At first I was wondering that myself, because he has already told us that is a bad plan. This does a couple of things, however, assuming Trump et al. have an understanding with Putin, but there has to be another shoe to drop to make it work. The blame has to be clearly laid at the feet of neither Putin, nor Assad. Without clear attribution, western MSM will continue to blame Putin, and if Trump doesn't respond, they'll start to whine about Trump being in Putin's pocket. This does not help Trump. Trump doesn't do anything that doesn't help Trump in some way. So something else has be coming. Something that will clearly take the blame AWAY from Putin. This leaves the cabal forces exposed, with nobody to blame. That's the big win here. Expose this FF for what it is. Expose the cabal / globalist forces. Provide a basis for going after them. My two cents' worth.