Even as President Obama tries to turn U.S. attention to Asia, he cannot escape widening violence in the Middle East.
Chuck Todd talked to National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor about the escalating crisis in the Middle East on Monday.
Vietor repeated the president's full support of Israel, telling Todd "there's no country on Earth that would allow rocket fire indiscriminately into their country."
"Hamas started this conflict and they need to stop raining rocket fire down into Israeli population centers," he added.
Vietor also continued the administration's strong defense of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice. He denied the White House edited the talking points given to Rice that suggested al Qaeda may have been behind the terrorist attack in Libya.
"We made one edit; we changed consulate to 'diplomatic facility' for accuracy," he said. "But we didn't touch the fundamental assessment, that's not our job."