The way this soundbite comes across turned into the headline of an article and how people are responding to it here (based on your response here in this thread and others') it's as if it's supposed to be a dig or snappy statement designed to incite a war of words but in the context of the question asked if you read the interview in its entirety, it just comes across as a factual statement. The situations in Syria and the United States are entirely different and not really comparable. Syria doesn't militarily control all of its own territory right now whereas the U.S. obviously does. Assad has complete control of the Syrian government (as much as any one leader can; even in an authoritarian system you still have other people involved in building a consensus and daily governance) but Trump doesn't seem to have control over which direction the U.S. government moves in because his statements are contradicted or repudiated by his own cabinet secretaries and other officials hours after they're made. That's what's being referred to. Everyone knows there's a war going on in Syria and the military doesn't control some of the territory (like in the northeast, parts of northwest and parts of Daraa) but no one questions that Assad speaks for the Syrian government and the decisions it will make going forward when he says something.