KING: Susan Rice is the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. She's with us now from the White House.

Ambassador Rice, I know finally, a presidential statement from the Security Council yesterday. I'm holding it up. It's eight paragraphs long. You call it long overdue.

Isn't it also fair, though, to call it long on words and short on actions? There's no call for an investigation. There are no new sanctions. Why should President Assad care about this piece of paper?

SUSAN RICE, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.: Well, John, first of all, it was long overdue, but unanimous condemnation in clear-cut terms by the Security Council and all of its members of the violence perpetrated by the Syrian government against its own people. It took a long time to get this, in part because countries like Russia and China and others had been protecting Assad and making it impossible for the council to speak with one voice. That changed in the wake of the most appalling violence that we've seen today, and Assad who had been counting on the fact that his friends would protect him saw his friends, in fact, defect and join in a very forceful and strong condemnation.

KING: As you mentioned, the reluctance of China, the reluctance of Russia, you them agreed to this statement. But is this not a reflection of the limits of the powers of the Security Council, in the sense that, yes, they came around, yes, they agreed to this condemnation, but this statement calls for a Syrian-led political process to get to a resolution. Isn't that the fox guarding henhouse, you don't have any --

RICE: No. KING: -- confidence Bashar Assad is going to fix this, do you?

RICE: No, it doesn't say a Syrian government-led process. It says Syrian-led and that was quite deliberate because we agreed within the Security Council that indeed the people of Syria are the ones that have to chart their own future. By making the statement that we condemn the violence, that we condemn the actions of the government that it has to stop, that there has to be accountability, which was also a core element of the statement, we're making it clear that the people of Syria are in the driver's seat.

We have been very plain in the U.S. government that Assad has lost all legitimacy, that his time has passed. He is a man of the past, and that a future will be charted in Syria without him, and it will be the Syrian people who will do that.

KING: You say he is a man of the past. You have those words there. I want to listen to the White House Press Secretary Jay Carney who echoes them, and then I want to ask you a question on the other side. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAY CARNEY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Assad is on his way out, and as Ambassador Ford said, we all need to be thinking about the day after Assad, because Syria's 23 million citizens already are.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: That is a hope. It's an aspiration, not only for Ambassador Rice and President Obama, but for as Jay noted there, Syrians who have been bravely standing in the streets that are now being shot and run down by their own government.

Is there any evidence, Ambassador, any evidence at all, that President Assad feels enough heat to even think about stepping aside?

RICE: Well, he's certainly feeling more and more heat, John, with every day. The heat is coming in various forms. The economy is crumbling. The people of Syria are rising up in city after city, day after day, night after night, making plain that they are determined to forge a future of freedom and democracy and that that does not include Bashar Assad.

KING: And help us understand what additional sanctions you have at your disposal, the Europeans would have at their disposal. I want to read you -- one "New York Times" editorial today suggests this, "One idea is for the top consumers of Syrian oil, Germany, Italy, France and the Netherlands to stop buying it. The exports are small enough that a suspension would have little effect on world prices but would have a big impact on Damascus. There would be no new investments -- there should be no new investments in Syria's energy sector."

Can you convince your friends in Europe to do that? RICE: We think the financial sector, the energy sector, all forms of investments ought to be on the table for sanctions. We in the United States, as you know, John, already have a broad range of sanctions on Syria that, in fact, preceded the latest developments. We've intensified our sanctions and targeted them now so that Assad and those closest to him are among those facing the sanctions.

We added another major player today to our list of sanctions. He and his company, a Syrian parliamentarian and a major businessman is now -- a financier of the regime is now also on the sanctions list. But, yes, we are in conversations with our partners in Europe and elsewhere about the full range of additional measures that are at our disposal.

KING: What's the right word for it, Madam Ambassador, when you listened to the gentleman who braved even calling CNN to report what's going on -- snipers on the roof, tanks in the streets, three days of shelling before the tanks even come in, people being assassinated for simply standing up and saying I would like to have the right to free speech? What's the word for what President Assad is doing to his people?

RICE: It's a horrific. It's appalling. He's massacring his own people who are coming out simply to express themselves peacefully. It's absolutely unacceptable, appalling behavior and it deserves not only the condemnation but the full force of the international community, the pressure that it stop.

And what Assad is going to find out sooner rather than later is that these oppressive tactics don't work. They only inflame further frustration and aggravation and will only turn his people further and faster against him.

KING: Ambassador Susan Rice, appreciate your time tonight.

RICE: Thank you, John.

KING: Thank you.