Barack Obama: “We call on President Asad to change course now and heed the calls of his own people.”

I’m going to insist that we can do better than we’re doing right now.

It is a basic principle of American democracy that the government can’t selectively target individuals simply because of their political beliefs or what they say.

And I will fight for that, even if I don’t always think it’s going to win.

A drift towards extremism was "not inevitable