Washington, D.C. – On Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom” today, Chairman Royce backed the administration’s decision to warn Syria’s Bashar al-Assad not to move forward with another chemical weapons attack, saying “the goal is… to save lives.”  Video and key excerpts below.

The administration is right to warn the Assad regime against using chemical weapons.

“[W]e want to send a strong message – do not bomb your people and do not drop these chemical weapons – and a reminder that we will be firm if they do… And the goal here…is to send them the message in advance not to do it in order to save lives… I think that’s a strong message to send in advance by our Ambassador Nikki Haley and by this administration.”

The United States should do what it can to prevent another chemical attack in Syria.

“[I]t’s in our national security interests, in my view, to take what steps we can to prevent them from using chemical attacks again. [W]e’re in that theater with some special operations people taking down ISIS, something we have to do because ISIS has been carrying out attacks around the world – so the sooner they’re taken out the better. In the middle of this, we have Assad once again toying with the idea of dropping chemical weapons. I don’t know another alternative other than putting him on notice that if he does it, his capacity to do it again will be taken out in terms of another squadron removed from the field.”