major escalation. now, teheran is filing revenge from a crushing response . are we at a start of the next middle eastern war? we'll explain who was general qasem soleimani, and examine the complex ties between iran, iraq and america. we'll discuss trump's decision to kill soleimani. the consequences in the middle east. finally, how to get ahead in the 2020? people say to become a specialist, the research suggests the opposite. an eye opening conversation with david epstein. >> but, first here is my take.

>> just when i thought i was out. they pulled me back in. >> "god father iii" of never being able to escape his family business. it could be said about america's entae entanglement in the middle east. donald trump came into office firmly committed to the bipartisan consensus that the u.s. had wasted more than a decade and untold blood and treasure in the middle east. meanwhile the country had neglected its own problems like its crumbling infrastructure and forgotten working class and foreign policy, washington should have been focused on the real challenge of rising competitors in china. yet, here we are a few years later, the old conflict is still not resolved, moving towards military escalation in the middle east again. qasem soleimani, an enemy of the united states. a man direct his forces to

battle against our troops. the trump administration was justified in targeting him but why has it placed itself in a situation where for two years now it has been continually ratcheting up tensions in the most volatile part of the world. what american interests are being served by this strategy? what is its goal? trump's policy toward iran has been from the start marked by ideology and emotion rather than strategic sense. he inherited a manageable situation, tehran's march toward a nuclear arsenal had been stopped. every outside intelligence agency including israel concluded that iran was abiding by the nuclear agreement. that challenge america and its allies remained. trump withdrew the agreement and tightened the economic noose around iran and designated the

revolutionary guards as terrorists. this maximum pressure campaign seemed gears toward nothing less than regime change in tehran. a goal trump denies. with the skilling of general soleimani, any prospect of a new nuclear deal or any negotiations with the iranians has evaporated. washington has expanded hostilities with no clear objective or end point. in january 2007 when george w. bush sending thousands of more troops into iran, i happened to be having lunch with a well connected chinese friend. i asked his opinion of the escalation. his response, we would hope that you would send the entire american army into iraq and stay for another ten years. meanwhile, we, china, would keep building up our economy. it is easy to get into another conflict into the middle east. the place is unstable. there are a lot of real bad guys and many of the locals want america to come in and fight their battles for them.

getting dragged back and getting into other people's flaws and losing another decade as china marches on, that's the short aspect to america's strategic decline. let's get started. to begin to understand the significance of this killing, we need to understand who soleimani was. we need to understand the history of the relations between iran, iraq and america. to do all that, i could not think of no better guests, bali, the dean of advance national studies at johns hopkins, he's a scholar of international relations and islam. bali was born in teheran. dexter in 2013 he wrote what i

think is the best profile of qasem soleimani. dexter, explain and you know people talked about soleimani, revered in the country and regarded by the united states as a terrorist, why did he have this central role in iran? what is the nature of iran's regional influence that the military guy who ends up the single most important guy, who directs all these operations. >> soleimani is a product above all was a product of the iran/iraq war which was catastrophic event for iran. and when that war ended in the late 1980s, they set out the iranians set out to make sure this never happens again. that establish client stay across the region. hezbollah and lebanon and assad

regime essentially ensure they have strategic depth. that vision they have been executing for 30 years and soleimani was effective in doing that. >> he had ties with militias in these countries so those people can act on iran's behalf. >> yes, indeed. the kind of the rescue of the assad regime is a perfect example to fall in 2012 and 2013. the iranians came to the rescue and brought in militia to do it. hezbollah and the iraqi militias, they all came in and saved assad at soleimani's direction. >> is iran's policy in this regard, we keep hearing all the regional activities, does it feel to you offensive or defensive? >> i think it is both. it is in the eye of the be

holder. in the view of iran, it does not have the technologically advance military. it spends less on arms than israel or turkey. it is afraid of the united states, it sees itself in a hostile environment and it looks at these militias essentially as its missile systems or anti-missile systems, for instance, hezbollah as a deterrence against israeli attack on iran. but in the eyes of the arabs, in the eyes of israel what iran sees as defensive is offensive. iranians after the war, they decided they would never be settle with iraq unless iraq is under control. the out united states did them the favor. iran is using this opportunity to make sure iraq is neutralized and would never again be a threat to iran. i want to add other things that dexter says that soleimani was

iran's chief diplomat in the region. soleimani met president of iraq and president of afghanistan. he met with putin and persuaded russia and to enter the war in syria. he had a broad relationship in the region. he was instrumental in putting together multiple iraqi governments. >> that raises the question, charles de gaulle once said the graveyards are filled with indispensable people. is soleimani genuinely indispensable or are the ties ties that are very deep and will persist? >> they'll persist. i think one of the clerics when asaul was teetering said this is about 2013, if assad falls, we can't hold tehran.

it is that important to them. they'll carry on. is soleimani indespensible? it is a body blow to the regime. i don't think he's replaceable in the short-term. will somebody come into fill in the gaps? probably overtime but they are suffering right now. >> when we talk about, it is important to look at this from the other side's perspective. when we talk about the fact that he has blood on his hands, american blood, absolutely true. and from the american's point of view, clearly a terrorist, i remember being in iraq in '03 and '04 and '05. people would say, well, you know, people, look, remember, we are killing your guys, but you are killing us. in other words, this is a war. soleimani directing people who were trying to kill his guys. >> you know he was the executer of iran's strategy, much like

let's say pakistan generals are executer of pakistan strategy and afghanistan and by many accounts they have american blood of sorts on their hands as well. he was given a remanence by the iranian leadership to make the united states uncomfortable in iraq and make sure the u.s. does not stay, make sure the u.s. gets out and he executed that. and yes, it is bloody but it would not have been any different if he is the commander of the force. that's why it is complicated the reaction in shea or iraq and iran is different outside of iran or the united states looking in. >> stay with us. next on "gps," we'll talk on how

iran and iraq are more than neighbors. they share a long common history, they are now closely allies. we'll talk about that when we come back. most people think of verizon as a reliable phone company. but to businesses, we're a reliable partner. we keep companies ready for what's next. (man) we weave security into their business. (second man) virtualize their operations. (woman) and build ai customer experiences. (second woman) we also keep them ready for the next big opportunity. like 5g. almost all of the fortune 500 partner with us. (woman) when it comes to digital transformation... verizon keeps business ready. you have a brother in the seyes sir.talion? they're walking into a trap. your orders are to deliver a message calling off tomorrows attack. if you fail, we will lose sixteen hundred men. your brother among them. we need to keep moving. i can't see! you keep hold of me! come on! what the hell are you doing lance corporal?

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book as the sheer revival. explain what the sheer revival is and explain how it plays into iran's relationship with iraq. >> the shia are minorities. there is a large portion of that population in the middle east and lebanon and iraq and across the persian gulf, after the iraq war in particular, there was this shift in power in iraq away, the shea and this sort of created within the middle east between the sunnis, who wielded power and the shiites who are the rising force. and iran took advantage of this in building relations in iraq and strengthen its relations in lebanon and bahrain and pakistan essentially creating now of what we called the crescent. importantly, the shia minorities in these countries, there was a

case of the tail wagging the dog as well. they looked to iran to help them empower. the shias in iraq also took advantage of iran to consolidate their power. in that scenario, soleimani became very important. he was the military relationship between iran and shia communities. part of his popularity among shia arabs and some iranians is the fact that the insurgency in iraq, the war in syria, and the rise of isis were seen as sunni assaults on shias. so he's credited with protecting -- he's credited in protecting iraq and taken over by isis at the moment there were no army. he sees it as a savior. many iranians thought he protected the shia shrines from isis. the backdrop to the entire

soleimani is the ongoing situation in the region. >> i was talking to an iraqi politician who said to me, you americans, you have influence in the region because you can bomb, you are a great fire power, the iranians have influence because they have local partners with deep credibility like hezbollah in lebanon and they have ties to these communities. it is a much more, what he was trying to say is a bottom up kind of influence. >> they're right down the street. and in iraq, the iranians have basically operated into a certain extent directed and created the shiite militias, very effective in fighting against isis, very effective in fighting against the united states. they also act as political actors in the political system. it is this hybrid that we don't have in the west, which is

basically political parties with guns. these are really important players which are in iraq which are deeply connected to iran. >> i want to ask you about how you think they're going to respond, the iranians given everything we have discussed? we just heard the prime minister has asked to essentially kick the americans out. if this happens, the iranians may view it as the death of soleimani. this has been their longest standing goal to get the americans out of iraq ever since 2002. >> iranians have to do something symbolic. in order to save face inside and outside iran that they didn't take soleimani's blow without responding to it. i think the longer term is now iran is viewing the united states as a threat than it was before.

particularly president trump has shown that he can cross red lines on and on that nobody thought. maximum economic pressure and now he's going to carry out audacious assassinations. the iranians would like the united states to lead starting with iraq and pakistan and then trying to draw a wedge between america's allies in the persian gulf and the united states who are very worried about conflict. we have a situation where the iranians using any chaos in the region. certain stability was necessary for them. i think they would push and push and use massive industry in addition to parliament. i think if they get the united states out of iraq, it is a huge victory and that would make it difficult for us to sustain the presence. >> when we talk about other american allies, at some level,

the united states gotten dragged in saudi arabia and iran for regional influence. and it feels to me like what's interesting in this soleimani, the saudis have been restrained. they haven't crowed about this, even when the iranian attack on the oil facilities took place. they seemed to be, they want stability. this is even for the saudis is too much stability. >> they are nervous that things are getting out of control. what if they sank an oil tanker tomorrow? that would cripple the economy of the whole region. so the saudis don't want that. >> do you think and when you talk to people, when researching the profile of soleimani. do you think that people thought he was a potential success?

it struck me as far fetched. >> i think it is a far stretch. i think he's the second most powerful man in the country. he was in an ideal position, he had power. dexter and bali. a pleasure to have you guys. next on "gps," the threats and counterthreats flying back and forth between iran and america, we'll talk about the next moves with richard haass, and peter binard. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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on saturday, iran's president rouhani said killing of general soleimani was a grave mistake and that america would face the consequences for years. then saturday night, president trump tweeted threats to iran saying america's military is the biggest and by far the best in the world, gist spent $2 trillion on military equipment and went on, if americans were attacked by iran, he wouldn't hesitate to attack, he said he had 52 iranian targets ready in places important to iran and the iranian culture. they would be hit very fast and hard. so where does this all go?

megan, deputy national security advisor. in charge of iraq and afghanistan during the george w. bush administration. she's now at harvard. richard haus and peter binard definitely did not work for george w. bush. he's a journalist and a contributor to the atlantic and the cnn. megan, you know in some sense considering all the options with iran and never shows this option killing soleimani. why? >> i think any administration looking at this -- i think it is safe to say that previous administrations thought there would be a counterterrorism benefit no doubt this person is -- we're better off without him. but that had to be evaluated in the context of all of the risks

that come along with it. it is not just the risks to the u.s./iran relationship and the confrontation there, it is the risk to u.s. posture in the region, the risk to u.s. and afghanistan, the risk to broader american goals and bringing more u.s. power forces, diplomatic assets to the middle east at a time when even the trump administration acknowledged in its national security strategy that the real threats to american interests are in russia and in china. how does that compare to how bush and obama may have seen the benefits. the benefits are on the counterterrorism front for sure. soleimani was a critical person as your previous panel discussed. i'm concerned the trump administration might have assessed -- might have made this decision based on an assessment about a certain kind of weakness want iranian regime.

we have noted that they have certainly said they're not for regime change. the idea that iranian regime may be at a critical point under severe economic sanctions and widespread protest in iran maybe the trump administration thought that this was a gamble it would have a much bigger pay off from removing soleimani. >> that seems at least the 35 years of iranian regime is about to collapse. >> there is not a lot of iranian experts who would agree of the analysis that the iranian regime is to collapse. it is true it is in a fragile state. this kind of action, my assessment would be that it is more likely to consolidate the iranian regime than it is to be a final blow or it is going to break it up in any way. this will allow the iranians to unify. soleimani was a revere figure in iran and other parts of the middle east.

>> if i think about the short term consequences when people say well, short term is good, even in the short term it consolidated power in iran and weakened america's position in iraq. one way to think about this was one month ago. antiregime protest and antiiran protest in baghdad. today they are anti-americans. >> totally changed the narrative inside of iraq and all of those people celebrating when american troops coming home from iraq. they should have taken a deep breath and think of the crisis there. iraq as we see has been the hotbed of terrorism. americans in the region and our friends in the regions are likely to be threatened in parts of the country that our government would not be able to police on its own.

i want to take your issue of your pick after being invited back on your show. i think strategically what you said is exactly right but the emphasis here is total at odds with the fact that we have to think about china, north korea, it is not that we got pulled into the middle east. this administration broke the 2015 nuclear deal. we slap sanctions on iran but don't give them a offer up. now we introduced military forces as well as if though we decided we want to escalate the u.s./iranian confrontation. the administration did not inherit an impossible situation. it was tolerable in the region and it was obviously desirable given everything ols on our plate, even donald trump. the last i check, he talks about america's first.

it makes no sense to given his own likes that he wanted to put a greater focus at home and greater focus on great power rivalry. this suggests total absence of any syria strategic discipline and it is impossible for me to understand how this could have happened. you feel like i am being unfair. >> the question why. why has trump and pompeo been so obsessed with this idea? i think megan alluded to something that is important, there does seem to be behind this a belief that you just push hard enough and the whole iranian regime will collapse. >> there are certainly people who would like ultimately to produce a war in the united

states bomb iran and set back its nuclear program. there are people around washington would like that. donald trump made believe that he could do that one day or send out tweets as he did with north korea, a couple of years ago and pull back and be friends the next day. this is not a guy who tends to think about the consequences of anything he does. in some ways the most remarkable part of all of this, if there is one instinct that you would think donald trump understands is nationalism. nationalism is the defiing instinct. it gives so little ability to imagine nationalism of other people. we took an iraqi national and we focus in iran. an iranian national growing against its own state and turning both of its nationalism against us. to say we'll attack iranian cultural sites. can this man not imagine how americans would react if a

foreign power, how we hate our leadership. said they were going to bomb the statue of liberty and mount rushmore. i mean, it is actually insane. >> you do get the feeling of richard's point that there is a lack of process. from the reports we get from deciding to do this the last minute and the pentagon was surprised, he's going to bomb these sites and did not go through national security process. do you worry given how volatile things are and it is all done by one man. >> certainly, it is concerning. if the reports are right that these decisions were made a few days before it was executed and it was made to the surprise of trump's national security team. if that's the case going back to richard's point, it is in conceivable that the appropriate

process could have been in place that people could have thought of all the implications again and not just for u.s./iran relations but u.s. in the middle east. the peace process in afghanistan that iran has already been a spoiler in. all the implications would not take in my mind, weeks of analysis, building contingency plans and preparing partners and allies so we would not get what we saw today. i was going to say the fact that he was supporting a bill who withdraw american troops. that both of those were critical of the u.s. presence in iraq is a dramatic change from where things have been over the last 16 or 17 years. in order for us to be adequately prepared, it would have taken much more than one meeting or

even several days. >> stay with us, next on "gps," what kind of new president does the killing of soleimani set, what kind of pandora box did it open? a provocative headline in the times of india asks, if iranian general can be drawn for terrorism, why not a pakistan general. is that the new world? we'll discuss when we come back. ♪ $12.99 all you can eat now with boneless wings. only at applebee's.

we are back with megan and

richard and peter. peter, what do you think of this of the president putting on these drone strikes. if it is okay for the united states to do this, surely the indian ares right, why can't they drone a pakistani general with blood on his hands, why can't the chinese do it if they believe there is a uighur terrorist, you know, which they will claim certainly whether or not it is true, why could the burmese government not do it with rohingyas and so on? >> there was bogus claims this was preemptive self-defense. the idea is because americans are such angels we can be trusted with this power, essentially a lawless power outside of international law. also basically outside of domestic law since there was no congressional approval for this,

we're going on authorizations passed two decades ago and then say, but, no, you rest of the world can't do this because you don't have our higher nobility. we saw what happened in crimea and the way the russians justified that after u.s. behavior. this sets a tone for the entire world and it is not a promise in the world and it is not going to make the world a better place. >> we have not been shown any evidence. not even been alluded to in terms of specifics that suggest the strike was preemptive, that there were actual plots. in the past when this happened, we have been given details. is it fair to say particularly given the president's credibility problem, i mean, he has told many, many falsehoods that it is probably not true that there was an imminent threat that there were actual plots that were being averted by this strike? >> i am not in the position to say that it is not true.

under virtually any circumstances that i can imagine that immediate steps of the administration took action so dramatic would be to go to our allies and share the intelligence would be able to make the case to others why this was absolutely necessary at this moment and in the space. again, this is in a third country and why it had to be done at this time. the fact that we have not seen that is very worrying. not only because it makes us question, was there really intelligence that would have given this some kind of legitimate justification. not just a moral justification. it suggests to me that the trump administration is going to fall short on the diplomatic political, all the other tools of engagement, what ever the

next term may be. how well this go to the united states and our partners and allies depend on how we work with our allies which have every reasons to be nervous about what comes next. working with the europeans or talking with the asians, all of this should be part and parcel of any plan to take out such a significant figure. and, again, he wasn't a nonstate actor, hiding out in some ungoverned territory. he was a senior government official of iran. >> we are talking about this larger dynamic. we have gotten ourselves involved in saudi arabia's rivalry with iran, the saudis now seem quiet. how is this going to play out? there is a big composition right now that the position in iraq is threatening. beyond that, what do you think will happen? >> it is going to play out in two ways.

this has been part of the world where the united states essentially devoted a disproportionate percentage of its resources and time, the question is why do we want to continue it. does anyone think this is where the 21st century is going to be decided? we are talking about 4% of the world's population, other than proliferation, terrorism, this is not a part of the world that's great. this reenforces the strategic era. we are seeing the trump administration equivalent of what george w. bush did in iraq. this san ill advised policy of choice to make iran so central. truly misguided. i think now it also takes place against the backdrop of much greater doubt about american reliability, the way the united states threw the kurds under the bus, the fact we did this unilaterally in some ways to the

iraqis rather than with the iraqis, the saudis felt abandoned when their refinery was hit. and the previous administration had its own unpredictability in egypt, syria, the united states is no longer seen as a reliable, predictable partner. what that suggests to me, we're increasingly in a middle east where other actors, countries and others, will take matters into their own hands and in many cases they're going to disregard american interests. they're going to do things where they say, hey, maybe we need nuclear weapons, we can't count on the united states, we're going to go to war or cut this deal. so the problem is, we still have interests in this region, but we have now truly mishandled them. i think in the narrow of the region and also globally this will come back to bite us. >> 30 seconds, israel, how do you think this will play in israel? >> look, i think benjamin netanyahu will be happy about this and hawkish as the great

adversary. for netanyahu, the escalation of threats as he goes into another election tries to get immunity is probably good for him. more sober national security officials will say does america have a strategy, do we actually want to get into a regional war in which hezbollah and lebanon could be activated in all of northern israel could be evacuated against? sober minds will say donald trump is taking israel to a dangerous place. >> fascinating conversation, thank you, all, very much. we will naturally be back on this. a quick programming note, before the next segment, tune in to cnn at 10:00 p.m. tonight to see my cnn special report presidents on trial, an inside look at impeachment. now, next on "gps," how to get ahead in business. is it better to focus on one skill or better to be a generalist? you can imagine what i think. find out what the research tells us when we come back.

the prevailing wisdom for success is pick a field and stick to it. practice makes perfect after all. from exceptional athletes to exceptional violinists, people are advised to find a specialty. but my next guest david epstein says we've got it all wrong. the best path to success is to explore widely and even fail. he's the author of the recent book "rage:why generals triumph in a specialized world." i love this idea because of course i think of myself as a jack of all trades, in your elevated a generalist. why is -- we often heard all about how actually it is very important to have a passion, to work 10,000 hours at things, why is it okay to be a jack of all trades? >> i think there is sort of two reasons, the first is that as the world becomes more

specialized, experts specialized experts who are still in important are seeing a smaller and smaller portion of the whole picture. so these opportunities for generalists to synthesize information in technology, in science, in politics are greater than they have ever been before. and secondly when we specialize too early, we miss out on our best -- what economists call match quality, the degree of fit between interests and abilities and the work you do. it is important for both your motivation and your productivity to maximize that match quality and need a period of sampling of different things to try to maximize that. >> that's an important point you say that in order to figure out what you are good at, you can do it theoretically, can't imagine what you think -- you can't even do it by just studying something. you actually have to engage in the -- have to try out stuff and what do you call it, the learned experience is better. >> that's exactly right. we learn who we are in practice, not in theory, as one of the researchers i talked to says. what she means is that we can't

just introspect and decide what we're good at or what we might like. our insight into ourselves is constrained by a roster of previous experiences. we learn we are in practice by trying things, reflecting and zigzagging accordingly until we find a place where we alone can succeed and feel fulfilled and through that zigzagging people tend to become broader and more like generalists. >> there is one part of this which i was surprised by, and it doesn't -- it doesn't seem to quite fit, but explain it, this air force academy example that you have. >> in education, so there was this incredible study at the air force academy where students go in, they have to take three math classes in succession and they're randomized to professor and the study was looking at the impact of professor quality and what these researchers found was that the way to produce the best immediate achievement which was to teach narrow specialized skills systematically undermines students for future classes.

>> are you saying that if you're good at something in the short run you pay a price in the long run. you say only in the short run what you are doing is getting that good performance by narrowing yourself down. >> that's right. and the quickest way to get improvement, whether it is a cognitive skill is to teach what is called closed skills or using procedures, you teach people specialized techniques for whatever they're doing, playing soccer or solving a math problem. to build a scaffolding where it becomes flexible, you want to teach making connections knowledge, where they have to draw together the broad concepts and instead of learning to just execute something, they learn how to match a strategy to a problem and it doesn't matter if it is a math problem, a geopolitical problem, or a soccer problem. and that's the fundamental basis >> you talk about it maybe an age where you need kind of continuous coaching no matter what it is you do. how would one achieve that? >> i think what we already have

gotten pretty good at inside the sports world, exampfor example, need to bring to other areas of work. we learn not in practice but in theory, and we have to act and then think, basically. you do things and then reflect on what they say about you and zig-zag accordingly instead of following the commencement speech of deciding who you'll be in 20 years. i think having a coach can really help you and remind you to reflect on what you've done as you try to optimize your own math quality. >> so life is a lot of trial and error. >> trial and error plus reflection. >> if you were to leave people with one piece of advice, what would it be? >> i think that sometimes the fastest way to become proficient in something undermines your long-term development. so before your eyes progress can often make you very good at a specialized task, but nowadays

tasks that are specialized are in danger of getting audited. we've gone from the industrial economy to the auto economy to the critical economy, you have to learn to do things and that's a slow process of learning where you have to build these conceptual models. >> and you believe that's true even in the world of technology? a lot of people feel that the hottest place to be is to be in technology, which is often quite narrow. coding is a very narrow business. >> i didn't know, but then i looked at the research in this, and what it shows that, for example, in studies of millions of patents, the technological innovators who make the biggest impacts are not the ones who have drilled down the deepest but the ones who have spread their work across a number of different technological classifications, according to the patent office. those are the people that can solve the problems that we don't even know exist yet, basically. >> you have a four-month-old. when he or she becomes old enough for you to start instructing him or her, what will you do?

>> i'm going to do exactly what i said, which is i'm going to expose them to a lot of different things. if my kid wants to specialize, that's fine, but all these tales of prodigies like tiger woods and mozart, their parents were exposing them to their interest, not the other way, so i will expose my child to all different things so he can find his match quality. >> david epstein, thank you for being here. >> thank you for having me back. >> reporter: we will be right back. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ fine, no one leaves the tablefine, we'll sleep here.

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for the first time the bureau of economic analysis has published gdp data for the united states' 3,113 counties. from america's least productive county, tiny sequena in mississippi to the sprawling los angeles county in california, the data prints the outlook of each and every one of these subdivision of states. it brings me to my question this week. in 2018, america's 31 most productive counties, basically the top 1% of counties, were responsible for what share of

gdp? 11%, 17%, 25% or 32%? stay tuned and we'll tell you the correct answer. my book of the week is jason deparle's "a good provider is one who leaves." he moved into the slums with his family. it tells the larger tale of what it all means. his empathy, intelligence and good writing shine through every page. the answer to my gps challenge is d. 31 counties accounted for nearly one-third of the nation's gdp. take a look at this map. together these counties make up a tiny part of the map geographically. it makes urban counties the primary engines of economic

growth. so while it's true the economy is growing, only pockets of the nation are gaining significantly from that growth while the rest are lagging behind. the b, economic data, adds new dimension to the rural divide. trump won about 2,076 counties, dwarfing the county count of roughly 500. still clinton won the popular vote by nearly 3 million. in 2015, 500 counties generated 2,000 of the country's gdp. the gdp is up in the counties that voted for trump, but clinton's outward counties still grew most of all. it could make for another surprising election vote in 2020. thanks to all of you for being part of the program this week. i will see you next week.

hello, everyone. top of the hour. i want to welcome our viewers here in the u.s. and around the world. i'm fredricka whitfield. thank you so much for joining me this sunday. right now tensions are intensifying in the middle east. three days after a u.s. drone strike killed top iranian commander qasem soleimani, just moments ago iran announced it will continue uranium enrichment in an about-face to the nuclear agreement. this is in reference to the u.s. strike. u.s. tolerance seems to be wavering. this moment the parliament outlined a plan