talk about his views of the trump administration. washington journal is next. ♪ host: this is washington journal, january 4, in the first hour, we take your calls on the u.s. air strike that killed qasem soleimani. do you support or oppose the operation? if you want to support, (202)-748-8000 is the number to call. 8001.u oppose, (202)-748- if you are a veteran of the war in iraq, with your perspective on this development, (202)-748- 8002.

otherwise, text us at (202)-748- 8003. and on twitter @cspanwj facebook.com/cspan. yesterday, florida, president trump appeared to discuss the airstrike operation and what it means for the u.s. towe took action last night stop a war. we did not take action to start a war. i have deep respect for the iranian people. they are a remarkable people with an incredible heritage and unlimited potential. we do not seek regime change, however the regime's aggression in the region including the use of proxy fighters to destabilize neighbors must end now. the future belongs to the people of iran, those who seek peaceful

coexistence and cooperation, not the terrorists, warlords who plunder their nation to finance bloodshed abroad. the u.s. has the best military by far anywhere in the world. we have the best intelligence in the world. if americans anywhere are threatened, we have all those targets already fully identified and i am ready and prepared to take whatever action is necessary. that, in particular, refers to iran. host: that was from yesterday. we will show you more reaction, particularly members of congress. call and let us know your thoughts, if you support or oppose. (202)-748-8000 if you support. (202)-748-8001 if you oppose. iraq war veteran, (202)-748-

8002. of a second reported airstrike, usa today saying, the airstrike hit cars carrying iran backed militia. iraqi official saying cars were hit north of baghdad, one day after the attack on the general. five members of militia were killed. the identity of those killed were not immediately known. he spoke on condition of anonymity. this prompted a reaction from military. this is from the spokesman. saying the coalition did not conduct air sites strikes. the reaction of the airstrike

that killed the iranian general, we go to your calls. dean, louisville, kentucky, opposed. caller: good morning. i am republican, vietnam veteran. i feel like we are getting into too many wars. work, american soldiers got killed in iraq -- [indiscernible] -- the hurt veterans feel -- [indiscernible] fight for their country and come back, worried about, committing suicide. host: the operation specifically -- he hung up. alan in eastlake, ohio, supported. caller: i supported the effort. it is a good thing. iran has been on our backs for a while. americaho says death to

is going to find out we give out the death. host: jacksonville, florida, we have set aside a line for veterans of the iraq war. caller: yes. host: you are on. caller: thank you. i served both wars, iraq, afghanistan. unfortunately, what we see, people want to go to war. believe,populace, i less than 1% that served in the military, if i am not mistaken and people want to go to war. they want to pound their chests. bring back the draft. host: where did you serve in iraq? caller: what did you say? host: where did you serve? caller: i was in the navy.

ctr. host: tell me about the specific operation that took place. did you support or oppose it? caller: i salute. just because you may not support it, i still believe, you know, you are given orders, you salute, you serve. you know, i signed up. i volunteered. i signed up. i put my right hand up and said, i will go. clarify, you did not support it? caller: personally. you know, just because i personally did not believe in what we were doing there, doesn't mean -- i put my right hand up. into the military. it is a voluntary thing. i signed up. when i was given orders, i went

and supported. host: ok. veterans for their perspective on the operation that took place and reaction from it. facebook, you can participate in asking if youoll, support or oppose the action. some of the reaction. arthur kelly off of facebook saying "it could have been done in so many other ways." "stronglyinois, supports any time a preemptive strike can save american lives, i am in favor of it." "the world is laughing at president trump. qasem soleimani was on no one's list. he was a lackey." bill on twitter saying the attacks were a way of distracting from the impeachment inquiry. "that is how far we have

fallen." a couple ways you can reach us on social media, twitter, facebook, text from your phone, (202)-748-8003. all we ask is you include your name, city and state. from the opinion pages. new york times. part of reaction.

host: if you go to the wall street journal. host: that is the take from the editors of the wall street journal. curtis, chicago, illinois,

opposed the effort. caller: good morning, america and c-span. you cannot trust the trump administration. they said they would never agree with any until. -- entail. now it is so imminent they trust it. they didn't trust it against the saudi prince. backnow, the saudi's, they the sunnis. they killed plenty americans. this is something going on, putin, his weapons done killed plenty americans. people,-un, all these america's messing with, all these people have done bad things. there are bad actions all over the world.

are we more safe now? i don't think so. believe what comes out of this administration, they got to be a idiot. ohio, iraqcolumbus, veteran. caller: i absolutely support the preemptive strike. you know, it is very necessary in this world today. it is a very very harsh world we live in. some of these men need to be taken out. however, with that in mind, there are lots of other issues involved, such as you know in the beginning, some dictators in power, such as gaddafi, saddam hussein, some of them probably should have been left in for some time only because they kept their countries under control. as bad as they are, they kept

their people in check. some of these people over there, if anyone has ever been over there, they are not the most educated in the world. unfortunately, they are good people at heart but they need help. sometimes, they need to be androlled and restrained possibly we should never have taken out some of these leaders. there was some semblance of peace at that time. host: what was your role in iraq? caller: i was a crew chief in the air force. host: giving the perspective of someone serving in iraq, looking at the events of the last couple days. he mentioned some of the things that might stem from this. wall street journal highlights thefact, when it comes to guard, it talks about the influence they have in the region, including the islamic resistance in syria, highlighting that it funded more

than 100,000 shiite fighters, he zbollah with upgraded missiles and drones, the umbrella organizations from malicious providing armored personal carriers. mines, ballistic missiles radar systems and drones. you can look at that map on the wall street journal and other areas of influence. in the u.s., as the senate got back in session yesterday after the holiday break, they took to the floor to talk about the attack and what goes forward from here. the senate majority leader, mitch mcconnell spoke first on the airstrike operation. longr too long, for too this evil man operated without constraint and countless innocents have suffered for it.

now his terrorist leadership has been ended. now, predictably enough in this political environment, the operation that led to qasem soleimani's death may prove controversial or divisive. although, i anticipate and welcome a debate about america's interest in foreign policy in the middle east, i recommend all senators wait to review the facts and hear from the administration before passing much public judgment on this operation and its potential consequences. the administration will be briefing staff today on the situation in iraq, working to arrange a classified briefing for all senators early next week. for my part, i have spoken to the secretary of defense and i am encouraged by the steps u.s. military is taking to defend american personnel and interest

from a growing iranian threat. i speak for the senate when i say my prayers are with all american diplomats, personnel and brief service members serving in iraq and the middle east. i am grateful for their courageous service to protect our country. host: reaction from the democratic minority leader in a few moments. supporterborn, ohio, of the operation. caller: i am a democrat. i support trump. on this, he has been the bravest president i have seen in years, since roosevelt. he don't take no stuff, misty eyed. troops killedr and crippled right now. you ought to look at some of them. i have seen some of them, that guy,i, solomon -- that

solomon, that they have done to them. they went in and shouldn't of done that -- that guy right there -- [indiscernible] -- when people picks on you, they ain't gonna stop -- we have tried to buy them, -- we have fiddled with them for how many years? i am 50. i have seen it go on. that is it. host: ok. fran, fond du lac, wisconsin, opposed. caller: i oppose it. i think it is nothing but a little too convenient given trump's reputation and his history of doing things for his convenience, his benefit. it doesn't make any difference how many lives are put at risk or if the country is put at risk. if i would believe this was something really, a brave thing

trump did, i would be one of his fools. thank you. host: iraq veteran, willie, newman, georgia. caller: i served three tours in iraq. iranians have been doing this stuff in iraq for a long time. this is not new. it is really about time somebody stepped up and announced it and told the world what iran has been doing in other countries. host: you probably heard talk about repercussions from iran. as a person who served and understands the region on that level, what do you think? dider: do you see what we to qasem soleimani when he was driving in a car? you really believe they are capable of doing those things in the u.s.? that is the level we are at

compared to their military forces. we don't really have anything to be worried about. host: ok. anding service, ray, elizabeth sitting, north carolina "u.s. navy vet, indian ocean, 1980, i support the action because they have threatened us, attacked our troops and are planning more tax." "this has putsee a target on the backs of americans everywhere, given radical terrorists even more reason to hate us. we can expect to pay a terrible price for this blunder in the unchecked tyrant in the white house." 03.t asset (202)-748-80 the folks who have sent us text, put your name, city and state, we would appreciate that. let's hear from chuck schumer. [video clip] >> the administration did not

consult in this case. i fear those serious questions have not been answered and may not be fully considered. among those questions, what was the legal basis for conducting this operation? how far does that legal basis extend? dangerousany surrogates in the region and a range of possible responses. which responses do we expect? which are most likely? plans to counter all possible responses? how effective will our counters be? what does this action mean for the long-term stability of iraq and the trillions of dollars and thousands of american lives sacrificed there? planoes the administration

to manage escalation of hostilities? how does the administration plan to avoid larger and potentially endless conflagration in the middle east? these are questions that must be answered. presidentiew that the does not have the authority for a war with iran. if he plans a large increase in troops, potential hostility over a longer time, the administration will require congressional approval and the approval of the american people. the president's decision may add to an already dangerous and difficult situation in the middle east. the risk of a much longer military engagement in the middle east is acute and immediate. this action may well have brought our nation closer to another endless war, exactly the

kind of endless war the president promised he would not drag us into. host: headline from the new york times. mitch mcconnell saying a briefing on the actions that took place is scheduled for the senate next week. for apelosi also asking similar briefing on capitol hill. bedford, virginia, support line, joseph. caller: 100% support what he did. i wish they would do it more often. socialists are crying about it, well, they are sticking up and he didn't tell congress because he knows they would have just worn him so he could just go run and hide. these democrats act like this is some good guy, when he has killed and committed terrorist acts against us and our allies but they stick up for that bum.

if it was up to me, i would carpet bombed the whole region. they would commit terrorist acts against us whether we ignore them like the democrats to or enable them do like obama and clinton did by giving them a boatload of money. so, we need to take them all out. host: do you think those attacks would now happen because of what specifically the killing of qasem soleimani? caller: no, because they commit terrorist acts against us anyway whether we are nice to them or not. i say we should hit them first. that is common sense. if you know someone is going to attack and kill our soldiers, we should attack and hit there's first. preemptive strike, you know? don't sit here like an ostrich with our head in the sand like the democrats do. host: mary, florida, those who oppose. disagree withy

what trump did. i believe it is totally because of his impeachment going on plus he does this all the time. everything he does is against -- everything obama did, he has tried to change. now he has this on his record, that he killed a big guy over there, makes him big, more powerful. i am tired of hearing people saying that we gave iran all the money. it was there damn money to begin with. at least they weren't going back in and trying to do this nuclear deal again, which he is let them be able to do now. host: from our support line, elizabeth city, north carolina, ray. caller: thank you. reiterate what i said

in my text. nation because of the regime. forpport the freedom iranian people. 1980.in the indian ocean, iran,ied what went on in the so-called revolution. we need to be strong. they have threatened us. they have killed our troops. i support this action. i totally support what trump is doing. he is protecting us. we need to be strong. host: if it escalates, what convinces you we are prepared? caller: we need to keep our powder dry. prepared, keep a strong military, our intelligence, we need to trust

our intelligence and the military. keep doing that. we cannot let our guard down. sand.h in the stick your head in the sand, you leave a tempting target for people to do you wrong. host: mary, fort washington, maryland. caller: good morning. let's start with, i totally agree with the lady that called in. anyhow, this is a lie. i do not believe what is coming across the news media. if you want us to know the truth, pedro, please put on democracy now. this is deja vu. the same people in action now, he put in action again. john bolton? really? progressive do not believe this. it is only important if americans are killed?

all life is important all over the world. he has killed everybody. no one did anything all this i'm. both barack obama and bush, looked at it. he was not important to get. we need peace. we need to have that nuclear iran deal. that bozo had no business pulling out of this. this is no rationalizing. if you want the people to know the truth, please put on amy goodman. host: some democrats have talked about the actions of qasem soleimani, some describing it in evil terms. caller: they are wrong also. host: you're saying progressives and democrats are wrong? caller: yes. host: why? caller: show proof. if they show proof or the other wars -- they just want to have wars -- why does trump want to get the oil of iran? why does john bolton want war? ask them why and they need to tell the truth. host: john bolton is not an

advisor currently. caller: yes. the president knew something. john bolton knew something also. mitch mcconnell know something. they are lying to the american people just to justify an unnecessary war. we need that bozo, no business to walk away from the -- host: we understand. benjamin, massachusetts, support. caller: good morning, sir. i unequivocably support my president. i am a korean war veteran. i will give you a quick example if i may. ii and through world war what the japanese did and what nationruman did to a with far more integrity than .his man trump put down

we all don't have enough information to begin with. we don't have it at our disposal. we cannot make that quick decision. anyways, i support my president. host: let me ask you, why do you have such support even though you say there is not enough information to make that decision? caller: because he has directly ofindirectly been a part many americans, and that is recorded. host: to the previous callers point, she said the bush and obama administrations didn't take these similar actions -- why do you think it is appropriate for this administration to do so? caller: like i said, we will never have enough info. i am not trying to dodge. what i'm saying is, the little i know is that he was indirectly or directly part of american

people dying, troops. i will proudly stand, like i did in the korean war, i will stand for my president. thank you. host: ok. for a half-hour we have been taking your calls, when it comes to this airstrike, whether you support or oppose the action. give us a call, (202)-748-8000 if you support it. it.)-748-8002 if you oppose if you are an iraq war veteran, give us your perspective at (202)-748-8001. -- if you oppose it, (202)-748- 8001. new york times saying as late as thursday officials were still waiting other options. -- weighing other options.

host: you can find more background in the new york times. also from the times, leading up to it, the influence qasem soleimani had in the region, there is a story profiling him.

host: that is some of the background of the sphere of influence qasem soleimani had before his death in iran and the region. we are asking you about this operation. iraq war veteran, steve, california, good morning. caller: good morning. as far as the character goes, nothing better to do i guess. presidentthe bombing, , when the second term is looming on the horizon, they

seem to want to do that. true for the last five, including this one. we are involved in conflicts in this world, all over the world. this is the modern age, beginning 1865. we are still talking the same language. it will be understood tomorrow. host: jennifer, vernon, new jersey, opposed. caller: hi. i definitely oppose. i believe we are going backwards. we had our foot in the door diplomatically. this pushed us backwards. facebook saying we did the right thing. "that does not mean there will not be consequences. we need to assess and see how this thing plays out." randy in michigan didn't support the airstrike. "looks like a president needs an edge.

we never have money to heal." lauderdale, florida, supporter. caller: hello. i support the action only because american lives would have been lost without it. i trust the arrival of the general at the time our embassy was being attacked probably means the intelligence was correct. i'm willing for the moment, until it is fully explained, to support it. people need to realize a few things. number one. iranians are extremely intelligent. extremely. they are playing us like a fiddle. the other thing they need to realize, and remind ourselves is they are developing a nuclear weapon and ballistic missiles, which could reach the u.s. and want to destroy israel

their concept of the world is everyone is a muslim, whether they want it or not. worked to be on alert and to possibly change that nation in some form. now, i think we have completely fumbled the iraq situation. i think we should get out of there. it is a shame. we fumbled. i support us leaving iraq. the other thing is something very interesting has happened -- -- newk nla are on alert york and los angeles are on alert. i thought muslims were just like americans, they just have a different language. they need extreme vetting. we invaded panama. we put new york and los angeles on alert. host: randy, chicago heights, illinois. caller: pedro, this man was a

general, pedro and i don't understand. don't generals have to take orders from their leaders? once -- i think we killed the wrong person. he should have took, he probably took his orders, they say he had american blood on his hands. he had to get orders from what's the leader? the ayatollah? he had to get orders from him to go and do these things, to kill american people. he was not a rogue general. like i said, i think we killed the wrong person. i believe this was propaganda, heat off the the president from the impeachment thing. heights.dy, chicago adding, the hill reporting new york police

department is on high alert, preparing for a possible threat. the larger aspects of yesterday or the recent events ignites discussion over war powers, in the washington post this morning. resolutions from 2001 are outdated.

host: that is from nancy pelosi. york.support, geneva, new caller: good morning. i support it. served, one in the first gulf war, and one just retired after over 30 years. this guy has killed more of our -- i don't remember

anyone having a fit when obama killed two american citizens, a father and son -- they were terrorists. this guy was a terrorist. i wish people would stop using cnn talking points. thank you very much. host: facebook. "the president is doing a great job of taking care of the country. the president of the u.s. has every authority to act in the country's best interest." power togress has the declare war. make no mistake, that is where we are headed." -- "sweep your own porch america." "instead ofter, making peace with iran, the current president wants to break the agreement and choose war."

folks on twitter and facebook. text us. all those means available as well as the phone lines. jeffrey, fayetteville, georgia, opposed. caller: i cannot fathom the president's mindset. he did not think of the repercussions of his actions in the lives that would be lost. host: support, tom, new york. russia, russia, ukraine, ukraine, ukraine, now this killer, he is a good guy. the other guy was an austere scholar. [laughter] what a joke. the democratic party is a complete joke. host: why do you support the effort? caller: why do i support it? i support everything the president does. he is thinking about america. he is looking out for us.

the guys killing people. they have been making fools of us for the last 40 years. these kids have been brainwashed nowadays. they don't know what iran has been doing. it has been a rogue nation so long, they have been behind almost every death going on in the middle east right now. they have their hands on. the stupid democrats, they just kiss butt the whole way through. host: what does this action accomplish? caller: excuse me? host: what does this action accomplish? caller: what do you mean? it lets every terrorist no -- [no audio] -- host: if you would not use profanity, we would appreciate it. alabama, hello. caller: we should really look at the reason donald trump has done this. the reason he has done this, there is probably more info coming out that the senate may impeach him on when they get more info come out about trump.

he stayed out of the vietnam war. he is a coward. he ran from his duty to serve this country. the other thing is -- host: what convinces you this is a means to distract from impeachment? caller: you can't impeach a sitting president in time of war. support all the soldiers who ever served this country. i still believe trump does not care about the lives of the american people and the lives of the iranian people. all he cares about is doing something to distract his impeachment. thank you very much. host: steve, sierra vista, arizona, support. caller: good morning, pedro. americans, america is fed up and sending troops to the slaughter.

we are working on high-tech ways to rid the world of america's enemies who need to do us harm. this strike was a step in that direction. our technological abilities are going to allow us to dominate dominant,ing like a old day feudal system type stuff. technological things are you talking about? communication, intel and drones. they use drones to kill this terrorist guy and there needs to be more of that done to save troops lives. i don't believe in sending people out to die for endless wars. we need to get c-span to speak on the pentagon covering up the fact that we are not doing that

well in afghanistan for 19 years. i wish c-span would do a story on that. host: a story in the washing opposed looking at -- in the washington post looking at afghanistan. the author of that joining us on the program this coming monday. if you want to tune in for that or plan to watch the program on monday, you can watch that. from the washington post this morning. other countries involved in the nuclear deal, what they face in days ahead. this is quoting a senior eu diplomat. "i cannot imagine how it could still be relevant. fear is iran could demand eu support against u.s. actions and walk away from the deal."

host: new york, rosetta, opposed. caller: good morning. host: morning. caller: i oppose very much what has been going on. away fromrying to get impeachment. host: what convinces you? caller: just everything about him. he has no military experience, no nothing. he wants to seem like he has all this knowledge and all of this about war.

he took five deferments himself, putting other people's children in harm's way. i mean, that is not a good thing . host: back in time. president clinton launched airstrikes during his impeachment inquiry in the 1990's. did you think the same thing, that it was to distract? caller: i didn't. host: why not? caller: they are different men. host: what do you mean? caller: trump has no morals or scruples. he is a crook from the beginning. we all know this. my issue is, we all say what he has done, what he is doing, what he continues to do and he is still in office. why? why? that is what i want to know. host: ed, reno, nevada, supports. caller: hello? host: you are on. caller: i support donald trump.

i think he is one of the best presidents the u.s. ever had. troops that ever fought for this country. you know, if it wasn't for the people that fought for this country, we would not have what we got, you know? host: why do you support this specific action? the terroriste killed, all these men and women over there fighting for the united states, since 40 years this guy has been in power over there. you know, he has killed thousands of americans, thousands of innocent people. country has to stand behind the president and get these people off the face of the earth because this is going to keep on happening, you know, this is going to keep on happening. just, iyou know, it is

wish i could join the service. i am too old. i wish i could get in and help. president trump is one of the best united states has. host: ok. tony on twitter. "i don't know where i will end up on this issue. this was a soldier killed in theater, not assassination. i agree with the speaker." alfredo, michigan. "what is the usa doing in the middle east. bring all the troops home. no country likes to be occupied. stop practicing imperialism." colorado,ort collins, opposed. caller: good morning.

say i think weo should go back to the jv coa. i have intimate knowledge of iranians. of arab spring, over 70% iranians are under 30 years old and they support democracy in america. hohani, th emullahs didn't want him in, at that time, they wanted them out, the people wanted more pro-democracy. jpcoa was a pathway to that. ask any ambassador over there, i saw a whole show on here with ambassadors and people who are very intelligent about the area and then the reason trump pulls out of this is because he tells

all his people, we are going to pull out because it is obama. he didn't think about and then he said, oh, we are going to get a better deal. does this look like a better deal? withoutoes out, congressional improvement and attacks. this is not osama bin laden, a rogue actor. this guy is a state actor. kills this guy. host: a state actor with influence in the region. caller: yes but do you think the iranians are just going to pack it up and go home? host: if you understand the people, what do you think the possible reaction is? caller: after we do things like this, it emboldens everybody over there. america,great state in instead of being a helper, we are over there killing people. they're going to have to react.

now there will be a reaction against the reaction. host: what resources do they have to react? caller: they have lots of s.licious -- militia how did osama bin laden react? he had minimal people. he did not have an army. he could attack basis. there are tons of things iran could do to escalate this thing. host: reaction from capitol hill. adam smith, chair of the armed services committee saying "i have grave concerns about the chain of events leading to the death of qasem soleimani and the impact this will have on the safety of u.s. personnel. americans deserve to know why the president has brought us to the brink of another war." full statement. reaction from republicans. mac thornberry. "u.s. must be fully prepared for whatever actions iran may take, with the proxy militia leader.

all other nations that seek decent stability through the middle east should stand with us to discourage further aggression." senate foreign relations committee. "qaseme chair saying soleimani was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of americans, as i previously warned the government, they should not mistake response to previous attacks as weakness." the ranking member, bob menendez of the senate foreign relations saying "one thing is clear. trump administration needs to define strategy. this wasannot prove because of imminent threat, we see a gradual march to military action with iran, not authorized by congress." some of the key leaders on capitol hill, committees that oversee this kind of action. texas,wichita falls, supporter of the action. caller: i support what the

president did. about time somebody had the courage to face those people. iraq,husband was serving close to sudan, they decided to pull them out. what happened? jade went down. people being killed. nobody had the balls to take care. you know what? it is time to stop this crap. everythingts think trump do is wrong. i disagree. missouri,ld, salem, iraq veteran. for thises, i am action by president from, matter-of-fact, i think we are too soft on iran and have been for a long time. there the largest a supporter of terrorism in the world, the

largest state-sponsored terrorism in the entire world and we are getting upset because we killed a general? give me a break. how about hamas killing our men not long ago? how about isis? all the other radical islamic groups that feed off iran support? we need to really entail our mind. we are at war. we have a resolution of war by congress against terrorism. what is up? aumf, does it need to be revised? caller: no. what are you going to do? you can use military force against terrorist sponsors? that is what it says now. why would you revise? host: the authorization for the use of military force, authorizing the president to use appropriate and necessary military force who aided or abetted the terrorist attacks

that occurred on september 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons. "this act is intended for statutory authorization within the meaning of the war powers resolution." the definition of the aumf. identifying, themselves in florida saying "stop nationbuilding. there will never be little america's." stephanie in michigan saying "the president is acting on his own. he is spreading the laws of the united states. we have three branches of government. he cannot wage war on his own." woodstock, georgia, tracy, supporter. caller: good morning, pedro. i support this, just like you read the authorization and now

they are saying he wasn't authorized. excuse me. what i would like to say is, had this come out, had trump not reacted in the intelligence came out, which it would have because washington leaks like a sieve, had it come out that there was an attack and it went through and trump did not do anything, they would want to impeach him for that. i mean, anything this president does is wrong. he is looking out for america. finally someone is standing up for america. topictracy, georgia, this on the campaign trail for democrats running for office of president this year. yesterday, thea, candidates and senator bernie sanders spoke about the actions of the u.s. [video clip] >> i believe strongly a key step isending our endless wars

for the congress to reassert its constitutional authority over matters of war. [applause] our founding fathers had it right. they gave the responsibility of war to congress and that is placed.where it must be i find it incredible that at the same time trump is greatly expanding military spending -- and i am proud to tell you that i have voted against all of trump's military budgets -- [applause] -- at the same time, he is spending tens of billions more

on the military, he is cutting back on the diplomatic capabilities of the state department to negotiate agreements around the world. host: if you want to see statements the senator made about the war and other things related to campaign 2020, go to www.c-span.org. florida,ksonville, opposed. caller: good morning, pedro. assassination on qasem soleimani. i found some irony. myself.combat vet, i found some irony in that the president believed the intelligence agencies of the u.s., certainly, how dangerous qasem soleimani was to any kind

of peaceful effort in iran but at the same time would not believe the intelligence agencies when it comes to what they were telling him about russia. president vladimir putin. i found that very ironic. second thing. i felt there were times the president has told so many lies, i don't know why the american people believe the actions this guy took happened to be sure. i'm not suggesting he is a bad actor in that area, but at the same token, iran did sign the treaty, until he came into office and withdrew the peace treaty and stuff. host: you mean the nuclear agreement? caller: thank you for the correction. they have signed onto it and according to all the other agencies looking into whether they were in compliance, during the obama administration, they were in compliance. this whole thing i think is part of what a lot of the callers are

saying, he is trying to create another situation to move away from impeachment action of congress. president trump is not a good president. this is a bad action that will cost us something someplace down the road unfortunately. reportingch press qasem soleimani set to be laid to rest in his hometown on january 7. mark, milton, florida, iraq veteran. caller: how are you doing, buddy? ofg, he needs to kind research a little bit about the iran history of the nuclear agreement we had. honestly, i would like to thank mr. trump for protecting his people, his soldiers, his airmen, his sailors, everything that has to do with the security of our nation.

our nation has been under attack for many many years. mr. trump did something that has gone against a lot of people's values but values, but he has done something to protect his nation and that is what a president is supposed to do. if people cannot understand that , they need to realize that they are living in a different kind of world. the world has changed. the world has definitely changed from the 1960's and 1970's and gettrump is trying to help our country back on track. host: one more call from marty in california. caller: good morning. everybody is second-guessing the president, yet nobody knows what he was briefed on. it is quite possible they could have planning an attack on one of our bases. host: keep going if you want.

caller: i do. everybody is second-guessing. i don't like everything this president does, but when we were bombed before, he did not take action. when the drone was knocked down, he did not take action and the issue is -- i am sorry, there is a little bit of a delay. the issue is now a life was taken. that is crossing the line. he is supposed to protect our american citizens. no matter what he does, it is going to be wrong. they are saying now we will have retaliation. we have been hit before and we haven't done anything. non you have a mindset that matter what america stands for, it is wrong, they will come after us. host: marty will be the last call, but we will continue on of this attack and how it fits into american

foreign policy and national security. vlahos joins us and and then we would be -- then we will be joined by david corn, those conversations coming up on "washington journal." ♪ livencer: c-span's campaign 2020 coverage continues .t 1:45 p.m. eastern joe biden in iowa and at 7:00, , iowa.yer in waterloo watch online or listen on the radio app. sunday, book tv features the latest books from former trump

deputy assistant sebastian gorka and labor reporter steven greenhouse. starting at noon eastern on " in-depth" with a live conversation with sebastian gorka. [video clip] >> i saw those planes flying into the twin towers. i understood the totalitarians are back. they may not be communists, but they are totalitarians and if you read the works that inform groups like isis or al qaeda, it is clear america is facing a global totalitarian ideology. >> his latest book is " the war for america's soul." on afterwards, steven greenhouse talks about his book beaten down, worked up. >> so many people had no idea

what unions are, what they do, and hap -- how they help bring us to 40 hour work weeks and sticker in the bumper union is the people who brought us the weekend. unions have achieved a whole lot in american history, but now they are in decline. as a result, things are considerably worse for workers than was the case 30, 40 years ago. announcer: watch featured nonfiction authors this weekend and every weekend on book tv on c-span 2. "washington journal" continues. host: this is kelly vlahos of the american conservative, serves as executive editor. a good morning to you. fitit is the recent action in the larger interest of national security? guest: i think that is the main question. as you know, i am an editor of a

magazine founded in opposition to the run up to the iraq war. we are very skeptical on how these types of attacks will translate into a broader strategy to protect the national interest, national security. i am not sure and there are a lot of skeptics out there who are not sure what happened yesterday, the assassination of soleimani and the proceeding acts, the 5 drone attacks in syria and iraq are part of some broader strategy to keep us safe, we don't know yet. we don't know what the reaction will be from the iranians and in the region. host: you heard from the state department's defense, they are making an active plan. do you be -- buy the argument? guest: it is not just the trump administration, we are talking administration and the george w. bush administration, there does not

seem to be a broader strategy. we are really good at tactical victories. i quote admiral james to read is admiral james yesterday was saying this is a tactical win, this assassination of this bad man, but is it a strategic win? no, we have more work to do. if we are being told by an administration they have plans in place to respond to any retaliatory tax -- attacks, we should take that at a grain of salt because we seem to be living in an era and three administrations in which we see attacks first justifications later, attacks first evidence later. iam not show short -- so sure feel better knowing that secretary of state pompeo is saying don't worry, we have you covered. host: we have a new leader of

the force, what does that mean for their influence in the region? guest: there are better experts than me on the issue, but when you take out ahead -- a head, we have seen this with baghdadi and osama bin laden and all the other al qaeda leaders, you can take out the head, but you are not necessarily going to take out the body of the snake, so to speak. from what i have been reading, there is a second in command in place, he is not as charismatic or popular, but that does not mean there are not malicious, there is not an institutional stability at work and so i don't think taking one bad guy out will change the effectiveness of the iranian militias and their networks across the middle east. host: how likely is a battalion

torrey action at this point? guest: absolutely likely, we just don't know what form it will take. it could be the form of cyber attacks, i could see it taking the form of pinprick attacks in the gulf against our allies, saudi arabia. we saw the attacks on saudi arabia and facilities over the summer, we saw what reaction that got, the stock market tumbled, the saudi's were jittery. they are in a situation where the aramco oil ipo is fragile at best. an attack on oil facilities in the gulf, i think that would be catastrophic. host: this is our guest. if you want to ask her questions, you can do so at 202-748-8000 for democrats. 202-748-8001 for republicans. and independents, 202-748-8002. you can text your thoughts and comments at 202-748-8002 and .ost on our twitter feed

what does this do for the dynamic between the united states and iraq? guest: this is the worst possible thing that could happen for the dynamic. not to cast a history lesson here, but we fought a war to liberate that country. goals, highorts of hopes for creating a democracy in iraq. fragile.hat country a government that is corrupt, not trusted by its people, as you can see from the protests that have been going on since october. we don't have much of a diplomatic connection anymore. we have an embassy, a green wee, it is fortified, but don't have the diplomatic ties and institutions we had all been

told we would have by fighting this war, so you have a situation where you have most of the country wanting u.s. troops out. we have 5000 troops and more after what happened are headed to the region, they want us out, so there have been reoccurring resolutions to ask the united states to leave. what happened last sunday is the united states launched these drone attacks in syria and iraq against this has below -- isbollah-linked group, which an iranian proxy. the have pledged loyalty to ayatollah. iraq was given some notice we were going to bomb and they said please don't do that. we are a sovereign nation and we have protests going on, we are in a fragile situation, we

bombed anyway. the protests suddenly which were against the iranian-backed government suddenly shifted all their anger against the united states. now there are even more calls to get us out of that country. here is what is extensively -- i've stents of the our best ally -- we have allies now saying get the u.s. out, that is their core. iran is happy because this is what they wanted all along, they want a full takeover of that country and so they are hopping on the bandwagon, fanning the flames that the guys that breached the embassy were all iranian backed militias. we are seeing a situation we have just made an already unstable relationship more unstable and i am afraid it will

not get any better until we are out of there. rumblingsre hearing of the iraqi government calling for removal. what is the reality considering the state of the region? guest: i have writers who write for me at the american conservative who believe we will end up being kicked up out of the country. there are others who say when all the ashes fall down, we will probably have some remaining presence, but at what cost? we saw what happened with the embassy, we see that we cannot trust the actors inside and outside iraq. terrible situation and i go back to the actual war we fought. if we take this purely on american interest, which i think president trump does have and he won in part by declaring to the united states voters that he

wanted to get out of these wars, wanted to get out of iraq. we have veterans in majorities polled saying the war was a mistake and we never should have been there. american, i am thinking what was it all worth? if we are looking at our embassy on fire and this is last week, before the assassination of an iranian commander, we have no idea what the reaction in iraq will be now. what was it worth? is our guest.ahos the lines are available to you, social media as well. we will start with ken. you are on with our guest. go ahead on our independent line. aller: i would like to say of our attentions are around the arld when we have basically

humanitarian crisis in the united states with lack of health care and adequate housing . i believe we need to focus on our own country because this will not continue on forever. we are putting ourselves in a dangerous position and we cannot fight the world. people cannot even afford adequate housing. we have 500,000 people that are homeless and i really believe this is a dangerous place for us to be and we need to focus on our own country and people need to be of sober mind and have unity for what needs to happen in america. more. i cannot agree i have been covering these wars for quite a long time now. my son was born in 2003 around 2 months before we invaded iraq and he is now looking at colleges.

i have been on top of this issue and covering it at a more granular level in terms of how much money has been spent on these wars and we are talking about over $1 trillion in afghanistan alone and another trillion dollars in iraq and it is what we have spent the money on, reconstructing these countries and then we find out hospitals have collapsed, programs can't continue. inhave built up a military afghanistan that can't operate on its own without us backing who are military soldiers who go awol daily. we have a situation, we see what is going on in iraq. we have the taliban more in control of territory in afghanistan then 10, 15 years ago. we saw the afghan papers story broken by the washington post

before the holidays in which scores, hundreds of american officials and military commanders and officials basically saying they knew this thing was lost years ago. it has been a sieve of u.s. taxpayer dollars. we are not even talking about the blood of our veterans and contractors. tens of thousands, we still have 14,000 military personnel in afghanistan today. i think your caller is right. we sit here and talk about -- i am pointing to the capital, about arguing whether or not we drugs,fund prescription cheaper prescription drugs for our elderly and i am thinking why is it a debate when we can spend billions of dollars every year to afghanistan when nobody

seems to care about it anymore and we know it is going into a sieve? host: as far as that mentality of let's not worry about with the rest of the world is doing, is that something to hold onto? guest: if we are looking at a situation -- i talked about the billions of dollars every year that go into afghanistan, let's not even talk about iraq, but afghanistan. has that help to the afghan people? one can point out there are more girls in school today than there 2002.hen we got there in i have seen reports from the special inspector general saying they are closing schools now, the taliban are closing schools now. there are fewer young people in schools in afghanistan. i feel like if we want to talk about broader interest, how has war 17ted states funding

years in afghanistan, pouring money into that country, we know how corrupt it is. the money has gone to corrupt terrorists to fuel and basically put a band-aid on a situation that is absolutely catastrophic. i don't think it has helped the afghans we purported and claimed we were there to liberate, to democratize. it is not just about american interest. our resources, our blood and treasure going to positive means i don't think anybody can dispute the fact it has not worked. host: we have the inspector on our program many times. a gym oklahoma, republican line. you are next. caller: a number of things.

toseems like her answer is bury her heads in the sand and do nothing, which is foolish every time a democrat is in office, it emboldens these terrorist countries, especially iran. iran is a main threat to the region and america. -- if iranpast time was wiped out, we would not have the wars she mentioned. if they had been the constant threat, not our tax dollars. if we had nuked and wiped out iran, that would send a clear message as we did in world war ii against germany. just a little bit of

back furtheran go than 1979 and in the hostagetaking, why did they hate us? it is because in 1953, a cia backed coup helped depose the democratically elected prime minister and then we helped we could protect oil interest in the region with our european partners, which led to the islamic revolution and thesegime we see now, events started to unfold over time, but we are talking about events that happened 70 years ago. and who isit for tat in the right, who is in the wrong and i am not going to sit here and say iran has not unleashed terrorism throughout the world.

i will say carpet bombing, assassinations, if you look at history, if you look at as recently as vietnam, these tactical strikes don't necessarily work. if anything, they lead to more terrorism, more instability and more security and i don't think it is burying ones head in the sand to say we need a strategy and maybe going after so the money and assassinating him on sovereign soil is necessarily a good strategy or our best there was a maybe better way to handle the militias, the iranian backed militias giving us a hard time

on our shared basis. in iraq, that is a complicated situation talking about iranian backed militias that we worked with to get rid of vices between 2014 and 2017. on one hand, they were our allies for a while. now they are saying we want you out of there and so they have shifted the attention to doing these pinprick attacks against iraqi command posts of which we have soldiers at. i only know that because pompeo and the others have told us these attacks are occurring and by the way, when we invaded iraq in 2003, we were responsible for --nding up she militias standing up militias in iraq, they ultimately have more loyalty to iran, which is in their backyard, then they have

to us. history has its way of springing up at you later ron and i am sorry, but that is what we did, to get rid of saddam, fight the insurgency, we set up iranian backed militias in iraq and the "strategy" is coming back to bite us. i am not saying i agree with the iranians and let's give more support and put our heads in the sand and attack, but looking at this with the big picture, we have to be smarter about how we are responding. host: the president from yesterday said the united states paid iraq billions of dollars a year. on top of that, there are other things i have done for them. years iran has gained more and more control and the people are not happy. it will never end well. guest: and they are not happy with that and that goes back to my thoughts about this being a

complicated situation. the protests that have been octoberg in iraq since the streetshieh in looking at their government and saying this government is corrupt and engages in nepotism, all sorts of discrimination and we don't like the fact that they are so -- that certain members, certain factions are tied to iran. the sunnis, who have an even bigger great because they are out of work, they are being subjugated to discrimination in that country and have relatively stayed on the sidelines to watch protests happen. and what factions tehran has been able to do is turn all that iron that was aimed at them in the parliament

and these protests and turn it .n the united states tactically, we took out one of their most popular commanders, this is going to be a blow to them. on the other hand, it shifted debate. i have to say i don't know what washington is thinking right now. host: herbert, you are on with our guest. caller: herbert in michigan, hello. host: let's try lawrence and florida, independent line. caller: good morning. how much more are we, the people of our country, going to put up with dealing with other country's business? what is the game? of being in the foreign

country's business? experience, wed have been doing this since korea, why do we always have to be in the foreign countries, what is it helping us. countries heree to help our homeless? people do weany have in positions of control graduating with other people etc.g their exams, etc., guest: i agree with the caller. this has been the mission of our magazine, the american conservative from the beginning, taking a hard look at foreign policy and the fact that we have over 200,000 u.s. troops scattered across the country right now and more than 150 countries. we have sanctions, pages and

pages of economic sanctions -- 8000 people, we have military agreements and treaties and we have vowed to have security partnerships throughout the world that most people, including myself, cannot explain why. we are in a situation, we have formidable american military, our resources to basically metal in the rest of the world, police the rest of the world all under this idea that we will be promoting this democracy. what we have here is a situation that george washington warned us address,n his farewell

that we created a situation in which we have passionate attachments to other countries in which our foreign policy is being dictated by other country's interest of big washington, moneyed interests, another, john quincy adams, he had argued we should be a force for good in the world and not be a force that sets out for monsters to destroy and it seems as though we have landed in a place where we cannot extricate ourselves from passionate attachments. how to just pursue a foreign policy that is not in our best interest. our best interest is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, protecting the nation, security, providing a situation in which communities

here,milies can flurry protecting the liberties and freedoms we have, that is what our foreign policy should be about, it should not be about going out and trying to extend american hegemony and democratizing the world and i think we have lost sight of that. host: an organization has provided a map for troops of where regions are in the middle east. what is the best strategy for them? guest: i have a lot of people from my magazine who believe they should go home and extricate ourselves from the region. can we do that? at this point, it would be wise. it would be a slow extrication, but we have about 14,000 troops in the middle east right now. -- because of what has happened

in the last week or so. i, like many others, have been very supportive of president trump and his declaration that we would be getting out of endless wars, that we would be being -- we would be bringing troops home after years and years of fighting and he seemed to understand our very presence in many of these countries was drawing fire, creating new terrorists and problems. i am afraid he hasn't really come through with getting our troops home. we have talked a lot about syria over the last year and his decision to bring troops home, you saw the fire he drove from washington establishment and it about like we still have 500, 900 troops in syria. more reasoned and

restrained voices in washington around the president will prevail, but it seems he does have a number of these old neoconservative voices, establishment washingtonians around him that have been whispering in his ear and many of those people, including john bolton, who is no longer with him, they have wanted to go after iran for years, decades. host: lindsey graham was on fox news recently, let's hear what he had to say about the incident. [video clip] >> the world is better off , but congressani did not authorize the attack. do you think the president confirmed with congress?

distraction.t a what president trump did is save thousands or hundreds of american lives and our allies. the attacks they were planning -- it was foreshadowing of what was to come. allies -- they were hell andunleash holy the president took action. guest: i would like to go back to he talks about the authority, he might not have said that in those exact words, but that is what sparks to me, he acts as is irrelevant. i am glad he is on the cutting edge and has the ear of the president, but we have a debate on the hill. who has the authority to take this country to war?

the founders had been sort of savvy in that they left it almost a question. the powers are divided, but it says clearly congress has the authority to take the country to is the headsident of the armed services, the commander in chief and he does have authority to respond to imminent threats, but we have the war powers act, 1973, we have members of congress who includingd bills senator rand paul and democrats like -- host: cain and others. guest: bernie sanders, independent. we have a take situation where should congress as a whole been notified? was it so imminent he needed to assassinate this commander first

and then inform congress after? i feel like this is a role for congress and i am saying this not as a partisan, but someone who has watched this country go to war over and over again without the full backing of the congress. we have people in this town who still believe the war in iraq is illegal. we have the authorization of the use of military force as you pointed out, but does it stretch to cover assassinating the commander of an arm of the iranian military? i don't think so. there are a lot of lawyers who don't think so. mess -- in 2012 thatact said it covered al qaeda.

sunni terrorist group, so iran is a completely -- entity.anti- host: let's hear from south carolina, steve, republican line. good morning. caller: i wish both of you a prosperous and healthy 2020 and all the callers. before i get to the meat of what i want to say, i just don't think i swift response to an attack on american soil is a declaration of war in my view. i guess there is debate about that, but kelly, you soul -- stole some of the thunder recently. let's go back to bush 41 when we andthe iraqis out of kuwait had him on the run. a wise man advised several

presidents, democrat and republican. brent at that time, he told bush 41 -- i have it buried in my lookter if pedro wants to it up, do not go in iraq, do not topple that government, it is a very delicate balance of power. if you take down iraq and that balance of power -- you will cause unrest and division in that region and the cost will be incalculable from now on. what happens? he does not do that. what does his son do, he decides to invade a sovereign country and we have been paying the price ever since. all those people in congress, we have only have -- had five declared wars in this country. all you people in congress who stood up and said let's invade iraq, knock on george bush posh door and say thank you very much for getting us into this.

host: you can respond. agree with steve. if you look at it, the same people who push to get us into war in iraq in 2003 -- after 9/11, they saw an opening to finally get saddam hussein, convince george w. bush we need to invade iraq, the same people pressuring bill clinton in 1998 to sign an executive order declaring a regime change mission in iraq. these are the same people today, they are running around here who want us to go hard after iran. i think we need to take a deep breath, including myself and say what is the history? what can be learned from our lessons? we need to learn lessons. i was listening in the last segment about their experience

in iraq, korea, vietnam, we need to learn from our military history and start to take a look at who are behind these policies, why are they pushing them, what did they get out of it? i feel as though we ignore the same advisors in this town advising the president now to go hard after iran are the same people advising bill clinton to go after saddam, george w to go after iraq. i think we need to take a step back and say is this what we really need? is this the best way to go? strategistmilitary by trade, but i observe everything going on around me and i remember things. i think we should learn from our mistakes. we did not learn from our mistakes in afghanistan.

have we forgotten the afghanistan papers that came out last month to mark we had a trail of breadcrumbs telling us how badly we went off track. we need to start listening and learning. host: power line for democrats in north carolina, jacksonville, chris, go ahead. i agree with you pretty much 1%. tourism, we -- when we saw we lost in vietnam, we decided we would allow people to create -- generate a state of mind in america. the only thing that does is encourage a lot of people to allow our government to go --elance around the world

small groups of people who have a disagreement with america and do something about it. every time a bomb drops, i.e.d., i will clarify. this kill whoever we decide to kill. we did not call it terrorism what they did in japan. -- we call it terrorism don't call it terrorism what the chinese do, what the russians do. host: got your point, thanks. guest: i will let that stand where it is because he is saying something many people are before, thate said we, as americans, we feel like we are in the righteous position

every time and we have developed this mission against terrorism following 9/11, our counterterrorism mission that breath ofed the full the military-industrial complex in the united states, not so different when we were fighting communism after world war ii all the way up to 1990. i think your caller is right, i think it is time we start not may be redefining, but re-examining what terrorism is, how we have been fighting it so far, has it worked? we have been at war since 2002 or since 2011, since the attacks on washington and new york. have things gotten better? do you feel safer? i think your callers will have different views, but to put everything into the terrorism basket as a justification why we can use superior firepower

against the convoy in baghdad, which is supposed to be a sovereign state, i don't think that is acceptable anymore. host: mark on our twitter feed saying the biggest mistake we are paying for is the nuclear treaty which did not stop iran's march to have billions coupled with cash given to them. guest: i think there is a lot of people who would disagree with that. our partners in the iranian nuclear agreement said all the way up to the time we got out that the iranians were complying . we were the only partner that said they weren't and we got out of it. again, president trump had been inssured by neoconservatives his orbit from day numeral want to get out of that nuclear agreement. they found a reason, justification, i don't agree with their justification to get out of it.

has it made us safer? obviously not and i am not going to sit here and say getting out of the agreement was a good thing because it ratcheted up tensions in the golf that were not there before. what we have done -- we have committed economic warfare against iran in the wake of getting out of that agreement. we have put so much pressure on them economically. in our zeal to take oil production capacity down to zero, we are starving a country. in many people's books, that is warfare. we have been committing war against iran. i think it was capricious and i personally do not feel safer. now they are read engaging all

of the iranian enrichment efforts beyond the controls they were set to before. i just don't see it. host: max, good morning. kelly andod morning pedro. things have to be done in privacy without leaks in government. obama went and killed him without consent from house and senate. trump killed men who had something to do with killings without house and senate. why is trump different than obama? guest: i would say the main difference is saddam -- osama bin laden was responsible for york andks on new washington and we had authorization to go after those responsible for those attacks. by going after obama, he was authorized to do so.

i don't see the same application in soleimani's case, who most americans did not know who he was before two days ago. he was not on any authorization military force. ileave the caller with this, don't believe most americans would want a situation in which the president has the authority any foreign leader or commander at any time by any withoutcessary authorization. we would feel differently if somebody took out one of our generals and said he was responsible for so many -- the deaths of 70 iraqis. -- so many iraqis. i know that sounds crazy, but that is what we did. declaring him a terrorist is fine, but what we have seen here

is taking it up a notch. we are going after a government official and i don't think that is the way we want to go. i don't think that is the example we want to set. i don't think that is who we are and that is not how our republic is set up, there should be checks and balances. i feel like executive authority has gone way off the rails since 9/11, we put too much power in the presidency and i don't care if we are talking obama or trump, this is not a partisan issue, this is a constitutional an american issue. host: the american conservative can be found online at the americanconservative.com, kelly vlahos serves as the executive editor. guest: thank you very much. host: we will hear from david corn talking about impeachment and the news of the day.

he will join us for that conversation when "washington journal" continues. ♪ ♪ >> with less than a month from the first votes, c-span's live campaign 2020 coverage continues sunday at 1:45 p.m. eastern from the state historical museum of iowa -- of history museum in caucuses a look inside , discussing the first in the nation's caucuses and the history, significance, and impact on presidential races. watch our live coverage sunday

at 1:45 p.m. eastern on c-span. online at c-span.org, or on the radio app. >> normally what would happen is there would be a team of helicopters helping each other and supporting each other to make sure they were safe. because there was no one else there and it had to be done, he made the decision he would rescue these men. he went into the landing zone area and he hovered on the ground for 4 minutes waiting for the reconnaissance team to arrive, which is, in a battle condition, and eternity, a very long time sitting vulnerable to the enemy. he waited. the reconnaissance team arrived injured, but safe, they boarded the helicopter and he began to pull the helicopter up above the tree line and radioed, "i have everyone, i am coming out. "

>> daniel weiss on his book about the life of michael obama -- michael o'donnell, who went missing in action in the vietnam war. " continues.journal host: this is david corn, he serves as the washington euro chief for mother jones. guest: good to be with you this morning. host: what are the political implications for the actions in iran? guest: we are not going to know for sure because we need to see how this unfolds. right now, we have one airstrike and outrage in the middle east, revengeley -- vowing and it looks like we are escalating. this could go wrong or bad quickly or maybe it will peter out. the full political ramifications will not be known until we have

er picture of what this event leads to. all that said, it is hard to decision-making on this outside the context of impeachment, which i know we will get to, there are the politics of what he is doing and on the democratic side as we head into the primaries in the caucus, a month away from now, we can expect democratic candidates to be talking about how they would handle a situation like that and their responses. you have a divide between joe biden, who did vote for the iraq war resolution and bernie sanders, who did not. expect senator sanders to make a lot of that against the backdrop of a possible new

war involving the u.s. and the middle east, this could be -- foreign policy has not been front and center in the democratic primary, this could put it there. what that means for other candidates? i don't know, pete buttigieg talks about having served in iraq. all the candidates want to have something to say. their reactions will depend on what further happens. host: there are stories in the papers about the calls for a new debate on the authority of war. do you think anything comes out of that as far as a change is concerned? guest: any time a president takes military action without consulting congress and it happens a lot on both sides of the aisle, we have a debate about the war powers resolution and what the constitution says, congress has the right to

-- on an hourly and daily basis. it seems to me in this instance, it is pretty clear that this is an act of war. you see people making that legal,t, whether it is unconstitutional, constitutional. the reporting indicates the administration's line that there was an imminent threat and we had to move right away, the intelligence is very thin on that and certainly nobody that has shown intelligence said we believe there was an imminent threat. threat. no imminent it will be raised by the

-- mitch mcconnell or republicans in the house and minority will want to deal with this, i doubt. ony don't take trump regarding anything and then you have people, it will be interesting to see like rand paul, libertarian, often talking about the excess of executive isher, but he has been slav to trump, so i don't know. host: 202-748-8000 for democrats. republicans, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002. twitter and our texting service available. one of the things you published on your twitter feed, i will give you the headline and you can fill in the blanks. don't listen to the hawks who lied us into iraq. guest: i don't think the country has fully recovered from the 2003 invasion of iraq, which was

misguided and lead to 4500 american servicemen and women losing their lives and 30,000 andice members casualties think about that effect. we tend not to think about this, but about 200,000, maybe more, iraqi civilians, not combatants, civilians lost their lives and the violence and chaos afterwards. , poorly was misguided prosecuted and lead to bad results, including the rise -- the eventual rise of isis. how did we get into that war? basically because the bush and cheney administration lied about posed on twoddam fronts. they said he was allied with al qaeda, he was not, there was no evidence -- that he was amassing weapons of mass destruction to use against the united states, there was no evidence of that.

the administration was doing that, we had people in the political world, the media world, pundits, commentators beating the drums for war including the washington post -- david page, the brooks -- host: sean hannity. guest: he is on the list. this is a problem where we have our political media system overall. a lot of these people got it wrong. they said things they had no evidence of saying that paved the way to war, which is a serious matter when you think of the consequences. mother jones, matt cohen and i, another reporter put together a list of people who were wrong last time and probably should not be listen to this time if they start weighing in on what we should do in iran. host: because you brought up impeachment and made a connection between the current

activity, how do you connect the dots? guest: let me start with my baseline analysis, which will probably enrage the republican callers. i think donald trump is a pathological narcissist who sees the world only in terms of how it affects him. he doesn't really care much about other things. under the cloud of impeachment, he is angry, he is enraged, he wants revenge against democrats. he also wants a different narrative to tell. when histing indicates national security team came to him the last week of december and said we have had some u.s. militaryn, a contractor was killed in an attack in -- and the embassy was attacked, here is a list of options, what do we do?

the assassinating soleimani option was considered far out, the most extreme and yet he chose that. i think he wanted to make a bold statement and he was thinking more about how this would affect him and his political standing -- i thinkandings impeachment puts him into a corner and he wants to lash out and show he is not weak, so that affected decision-making and one but him can tell us this, it creates a distraction. distraction is dismissing it, it creates another important thing for us to talk about. we are talking about that instead of just talking about impeachment and it has the world looking at him through that lens rather than the lens of impeachment. host: might you see parallels

with that and president clinton launching strikes during his impeachment process? guest: it is an easy comparison and i thought that strike was not justified. this is clearly an act of war that was not authorized by congress. you have secretary pompeo saying the world is safer now and yet, we are evacuating americans around the region because it is capitals in the middle east and elsewhere are hunkering down wondering what is going to happen next. act of a significant escalation without, it seems, a strategic plan about what to do and what the end game is. when he pulled out of the iran

nuclear deal, trump promise things would be calmer, safer, and more sane, and yet we have the exact opposite. host: our first call on our republican line, philadelphia. good morning. caller: good morning, c-span, thanks for taking my call. that fromutely amazed day one people like yourself, even before the president was inaugurated were out to get this president. you talk about vengeance, the vengeance is coming directly from the left. there is nothing this president can do that you will ever agree with. i have got to say i pity you because day and night, you must scheme on anyway, from the time you wake up to the time you close your eyes at night when you fall asleep, you must scheme on ways to get this president and that makes you a hater. it does not make you an

investigative reporter, you are anything but, and that is a shame. you are disguised as an investigative reporter, but you are anything but. guest: thank you for returning him down -- turning him down, because that was an attack. i covered the president before he became president. what seemed toad be almost a pathological pension for lying. and it is just undeniable. thousands of lies before he became president, now 15,000 lies and false statements, according to "the washington post." that makes him a national security threat. if you cannot trust the president, when he comes forward and it says we have intelligence such and such is going to happen, this is a person who lies about the size of his

crowd, a sharpie on a weather map, it is hard for the public which has to support military actions, to know what to believe when this person is elected. from the very beginning, the very very beginning, i and others believed he posed a threat to our system of government. so i do not apologize for writing about it, being worried about it. and i also covered him before hand and i saw he had financial entanglements that were interest.conflicts of if you are a member of foreign government you can go to the trump hotel and put hundreds of thousands of dollars directly into his pocket, that is a national security risk as well. so i do not apologize for looking at these things, like many of americans, who are saying donald trump is a highly problematic president. he passed tax cuts, we talked about it this week, corporations

are getting hundreds of millions of dollars in breaks that they did not think they were going to get, because the tax cut was geared toward the rich. he is undermining health care. these are things reporters look at. host: on the legislative side, you saw al green, and early on in the administration, call for the impeachment, so what? can you say about that -- so what can you say about that? guest: i did not say that. i will say this. i wrote a book called "russian roulette," and it is clear -- two facts that the republicans do not want to acknowledge. russia attacked the u.s. election in 2016. in part to help donald trump win. and they succeeded and that attack was consequential. and it came out the way they wanted, donald trump won. during the campaign, trump and the attacktes denied

was going on. and helping the russians, that is aiding and abetting an attack. they did seek to exploit the attack. even though they were not mounting the attack, they encouraged the attack. they said, hackers go after hillary, and they did. they made it difficult for the administration to have a response. so he benefited and aided and abetted an attack against the country, that is treachery and betrayal. as president, he has not acknowledged the attack happened, he has sided again and again with putin, he said, i trust a vladimir putin. and "the washington post" reported two months ago that in may of 2017, in a meeting in the senior russian

thecials, sergey lavrov, foreign and the russian ambassador, donald trump told them that he was unconcerned, not concerned with the russian attack on the election. this is a commander in chief who said, i do not care about foreign power attacking the foundations of american democracy or a u.s. presidential election. i do not know what republicans do with this information, other eyes andr their ears, it set say we cannot handle the truth. host: let's hear from the democrats line. rick, you are next. caller: greetings from the people's republic of california, where the world's fifth largest economy and a top source of revenue for washington to share with all those poor southern states. thank you. please do not hate us because we are beautiful. because one out of every $88 of that social security check you

got comes from the hard-working men and women of california. david, i have a question. guest: sure. caller: what part do the right wing think tanks play into this trump-mania? i see trump supporters at his rallies giving standing ovations to kim jong-un and vladimir putin, do they feel bad about getting these people so mixed up? guest: i'm not the only person who has -- who says this, so do not hate me. the republican party in lots of ways has become a cult of personality. the positions they have taken in the path, like carrying about the deficit, they completely put aside in terms -- to support donald trump. the republicans used to care aggression.n

they don't now. they literally do not care about the russian attack on the united states and donald trump's lack of response. they used to care about human rights abuses in places like north korea. donaldy nothing about trump bodine up with kim jong-un, which has not produced any results. it is not like we can point to results. in fact, we had kim jong-un at the end of the year put out a statement, indicating he will become more aggressive too, and now he is getting the attention he craves. so you will have to do something crazier to get back in the news cycle when we are focused on iran. trump's owns donald amoral activity, paying hush money to a born star, what he says about grabbing women, his

penchant for lying again and again and again and again. yet, the evangelicals embrace him as a moral leader. as they did this week. many have come up with this terminology that the party right now is functioning more as a cult of personality than a party that is principal based, ideology based, ideas based, because you do not see anybody, literally anybody on the republican side taking stands driven by policy, except when it comes to the two things they care about, tax cuts and judges. host: from her independent line in georgia. scott is next. caller: good morning, david, good morning. how are you guys? oh my gosh. i'm an independent and i have

been listening to the program this morning, and i will tell you that that republican on there, that guy -- i do not get it. are they brainwashed? my family is all republican. and i do not get it. host: what question or comment do you have for our guest? caller: here is my question, why now did he have to take out that general? why now? that is all i want to know. why now? we have had that guy in our sites for years. we could have taken him out many, many times. but right now, we had to go kill that guy, why? guest: that is actually the question. i do not think we have a good answer. the administration claims there was an imminent threat that they had to take out now, but they have also said that he was planning, which is not

necessarily imminent. you can plan for a long time. and the report from "the washington post" and others indicate that the taking out of the general was one out of a range of options given to the president in terms of what to do regarding the rising tensions and conflicts in iraq connected to iran. so that gives you the sense that this was an option, that conflicts with the idea that there is an imminent threat. so there is a lot of confusion going on about what really happened. i hope that members of both congress, the house and senate, bear down on this and to know, was this just a matter that in the midst of the impeachment that he decided to just come up with the most

extreme, the most far out option to be the most dramatic and to have the biggest distraction. it seems a possibility. so why now? why escalate this and take an active war without consulting with congress at this point in time? that is a good question. host: the senate majority leader went to the floor of the senate yesterday to talk about his thinking as far as the role of the senate in this process. meansartial justice making up our minds on the right basis. it means putting aside purely reflexive partisanship and putting aside personal relationships and animosities. it means cooley considering the facts the house has presented, and then rendering the verdict we believe is best for our state, our constitution, and our

way of life. clearly not what some might wish the house had proven, but what they actually have or have not proven. host: mr. corn? guest: this conflicts with what he said not long ago, which is he was going to basically be part of a trump defense team, there would be no daylight between the senate republicans and the defense team. now he is saying we need to put reflexive partisanship aside and consider the evidence, that is what they are supposed to do, that is their job, to be impartial. they take an oath, every senator -- it is a special oath for the impeachment that they will be impartial jurors. now, in some ways i think that is a joke. the democratic senators have already made up their mind. but the leader of the senate,

mitch mcconnell, having said he wants to be an extension of the trump defense team, so do we believe him when he says that were when he makes a speech like this? given his excessive reflexive partisanship to the obama years, when he said my job is to make sure obama does not get elected, was not to do what is best for the country, which is make sure obama does not get elected, and then to basically break the norms by denying a vote on the mitche court nominee -- mcconnell particularly does not have a good track record when it reflexivevoiding partisanship. so i think despite what he said, he will still be plotting with the white house to figure out how to handle this senate trial in the way that is best for the president. host: will witnesses be part of

the process? guest: they should be. a trial has witnesses, particularly since at the key witnesses -- not all, but several key witnesses were blocked by donald trump. the defendant had the right to block key witnesses in testifying to congress, so you have people like secretary , theo, mick mulvaney, um defense secretary esper and others who have not told their stories. and as we have learned from emails that have come out and other evidence, they were all more involved in this. and it turns out that everybody except donald trump wanted this forto ukraine to go forward reasons they found were inexplicable at the time, he said no.

it it was not like he was making a case about corruption, i and concerned, he just said no. while he had a back channel through rudy giuliani saying we need an investigation into joe biden and an investigation that clears me of anything in the russian hacking of 2016. so i sat through two weeks of thehearings in the house, intelligence committee, and it is undeniable that he did what he did. forward, andcome if yout he said -- believe what he says, we need to consider the evidence, than they need to present the evidence. host: good morning, the republican line. caller: good morning. i was wondering if you think that donald trump would make any major move without consulting vladimir putin? i think in syria he had the ok to go ahead.

and i do not think he is bright enough, except for the election coming up, to differ -- defer the investigation of his impeachment. i want to know your thoughts on that and how he connects to putin. guest: ok, i do not think he is on the phone every day with the vladimir putin asking what to do or not do, but i do think -- we saw this years prior to his election -- that he is somewhat enamored with the vladimir putin. in 2013, when he announced he was holding the miss universe contest in moscow, which he owned at the time, he sent out a tweet, will vladimir putin come, will he be my new best friend? wait a second, by 2013 vladimir putin is already known to be a repressive, thuggish leader who in a bloody warring crimea,

i mean, he is not somebody that you want to be best friends with. why does donald trump want to be best friends with vladimir putin? ism that point onward he always talking about vladimir putin in positive terms, always. this might be so is that from 2013 on he always wanted to do a very big trump tower in moscow. and this is something that puzzles me to know end when i think about republican reaction to donald trump, for most of the 2016 campaign we now know, we did not know then, we now know that the trump organization and donald trump knew about it, was trying to negotiate a deal to build a tower in moscow that would bring donald trump hundreds of millions of dollars. while he was campaigning, while he was saying vladimir putin is

not such a bad guy, he was trying to do a deal in russia. the deal included his fixer, michael cohen, calling vladimir putin's office and asking for help. this is the biggest conflict of interest in presidential history. he said he had nothing to do with russia when he was campaigning, while secretly he was trying to negotiate a deal that could bring him millions of dollars. that could only happen if putin wanted it to happen. putin knows this and it gives him the ability to blackmail him during the campaign, because he is telling americans he is not doing this. that in itself is a gigantic scandal. if not in the pocket of putin, he has been next to vladimir putin and he has wanted his approval. and he had a call with him the other day, there was a readout of the call, not anything about him telling vladimir putin to

interfere again in an election. host: the secretary of state delivers those messages. guest: others do, but the guy who runs the government, the man who symbolizes his country not saying anything to a foreign leader who attacked to this country -- it was not a physical attack, but it was war, information warfare. not saying anything negative about him, not saying anything like do not do this again. we do know from reporting that the idea of defending the u.s. from a russian attack, if it is brought for consideration before president trump, he does not always talk about it. remindsds him, and it at the rest of us, that he got elected with russian help. host: kathleen in new york, the democrats line. good morning. caller: good morning. david, i would like to say the

truth, you are a breath of fresh air. i enjoy listening to people tell the truth and not afraid to tell the truth. i noticed something the other day when he came out, when donald trump came out on the tv to tell as to tell us why he did what he did with this guy that they took out. anyway, i found him very strange. since he is the commander-in-chief of the military, i found it strange he had to read a prompter. he showed know this inside out thise, you know, commanded move. i do not understand why he had to read a prompter. you know what i am saying? he should have known this inside and out. guest: one thing we know about donald trump is he is not a details guy, not when it comes to policy matters or health care

or tax cuts or whatever, he likes to think of himself as a big picture guy. offact, there was a clip when he was asked about soleimani a couple years ago, he had no idea who he was. he makes a lot of statements that often indicate that he is not fully up to speed on important matters. that is why heer read the prompter or not, i do not know, but i do think that we have republicans who say during the last debate on health care when they went to speak with him, they started talking about details, he said, i do not care about that -- i will not curse on c-span, he said, i do not care about that crap. they were stunned because the details matter. that is what they were debating with the democrats. so he is not a person who wants to get, not even the weeds, sometimes he does not even want

to get in the forest. he wants to stay above all the vegetation. so it does not surprise me that to be clear and it sure not to make a mistake on a sensitive matter, explaining an act of war, that he used a prompter. host: we saw fundraising figures come in, looking at that and performance, who has a good shot going into 2020? especially as iowa comes up. guest: i do not want to be the prediction -- in the production business. for a couple years i have just said, it does not make sense to predict. you can look at the numbers and you can draw conclusions. bernie sanders continues, on the democratic side, continues to be a fundraising superstar with low amounts, not the big amounts. biden got into the game, but his

numbers were not spectacular, but not bad. elizabeth warren dropped a little bit. i dohe numbers kind of,i not think anything surprising. but my hat is off to andrew yang. and pete buttigieg has been steady in his fundraising. so on the democratic side, i think the bottom line is all the major contenders have enough resources to do what they need to do in the early states. so it is not like anybody has a tremendous advantage or disadvantage, there is a lot of retail politicking in iowa and new hampshire. they have been running very long time. i think voters really have a lot of information about all of these. donald trump's numbers are very large too. i, as a reporter, i am on a lot the fundraising

lists, and i am amazed by the campaign,m thtrump i get several a day, they keep pumping them over and over again. i think when it comes to next november, the american voting electorate will be supersaturated with ads and information, so whether donald trump has $100 million or $200 million, i am not sure the 200 million dollars will buy you a lot more. people will have a clear picture of him and decide if that is who they want versus what the democrats -- who the democrats nominate. there is a lot of money in the system, a lot of it comes from corrupt sources, corporate interests, people who want tax cuts, but nevertheless i think both candidates will be fully armed. host: you do not want to be, in

the production business but what are the chances of reelection -- in the prediction business, but what are the chances of reelection of the president? guest: there will be between 3-300 events between now and election day that will affect whatever you say now. but he has a good shot. he clearly has a good shot. if you look at the numbers from last time, 66 million people 66 millionim -- people voted for hillary clinton, 63 million for donald trump, but he had the right people in the right states. -- are still high on the democratic side. his voting block was older than hillary clinton's, but in four years you lose some voters. there are probably some people who voted for him who are now disillusioned, so you lose those.

i do not see how he gains votes. there is we imagine, some trailing off of people who are disappointed or may be think he has behaved in a way they did not expect. but the question is, who is the democrat? will there be deficits they have that will keep voters away? if you look at the very big picture, the macro numbers, they are not good for trump, but better for a democrat. but better for a generic democrat. willhe actual democrat is determine who inherits the macro numbers. host: from ohio, the independent line. caller: thank you for taking my call. what is going on in this country? i do not think rod sterling could write the story. one of the glaring things that stands out to me is the trump

supporters are in fear of people like aoc, the young freshman theyrat in congress, yet have no problem with donald trump cozying up to vladimir putin. so everything -- up is down, down is up. we live in this crazy society it, my and where is question would be, where we going to be four years from now? guest: that is a good question. i think in a lot of ways our national discourse has been perverted. if you look at what happens, we don't debate or discuss or even argue about policy anymore, we argue about facts and truth. leadingave donald trump the way and saying things that

did not happen, saying things that happened that didn't happen again and again and again. so the facts of the ukraine scandal are pretty clear. in thatwhat he said transcript, i want you to do us a favor. we have testimony from people that there was a quid pro quo. his own guy, ambassador sondland, who said there was a quid pro quo. he was in charge of getting the ukrainian president to declare publicly that there would be investigations that trump wanted in return for a meeting with trump, and later with a military aid to being released. saysuy he was doing this, this, yet when that happens i go up to representative jim jordan, who has been shouting for weeks, no quid pro quo -- i said, do

you still say no quid pro quo, he said -- no quid pro quo. instead of arguing whether this means and what the appropriate response is, maybe it should not be impeachment, maybe it should be an active center. that -- censure. that you should argue the factss. if donald trump is out there ,aying, russia did not attack when everybody else says that, even those in congress, you do not have a conversation about what to do, you are having a debate about what happened or didn't happen. yeah, up is down, down is up, but more importantly we are not having serious conversations. climate change, every major country in the world except us thisen china, identifies as a major threat. and we see australia today

having temperatures of 117 degrees. basically, an area from here to new york like 100 miles wide is burning up and donald trump says, there is nothing to climate change. when wegue the reality should be arguing about what to do about the reality. so i sense the frustration of the caller that we are not getting to the real things, because we have a president and a party supporting him that wo'' t live in this reality. host: robbie is in pennsylvania, republican line. last call. ander: good morning, pedro mr. korn. let's go through the facts and history. iran took over navy ships, held our soldiers hostage and obama

sat on his hands. over the summer, iran blew up one of our drones. we did nothing. two took over not one, but british oil ships and we did nothing. iran blew up, over the summer, in oil refinery -- an oil refinery, disrupting worldwide all markets -- oil markets and we did nothing. now we have this incident in iraq where the iranian backed iraqi militia rebels take over ok, what our embassy, is it going to take? iran,e general, not in not in russia, we caught him on the ground in iraq.

i am sure that vladimir putin is real happy that we attacked one of his staunch allies' generals. guest: that is the argument, that was well put. the question is, is this effective? will this lead to a greater war with a higher cost? that is always the calculation. act ofalways justify an violence if you point to this, say we do that. iran rain is going to do something else, what will we do in response to that? we saw what happened in 2003. saddam hussein, we made him out to be more of a threat than he was, the administration even lied about it. yeah, he did bad things, so we ,o and we miscalculate thousands of americans lose their lives because we made a

mistake and we could not prosecute that war. what are you prepared to do? for you prepared to send 100,000 troops into iraq to have a war against iran there? if so , fine. encourage your family members to go and do this and let's get the tax people to pay for it. but if you look at this like one issode in and of itself reckless. so the question is really, where do we go from here? you can justify killing a bad guy anytime you want, but what does it wreak? we saw what happened in 2003 and we are still paying the price today. host: if you want to read the work of our guest and others, david corn is the washington bureau chief. happy new year.

guest:guest: happy new year to everyone at c-span. it is one of my favorite things in the world. host: we will continue with the question we started with, if you support or oppose the airstrike on soleimani, call (202) 748-8000 if you support it, (202) 748-8001 if you oppose it, and if you are a veteran of the iraq war, (202) 748-8002. on "newsmakers" we had the privilege of the director of the national institute of health, who responded to a question posed about prevention and research with the social problems that make people sick. >> and wonder what you would say to members of congress about the importance to look at prevention, to throw more money bluntly, behind research into things such as poverty, hunger, the things that are leading to addiction and poor health of that so many people have, mentioning the deaths of despair, like alcohol, drugs and

suicide, what about these underlying societal problems that often get ignored? dr. collins: they are critically important. those are central parts of our research agenda it we have an entire institute on drug abuse, which is the lead in our major efforts now on the opioid crisis, an example of one of the deaths of despair. we have another institute focused on alcohol, the national institute of alcoholism, and another that focuses on suicide, the national institute on mental health. each one of those has a board identify what are the factors that play out in those outcomes, not just to name them but do something about them by initiating interventions to see what we can do to reduce the risk that happens to people in those circumstances. yet that is in the prevention agenda. let me mention another major

effort in prevention underway right now that listeners may want to learn more about because they can be part of it. we want to understand what are all the factors that play out in an individual's ability to stay healthy. we would like to know that just not about a few people, but a large number of people who are diverse in their backgrounds. that is the motivation behind the program called "all of us," and if you want to learn more go to join all of us.org, because americans are invited to be part of this. we want to sign up one million americans who will take part in the project. very diverse in their backgrounds geographically, socioeconomically and educationally. and collect every kind of data we can about their medical experiences, their behaviors, life experiences, what is in their medical records, what is in their dna, all of this which people will agree to take part

in in this national venture. announcer: "washington journal" continues. host: we will finish the program getting your thoughts on whether you support or oppose the action that took out soleimani. if you support it, (202) 748-8000. if you oppose it, (202) 748-8001 . for iraq war veterans, (202) 748-8002. you can also text us at (202) 748-8003. new tweets from mike pompeo when it comes to the events from earlier this week, saying he spoke with united arab emirates about the decision to take defensive action, protect u.s. personnel abroad, he said in the is also concerned about the provocations from iran and the u.s. is committed to de-escalation. also said the same situation was discussed with the iraqi president about the decision to

take that action and protect u.s. personnel, "and i reaffirm that the u.s. remains committed to de-escalation." similar thoughts from the president yesterday when he addressed reporters in florida. pres. trump: we took action last night to stop a war. we did not take action to start a war. i have deep respect for the iranian people, they are a remarkable people with an incredible heritage and unlimited potential. we do not seek regime change, however the iranian regime's aggression in the region, including the use of proxy fighters to destabilize neighbors must end, and it must end now. the future belongs to the people of iran, those who seek cooperation and peaceful existence, not the terrorists

who plunder their nation to finance bloodshed abroad. the united states has the best military by far anywhere in the world. we have the best intelligence in the world. if americans anywhere are of thosed, we have all targets already fully identified, and i am ready and prepared to take whatever action is necessary. and that in particular refers to iran. reporting that the russian foreign minister spoke with his iranian counterpart on the phone to discuss the killing, "he expressed his condolences over the killing," the statement said and the minister stressed such actions violates the norms of international law. karen in columbus, north carolina, supporter of the action. go ahead. caller: good morning, i absolutely support the air raid.

i'm so impressed with our president. i was not really planning on voting for him. i did vote for him. i thought he was the lesser of the two evils. i support him and our secretary of state. i am proud of our country. i know it will get us into another kind of war, but sometimes you have to show your might. i am sorry this had to happen, but things happen and it is the way it goes. and that is all i have to say. the previous guest you had, i take offense he said that people who voted for donald trump are in some kind of cult. because i have also voted democrat. host: larry is next on the oppose line. caller: hello. look, let's be very clear on what is going on here. you had a republican caller cal l in -- hello?

host: go ahead. caller: you had a republican caller who said iran made all these attacks on america or on other sovereign countries or whatever, but it has been proven an hadld news, that ir nothing -- they denied any attack, yet you guys let this guy come on tv and tell a lie about everything they said. none of that stuff was proven. it has been provocation from the beginning. they have been trying to get along since 1979, when i first started devote they wanted to kill and a change of the regime then. so to all my republican friends out there, tell the truth. pedro, this is for you, when they lie, please tell them the facts. host: how do you know the other

sources were not telling the truth -- were telling the truth? why do you assume they are telling the truth? caller: because america lies, the president is a liar. he has lied 15,000 times. host: pete in phoenix, arizona, a veteran of iraq. caller: i think they are looking at it from the wrong perspective. i think america and its allies have been attacking iran and its allies since the revolution and the wars have had unintended consequences. the first war was in syria, the revolution. iraq attacked iran. iran did not attack iraq, iraq attacked iran, thinking they were in a weakened position. then when it looked like iran was going to win, america gave a tremendous amount of weapons to

saddam hussein, even though he was using poisonous gas against the kurds and iranians. host: the act of late, did you support or oppose it? caller: what is that? host: did you support or oppose? caller: i strongly oppose it. i just wanted you to understand -- host: why did you oppose the second act? caller: it is an act of war and it will put us into an unnecessary war and i do know what to see millions -- we have had these wars since the first iraq war, the war in syria and millions of people have been killed and displaced, millions of lives have been destroyed. we cannot allow another terrible war to occur. if you give me a minute i will explain. host: we will have other people speak, but i wanted to show this story from this morning on the for's preparations

retaliation. it puts on alert nearly 80,000 american troops from saudi arabia, iraq, where thousands and their families are stationed and navy ships operating nearby, rightere is risk, damn there is a risk, but we are working to mitigate it." you can find this in "the wall street journal" this morning. we have a supporter on the line. dan. caller: how is it going? attack by far. i have seen multiple standbys by the u.s. government to defer action from the middle east. we also have a bigger issue in the middle east, but i believe that there was no true act of he here because -- sorry,

was defending the embassy after getting attacked and seven americans dying. that is all i need to stay. we got attacked first. host: do you worry about repercussions? caller: i do, but at this point -- host: go ahead. caller: my phone just unplugged. sorry. host: ok, we will let him sort that out. susan in belford, pennsylvania, on the line for those that oppose. caller: yeah, i am surprised. we have a president now that is impeached. his judgment is in question. he has a bad and history of taking intelligence from our intelligence department. here he goes.

he decides without contacting congress, i guess they call them the top 8 -- host: the beginning of 8. caller: he does not meet with them or discuss with them the pros and cons. i'm appalled at that he went ahead and did this without meeting with congress. the gang of eight. host: that is a collection of it intelligence agents when comes to matters of intelligence, there are stories that refer to them in the newspapers even this morning. from fort worth but we will hear from don. caller: hello. host: you are on. caller: i have a couple comments. i'm an independent voter. i did not vote for donald trump or hillary. i did not vote because i did not like either one of them.

hillary because of benghazi. now i see we have attacks on embassies in iraq, we have response from this president. he is not a good dude, but he did the right thing in my opinion. are not of the callers acknowledging why we would take out a military target with our military. that is not terrorism, it is not a hit, it is what it is, it is a military target taken out by the military. host: bloomberg reporting that soon after the attack the president ordered a handful of his most senior aides to begin an attack on a general. the administration had recently asked france and other allies to that a redline had been crossed. his close circle was a scattered across the country for the holidays, mick mulvaney in key west, robert o'brien in california and mike pompeo in washington so after canceling

plans for travel to ukraine, the team secured the communication lines to discuss the strike on thursday and a plane was sent to california to ferry o'brien to palm beach and a small number of lawyers from the national secret counsel were involved. thes worried that consequent so decision would be leaked ahead of the strike. caller: it was not a preparation for war. he was defending america. i wish these people would get their heads out of their butt. we have a president that is sticking up for us. i used to be a democrat, but they left me. i did not leave them.

i do not know what is wrong with these people. and i do not know what is wrong with the people that let them get away. . am so sick and tired of this host: go ahead. compulsiveident is a liar. he lies to the american public. all of those guys are liars. lie, lie, lie. i think that last caller needs to take her head out of her butt, because this is pathetic. host: matt in dayton, ohio. a supporter of the strike. hello. caller: good morning.

presidentsay that trump has been impeached by the house, but has yet to go through the senate, so there have been some comments about that. the second thing, i support the airstrikes and one of the things i think is important for us to , they have the intelligence he acted how he felt he needed to, and at the end of the day you have to put the u.s. interests first, you cannot base your policy on the fear of what retaliation might be. in dayton,is matt ohio. we are getting your thoughts on this airstrike and whether you support or oppose it. we set aside a line for iraq veterans. ty in chicago opposes it. caller: yes, i'm from illinois and i oppose it. i oppose the fact that donald trump unfortunately was not --

able tot -- he wasn't communicate with congress at all, whether it was the house or senate. number two, you know, the fact that he has gone on national television on multiple stations glorified andnow, supported the intelligence community, ironically when he has bashed the intelligence community, as well as the media, over his whole administration, his tenure in office, it is ironic. so i totally oppose this is notd killing of -- it obviously, but there could have been other measures taken where this guy could have been, been

-- he could have been imprisoned. they could have also taken out some of their troops on the ground, but we knew targeting generaland -- target a in iran, you are inciting a war. host: ok, the secretary of state cnn talking about, give a justification for why the action was taken. secretary pompeo: iran has been engaged in dozens of attacks throughout the region, and america has shown restraint. while we made clear we were not going to tolerate the killing of americans. then an american was killed in iraq. then we watched intelligence talking about soleimani traveling and of the work he was doing to put americans at risk, so this was time to take action to deter further aggression from

soleimani and of the regime, as well as an attempt to de-escalate the situation. the risk of doing nothing was enormous. the intelligence committee made that assessment. host: c-span's producer sent out a tweet about efforts on the senate, tim kaine and dick durbin have a joint resolution removal of the military that has not been authorized by congress." it was referred to on the opening day of the 116th congress. now that the senate is back in, we will be hearing more about that if her on the senate side. reaction from you on our facebook page. lee same, still waiting on the imminent threat explanation. our allies are not happy. mary, look at we took out the

takest terrace, we do not out bad guys without intel and we do not share the intel with the whole world. facebook is available on our twitter feed, texting, and of the phone lines. danny from brooklyn, maryland. caller: i cannot believe the people who are bitching about this, this was an american embassy attacked. they were chanting death to america and they, would have killed every american inside thank -- and thank god we have a president who would respond to this. people saying this will start a war, no it won't. the whole world knows if you mess with america, we have a president that will respond. michael, stamford, connecticut. hello. caller: good morning. you showed a clip of president trump saying america has the best intelligence in the world.

well, he agrees with it now, right? i guess so. and then you showed pompeo talking about the airstrike. the guy before that was talking about how hillary lost him because of benghazi. so was hillary supposed to call pompeo, howike or is that supposed to happen? all the lies about line about hillary, it is ridiculous. so now you have pompeo saying, donald trump did it. how does anybody believe donald trump, he does not make sense? listen to him, please. host: lane in stillwater, oklahoma. caller: yes, i have been with donald trump from the beginning. i was cheerleading him on even before he became a candidate. and i am opposed. i do not think we should have these in less wars -- endless wars, you cannot export wealth

and democracy without what created that. host: portland, oregon, dave. the support line. caller: hello. host: go ahead. caller: yeah, i support donald trump, what he did. killed ourl, he has troops. he has been doing it for years. it is about time we had a president that would stand up for america. i am going to vote for him again. host: an iraq veteran from georgia. caller: i hope everything is going to be alright, because i oppose this act. president trump said his own intelligence was involved, now he is bragging on them. it seems like he does whatever he wants. host: why did you oppose the action? specifically why did you oppose

the action? caller: they knew this was going to start a can of worms. they just killed a general over there. that preempts war. if somebody would kill in military general here, that would be considered an act of war and we would retaliate. you know they are going to retaliate. and that is probably why the president is doing this, trying to obstruct his own impeachment. he wants another headline. he should be impeached. host: jared in fayette, ohio, a supporter of the action. hello. caller: how are you doing? host: fine, thanks. go ahead. caller: america needed the airstrike. when a is so soft

country tri-state kick out one of our contractors. hillary clinton waited 13 hours to send help to our guys, our ambassador. when did america get so soft? donald trump sent guys for the people at our embassy. the 82nd airborne was on standby. [indiscernible] largo, florida on the oppose line. caller: i oppose it because i think the people should have a vote on any airstrike before they do it. i think it is better that way if people vote on it before it happens. host: you mean the general population? caller: yes, the population should be able to vote on it, since we control the government and we have our stand, we should vote on it before it happens.

that way we are all responsible. host: but if congress represents the people, why not let them vote on it? caller: people in general should have a vote on this, so there is no confusion all the way around. everybody votes on it, instead of the parties making the decisions themselves. host: one more call, this is from baltimore, maryland. an iraq veteran. caller: yes, we are heading for world war iii. iran will get all their colleagues and friends together and they will drop a bomb on the united states, just because of what donald trump has done. host: that is ronald. he will be the last call for this topic. i appreciate you watching the program today. another one coming your way at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. see you then. ♪

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] up today on c-span, a senate armed services subcommittee hearing on preventing suicide in the military. after that, if you events from the campaign trail. senator bernie sanders at the national motorcycle museum in iowa then candidate senator cory booker at a forum on civil liberties hosted by the university of new hampshire's law school. >> c-span's live campaign 2020 coverage continues today at 1:45 p.m. eastern on c-span former vice president joe biden in denton, iowa and at seven, businessman tom steyer is in waterloo, iowa.

watch live on c-span or at www.c-span.org or listen live on the c-span3 rita -- radio app. next, a discussion on preventing suicide in the military at a summit armed services have committee hearing. embers heard testimony from medical professionals on the increasing rates of suicide for veterans and service members and strategies that may be used for prevention. >> we will hear from five witnesses.

the director of defense and suicide prevention office for the office of forest resiliency in the department of defense, the acting director of suicide prevention program at the department of veterans affairs, the suicide prevention branch chief at the center for mental health services and substance abuse at the department of and a and human services family professor of health care policy, department of health care policy at the harvard medical school. thank you all for being here and we are sorry that we are a bit late. our topic today is a heavy one. it's one that is difficult to discuss. we must address it to ensure the readiness and well-being of our troops, their families and veterans. suicide is a homefront threat to service members and veterans.