CNN's State of the Union host Jake Tapper reminded Sen. Tim Kaine (D., Va.) Sunday that a year ago he called President Obama's Syrian policy "a joke."
Kaine, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, shredded Obama's much-derided plan to train Syrian rebels, which ended up being a $500 million boondoggle that even Vox.com called a failure.
"In Syria, the strategy’s a joke," Kaine said last October on a radio show. "You know, we do these one-off actions like try to train 30 people and put them back into a roiling civil war involving millions. No surprise, they get swallowed up in the civil war, killed or captured or defect immediately."
Tapper asked Kaine if he still felt that way, but Kaine said the U.S. had "dramatically improved" in the past year, citing the Islamic State's ceding of territory.
Kaine added that the incident a day earlier, where a U.S. airstrike targeting ISIS fighters also accidentally killed Syrian military personnel, was regrettable. He added, however, that the existence of ISIS was due in large part to the Syrian war against its own citizens being waged by Bashar al-Assad.
"Russia's always had the ability to mandate a cease fire because they're there in Syria," he said. "They're Syria's chief backer. We hope that Russia will stick to the table, stick to the ceasefire agreement, because that's what's necessary to solve this humanitarian crisis."