Trump. There are serious knives out for Tulsi Gabbard. She didn't take anything last night.
[Ali:] Yes. And it was a huge mistake because you can simultaneously hold two positions at the same time. Tulsi Gabbard exposed Kamala Harris' troubling record as a prosecutor, which is very troubling to progressive voters. She did that, she was exposed. And that's going to make her vulnerable. At the same time, you can say that Tulsi Gabbard is a terrible candidate because of her promotion of Assad's talking points because she met Assad in secret, because to this day she has not called him out as a war criminal. It took Anderson three tries and the most he could get is, "I don't dispute that." In addition to the fact she's conflicted about torture. In addition to the fact that she, you know, it works with Hindu nationalists. In addition to the fact that MAGA seems to love her, I wonder why? And so that moment where Kamala Harris was after the fact talking to Anderson and took out Tulsi Gabbard, that should have been done on the debate stage. And if Gabbard is ever brought back on the debate stage again, this needs to be addressed. And you have to ask her, are you capable of actually critiquing Assad? And if you're so anti-war, how come you praise Russia's bombing of Syria, Tulsi?
[Keilar:] There you go, there's the question. Wajahat, A.B., thank you so much to both of you. Now, health care dominating the conversation at both debates but some of the candidates are having a hard time articulating their plans. The architect of Obamacare will join me next. And a rare and public rebuke after President Trump orders Navy officials to strip the medals of prosecutors who unsuccessfully tried a Navy SEAL for war crimes.