NBC晚间新闻 随着奥巴马试图获得行动的支持，压力陡升。

Pressure mounts as Obama tries to gather support for strikes

随着奥巴马试图获得行动的支持，压力陡升。

President Obama said the Syrian government crossed the world’s red line and now some believe he should take his case directly to the American people. NBC’s Chuck Todd reports.

奥巴马总统说叙利亚政府触碰了世界的红线，现在有些人相信她应该直接将他的理由告诉美国人民。NBC的Chuck Todd报道。

While critics tend to be more vocal¹ than supporters in this, and we just saw some of that, all of this is adding pressure on the president to take his case directly to the American people, even as he takes the case to the world stage. tonight he's in Sweden where he said today it wasn't just him drawing this so-called red line on chemical weapons. Our chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd traveling with the president tonight. Chuck, good evening.

reporter: Good evening, Brian. Well, the pressure on the president to speak publicly in some sort of official form primetime address, oval office style address to the nation is the pressure coming from democrats², from republicans, from leadership on the hill, from outside supporters of the president. All of them saying if you want congress to do this, you've seen the polls, Mr. President. you're gonna have to make this case yourself. If anything simply to give political cover to a bunch of house democrats. a lot of them got elected on being anti-war, anti-Iraq, and if they are going to do this for the president, they want the cover from him explaining it to the American people, and one of those explanations has to do, of course, with this red line, and today here in Sweden the president redefined what he meant by his red line. take a listen.

I didn't set a red line. The world set a red line. The world set a red line when governments representing 98% of the world's population said the use of chemical weapons are abhorrent³ and passed a treaty forbidding their use, even when countries are engaged in war. Congress set a red line when it ratified⁴ that treaty.

reporter: The president is making the case that this is everybody's problem on Capitol Hill, everybody's problem in the world community, and, Brian, tomorrow, the president leaves for Russia where he's going to come face-to-face, if only briefly⁵, with the one man that has stood in the way of international cooperation on this, Vladamir Putin.

All right. Chuck Todd with the president tonight in Stockholm, Chuck, thanks.

1 vocal   

adj.直言不讳的；嗓音的；n.[pl.]声乐节目

参考例句：

• The tongue is a vocal organ.舌头是一个发音器官。
• Public opinion at last became vocal.终于舆论哗然。

2 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 abhorrent   

adj.可恶的，可恨的，讨厌的

参考例句：

• He is so abhorrent,saying such bullshit to confuse people.他这样乱说，妖言惑众，真是太可恶了。
• The idea of killing animals for food is abhorrent to many people.许多人想到杀生取食就感到憎恶。

4 ratified   

v.批准，签认（合约等）( ratify的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The treaty was declared invalid because it had not been ratified. 条约没有得到批准，因此被宣布无效。
• The treaty was ratified by all the member states. 这个条约得到了所有成员国的批准。

5 briefly   

adv.简单地，简短地

参考例句：

• I want to touch briefly on another aspect of the problem.我想简单地谈一下这个问题的另一方面。
• He was kidnapped and briefly detained by a terrorist group.他被一个恐怖组织绑架并短暂拘禁。