[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] >> coming up today on c-span, "washington journal" begins in a moment. after that, democratic presidential candidate senator elizabeth warren holds a townhall meeting in manchester, iowa. and live at noon eastern, we will hear from vivian walker come a state department official in charge of examining america's efforts to comedic eight with and influence members of the public in other countries. "washington journal today on," a look at what to expect this week as congress returns from its holiday recess with the national journal's zach cohen and politicals gabby bore. thethen a senior fellow at foundation for defense of democracy joins us to talk about u.s.-iran relations since the airstrike that killed a top iran he general.

an investigative reporter discusses the afghanistan war. as always, we will take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter as well. "washington journal" is next. is next. ♪ 6.t: it is monday, january the president now back in washington and congress returning, they will face decisionsl following the targeted u.s. killing of some em soleimani.e a question for you, how should the u.s. respond? if you are a democrat, the line to use is 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001.

independents and others, 202-748-8002. iraq war veterans, special line for you is 202-748-8003. cancan also text us, anyone text us on that line, 202-748-8003. on twitter, we are @cspanwj. our facebook page as well. several of the major news sites and newspapers reporting the stories of the twin developments that happened sunday in iraq and iran with this headline from usa today reflecting this, iraq votes to expel u.s. troops. in a sign of mounting anger over , iraq'sattack parliament voted to expel u.s. military forces from the country . iran said it was all but abandoning the nuclear deal

between tehran and world powers that the trump administration 2018. in may tensions have steadily increased . that is from usa today. a similar bet in the front page of the financial times, iran rolls back on nuclear deal as iran seeks u.s. troop withdrawal. binding, vote was not but underscores backlash to u.s. airstrikes that killed the leader of the foods force -- as regional tensions escalate, ending the presence of foreign forces is preferable, said the caretaker prime minister. despite the difficulties that might arise, the expulsion of the estimated 5000 u.s. troops would be a damaging blow to washington and undermined the international coalition fighting

isis. the coalition said it had suspended counterterrorism operations to focus on protecting its own troops. mike pompeo was on fox news sunday just before the parliament vote in baghdad. he was asked about the possibility of u.s. troops being asked to leave and here is chris wallace asking the question. [video clip] >> the iraqi parliament is holding an emergency session to discuss the question as to troops the 5000 u.s. should remain in custody. the iraqi prime minister says they will end foreign troop presence in iraq and also says the killing of general soleimani were top militia leader political assassinations. your reaction. >> president trump will never shy away from protecting and defending america.

it is what we have done over the entire three years with the middle east strategy. the activity is consistent with that and the president tweeted again last night, we will take the actions necessary to keep americanss -- keep safe. we have been continuing to take down the terrorist threat against the iraqi people. the resigned prime minister, the acting prime minister is under threats from the iranian leadership that we are pushing back against. we are confident the iraqi people want the united states to fight the counterterrorism campaign. sovereign is a country, if they demand we leave , will we leave and if we do, won't that hurt the fight against isis and stability in the region? >> we will have to take a look at what we do win the iraqi leadership in government makes a

decision. we will make the right decision and take actions the previous administration refused to take to do just that. secretary ofs the state yesterday. a unanimous vote, we understand. one of the two development we are focusing on this morning on washington journal. that and the decision to leave the nuclear deal. how should the u.s. react? 202-748-8000 for democrats. 202-748-8001 for republicans. .nd all others, 202-748-8002 shortly after the vote, the state department did release a statement on their disappointment and the vote, the united states is disappointed by the action taken in the iraqi council of represented of. while further clarification on the impact, we strongly urge iraqi leaders to reconsider the importance of the ongoing

economic and security relationship between the countries and the continued presence of the glow up -- global coalition to defeat isis. this administration remains committed to a sovereign, stable, and prosperous iraq. let's get to your calls and hear from richard in california, thanks for waiting, go ahead with your comments. caller: thanks. appreciate "washington journal." this started when trump took us out of the iranian deal. we had them complying with not trading plutonium for nuclear up these ratcheted financial sanctions on them and but of left iran no choice to react to that in a way that

would get us into a diplomatic situation and at the same time, here is trump saying he wants to out, come on in and kill all the kurds. at a critical time when maybe the sanctions were working and there is unrest in iran and reaction to getting iran out of iraq, he does this and now all love -- even the protests are turning against the united states in iran, iraq, and making , includingallies saudi arabia and other middle eastern countries nervous of what is going to happen and now we have to send more troops in. pompeo is somebody that is an extremist and his ideas about attacking iran and they are going to pull out of the iranian deal altogether so they can make

plutonium, the guy is a disaster. ed in lakeland, florida. soler: this is why i get frustrated. i am a democrat and i get so frustrated. netanyahu wrote a book saying the iranians could have the bomb in a year and a half, he was not lying, they could have had it in a year, year and a half, but they could have had it 16 years before that. you are telling me korea had more technical know-how than india, pakistan?

iran could have had the bomb several years ago if they wanted to. host: do you think this announcement of them leaving the deal is a done deal anyway, that they were going to proceed with developing advanced nuclear weapons anyway, regardless of the announcement? india, andpakistan, north korea -- the poorest countries of the world -- iran could have had the bomb if they wanted to have it. int: let's go to betty florida, also on our democrats line. iran took our horses, none of the presidents have done nothing about it. they still will help iran and

they should have been expelled long ago. about warsow nothing and stuff. our president is not a political person, he knows about business. we are in a predicament where you are going to be afraid to iranout your door because is all over the united states killedcame over here and all our people after 9/11, nothing was done about it. in danger. we were in danger with 9/11 and -- i don't know if he gottrying to make sure he elected again, but i have been 's ever since.sh

host: bill in florida, independent line. caller: good morning. more thanthing stealing more oil from the middle east like we did in iraq, we are going to do it iran and that is what our foreign policy seems to be about and mr. pompeo is nothing more than a representative for the coke brothers and their interest, which is oil, just like they did in venezuela, they wanted their oil, and this is the same thing again. host: pennsylvania, also on the independent line, donnie, what are your situate ash what are your thoughts on the situation in iraq with the development yesterday and the troops being asked to leave? caller: happy new year to c-span and the listening audience. my opinion yesterday is mixed. we knew they were going to say

to get out. they have never appreciated what we have done for them. there is a lot of geopolitical issues unlike the prior caller thinking it is all about oil, you may want to let him know we are drilling our own oil and almost totally independent of the mideast. that said, i support the president actions, i continue to be interested in why the democrats and the mainstream media are flailing against him. there are some things that need to be discovered, but it could not have been five minutes since the announcement of the death of the terrorist that everyone is on his case. we in western pennsylvania support the president and look forward to more positive action keeping america strong. thank you for letting me voice my opinion. host: as a donald trump supporter, the situation faced by the president in terms of the decision of they are sending 33,000 30 --some

the general inclination has been to withdraw troops from iraq and afghanistan, so what sort of decision ahead for president trump do you think he faces? we have to remember that president trump is being advised by military leaders, this is not going to be the d-day storming by the 82nd airborne, we have to protect our interest in that area and the interest of our allies. we have to take a look and see attitude, how this will play out. people see the be rule -- and l, that ise the b-rol just the world we live in today. we need to support this president and this country. we need answers for the questions. to lambaste him, call him a

murderer, i think it is misguided for this country. i just hope this plays out in a peaceful manner. yes, there is a lot of bombastic hyperbole going on back and forth, but that happens everywhere. host: a couple other ways, we want to remind you, we have a line set aside for those of the iraq war veterans, 202-748-8003, and a couple other ways to get through to us on our facebook page. you can send us the text as well. some of the early reaction so far on facebook and elsewhere. susan posts tomorrow iraq will be begging for help, bring our boys and financial help home. hey tech -- a text from nathaniel in new jersey. iraq has no other choice, their sovereignty is compromised when another country does a mafia hit without notifying them and from

paul, leave the sanctions on ironic, but tell iraq we will leave, but we want our money back first, mike -- mark warner of virginia was on meet the press yesterday and was asked about the threat posed by general soleimani. [video clip] >> i accept the notion there was a real threat. the question of how imminent is something i need more information on. america always has to be strong, but also smart, strong in the sense that we always need to protect our people and our interest and soleimani was a bad guy, we also have to be smart and there are three things i did not hear from the secretary and have not heard from the administration. over the last month, we have seen great pushback against iran not only in iran itself from the people protesting against the

eveny nan lebanon, in iraq where people are protesting against the iranian backed militias. seems to have transformed as we have seen the images the last 24 hours. host: the funeral for general soleimani happening today in tehran, this headline from politico, iran general replacing soleimani vows revenge for u.s. killing. he vowed sunday to take revenge as tehran abandon the limits of the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers in response to the slaying. the threat came as the blowback over the u.s. killing of soleimani mounted with iraq's parliament calling for the expulsion of all american troops from iraqi soil. next is jesse in virginia, go ahead. good morning.

on the government voting thing, i think we need to be clear about who voted. we are giving the impression it was the entire iraqi people, it is not. so seatsabout 300 or in its government. it was only the iranian influenced numbers that showed up and voted this nonbinding resolution, it is literally the group benefiting from iran's presence, the group that supports the terrorists that voted for us to leave. i think we need to be clear about that because otherwise it is very misleading about what is happening right now. host: appreciated that perspective, we will go to terry next, on the republican line. guy, liker the last

he was saying -- i get what he , wasaying, but iran-iraq it 52 deaths? and that were in --ica, kenya, and another host: we will go to robert in massachusetts. caller: how are you? pelosi gotike nancy skinneath donald trump's just before christmas time when nancy pelosi did the impeachment. of the vacation, he pulled it off when nobody was in washington, what scares me is this summer when they go home on

summer vacation, what he might do when everybody goes home for summer vacation. we sent 3500 troops over there now. what are they going to do? we are really going to look like fools. drones are very small, not only big. if you took a nuclear something as well as bacon. you could took a small drone and fly it into the stadium and that is what is going to get us in .rouble site to me.ry scary it is a soft target, it could be a hospital. it could be a nuclear power plant. take a drone, fly it over the

nuclear power plant like we have here and that would be the end of us all. rightclear power plant is near the beach. if you took a drone and fluid over the nuclear power plant, there is no way anybody could get out, that is a very scary site and the last thing, you know what scares me worse than donald trump? the people that go to his rally, they really scare me. host: robert began his call talking about nancy pelosi. craig caplan tweeting this early this morning, the house is out until tuesday when members vote to establish a quorum to -- for the 116th congress. later, the house will vote on a war powers resolution to limit presidential actions against iran. the reporting on that from the washington post with the headline about that and a story

-- the speaker said on sunday the house would vote on a war powers resolution limiting president trump's military actions warning his order for a lethal strike against a top iranian commander wrist -- risked an escalation of tensions. was provocative and disproportionate military airstrike targeting high-level iranian military officials that endangered members of the u.s. military, diplomats, and others. democrats line next, brian in massachusetts. calls mentioned about the oil. i know trump made the statement about taking iraq soil and that was a mistake previous presence -- presidents have made. this boils down to obama and getting out of the nuclear deal anything obama touched like the

health care thing and the iraq up, he seems to want to one a black man. if we were supposedly producing our own oil, why are we importing oil from other countries if we are self-sufficient? it seems to me people in alaska got a check yearly or monthly from the alaska pipeline. i am waiting for my tech to come in from the oil selling off our own national resources here. the president seems to think this country is his own wallet. the money to -- that went to -- himhat ticked ticked off. it is all agreed. the guy is in big trouble. mentioned president obama and the comparison between the presidents, this is a story in the washington post.

trump wrestles with the shadow of obama. david writing as allies rush to defend his decision to authorize a drone strike, many focused less on soleimani then another once prominent actor, former president barack obama, obama drew redlines and ignored them matt gaetz wrote in a tweet adding that trump never will. town is a new sheriff in -- maybe they thought obama was the commander-in-chief, steve scalise recycled a misleading claim obama had been sending iran cash as they killed americans, but with trump in charge, america fights back. for trump, the true measure of the dramatic and risky operation will become clearer over time as the united states braces for a retaliatory strike from iran that could embroil his

administration in the complex and intractable middle east conflict he pledged to avoid. amid the immediate fallout, the president and his defenders rushed to declare trump had bested his predecessor standing up to a malign foreign power. the president reacted to the iraqi parliament's decision saying this to reporters, if they ask us to leave, if we don't do it in a friendly way, we will charge them with sanctions like never before and it will make the sanctions look tame. if they do anything we think is inappropriate, we will put sanctions on iraq, very big sanctions on iraq. this is frank on the independence line in monroe, north carolina. caller: happy new year to c-span. i enjoy watching your program and i have been watching for 25 years now. host: great, thank you.

observations. 4 first of all regarding the andssination of soleimani criminal,ion by a war the act of a war criminal to assassinate him. the threats to attack cultural as a retaliation threat, that would definitely be a war crime. the intel that supposedly he says -- he claims he got comes -- how heeep state would all of a sudden be deciding to trust the deep state

now. it sounds fishy to me, i don't believe it. i think the american people put the democrats back in charge of the house because they wanted adults to babysit donald trump. im is next, democrats line, we are talking about the latest developments in iraq and iran. caller: happy new year. what gets me is they say we have no money for health care or social security, but they will steal money from the american people to go to all the stupid wars. who is going to pay for these wars and what he did is right out of putin's playbook. you don't like somebody, take him out. stealhers me they will from the american people like that and if they want to take

care of the american people, give them health care, give them their social security money, quit stealing from medicare or medicaid. dog whistlewing his and there are all these racist people following trump. host: independent line, stephen, good morning. caller: thanks for taking my call. .his is a disaster i am really shocked the pen again -- pentagon did not push back. this -- mark miry. smart guy.y a shocked nobody in the pentagon -- somebody must have

pushed back, i cannot believe they would let him do this political assassination. a lot of this stuff has been gamed out. i am really blown away because this cycle of violence, it just hit -- it iswe like a political assassination, this guy was not just a general, he was a politician, this is like a political assassination. -- all of a sudden, iraq is we had 160 thousand troops at one time there. we can barely contain the area. this could really blow up. host: you see this as a big difference -- the killing between -- of general soleimani,

vastly different from targeting specific terrorists weather it be iraq or afghanistan, something like the killing -- capturing, killing of osama bin laden, for example? caller: absolutely, this is a nationstate. those are like homegrown terrorists, this is a nationstate, this is a big deal for iran. i think the president should apologize. i don't think ramping up the like napoleon, i think you should apologize, roll it back, just stop with the heated rhetoric. these guys play the long game. this goes back to 1953, that is a long history here.

i don't think he understands what he did. i am shocked. i am really just -- it is very disturbing. senator marco rubio yesterday was on cbs's faced the nation and asked about the reports of the imminent threats before the killing of general soleimani. [video clip] >> when you gather information, it is highly sensitive. it cannot be disclosed without putting in danger our sources and methods. here is the bottom line, if the president of the united states is presented with information that there is a imminent and credible threat that could cost the lives of not 100, potentially hundreds if not --usands of men and women the president has an obligation to act and this president did. >> what was so particular to this intelligence?

soleimani had been carrying out attacks for decades and this had been happening in the weeks prior. what was so specific that because to the president to take this specific action. how do you justify that to the american people? >> the question is how would you justify not acting on even the possibility that americans could die? >> clue you know what the threat was? >> i know what the threat was and what they have been for months. i refer you back to my tweets may of last year when we talked about this. this is not some thing overnight, they woke up one morning and said let's start attacking americans. they use proxy groups to carry out what they believe are deniable attacks. host: marco rubio yesterday on "face the nation." you can text at 202-748-8003. don from atlanta says we either

take care of them over there or it comes over here, it is as simple. --an scott says we should leave iran today. eric says not surprised, seems like we did not think this thing through very well. doesn't seem like much coming from the white house has much real thought behind it. pat in new jersey, republican line. caller: i think we need to look -- they areeeded

reenact 1979 and i think this proves we cannot trust iraq to safeguard our diplomats and if our troops have to leave, it is not just our troops, it is all the other supposedly training the iraqis, british, french, whatever countries, they want everyone out. if we leave, our diplomats should accompany the army, we should close our embassy and tell them have a nice life. host: what about the other elements that do not support the iranian-backed elements that support a u.s. president -- presence in their country? not to bee sunnis are trusted, they were the people

right after saddam hussein, leading the charge against us. as for the kurds, they are in five countries. they are not a sovereign nation. if they want to fight for their nation -- their freedom, we should help them. within iraq, we cannot safely help them. caller: i think the iranians in the middle east need to find a way to stop it. people will keep going into their cities and towns and killing their people and pretending they are protecting

them. caller: we saw the same thing in north korea where we were trying to pay for their compliance cannot pay and develop nuclear weapons and over the past two decades, we have seen that fail and testing continue to occur, i don't think iran is any different. if we were to keep with the agreement, they would have kept on doing it to spite us and along with our funding for it. i approve the ability to pull out of that agreement and secondly, a lot of people are very disgruntled with the killing of the leader. the contractor died, american

embassy attack, this is the first time i have seen our 10 years in the last actually take action and heinous crimes. i am in iraq and afghanistan and currently active servicemember. this is the first time i have seen a president who will take action not just in retaliation, but supporting and defending our active-duty troops over there. we have thousands of contractors in the middle east and all over the world. i believe he actually has our best interest at heart and wants to make sure we all know he will regardless of what the political stance will be and that is very endearing, i think. through one you got

the line. a tweet from texas, senator john cornyn leading to the op-ed piece in the washington journal. president trump's order to take out soleimani was morally, constitutionally, and strategically correct. a bit more in that editorial from that op-ed piece from former senator joe lieberman, from the perspective of american values and interests, to mourn the death of such a man and democrats have not, their response has been yes but, with worries the death will provoke iran. democrats have suggested the trump administration has no coherent strategy or that mr. trump should not have acted without notice to an permission from congress. if we allow fear to dictate our actions, we will only encourage them to come after us and our

allies. mr. trump had no authority to order this attack without congressional approval, the isim by some democrats constitutionally untenable and practically senseless. on many occasions, president obama ordered drone strikes on dangerous terrorist leaders -- he did so without and mr. authorization obama brought "justice to osama bin laden" without congressional approval. that is in the wall street journal. in edgewater, maryland, republican line, good morning to sarah. caller: i think in all of this, the one thing that seems to be forgotten a's the president of the united states has given a

green light for any government to kill other government officials in other countries. we are one step closer to war and one of the things i think we should think about is what happened over the last 20 years. the war in iraq was based on ally, multiple lies, one failed strategy after another. we also should not forget rumsfeld was in iraq drinking gingwith saddam hussein eg saddam hussein on to have war with iran, which happened. , they had a democratic elected government and it was the cia who took out that government because at that time, the country of great britain controlled oil reserves in the middle east and asked the united states after he was elected.

he said i want to control our iran andeserves in great britain came in and said we do not want this guy to control the oil in iran, do something and the united states took out an elected government. our policy in the middle east is a very simple policy, it is basically stupid is as stupid does. host: stephen on the independent line. hi.er: host: turn down your television and go ahead with your comment. that them fend for themselves, they have been doing it for many years. the: you are in favor of

u.s. pulling out our troops? you are ok with the decision by the iraqi parliament? out of itt our stuff and make them pay for everything we did over there. japan'se reporting on navy, which recently announced a presence in the middle east, keeps their plans for mideast deployment amid iran tension and they will proceed with a naval deployment to the middle east despite the increased risk after president trump want iran of major retaliation if it's not revenge for the u.s. killing of a top general. the prime minister, whose country has a military alliance and good ties with iran told a news conference tokyo was deeply concerned about rising tensions. the comments were the first since the attack and came hours after iran said it would abandon .imits on uranium enrichment

any further escalation should be avoided. he plan to proceed with the dispatch of forces to gather information that could help protect japanese-related shipping. we hear from ryan in texas on the democrats line. caller: good morning. , looking at how enthusiastic people are in the streets, we are expecting then not to do anything, we should not be offended when the supreme leader said the united states will get a harsh response. they passed a resolution to expel u.s. troops and then trump threatens them with sanctions be ine they don't want to their own country, but we want

to stay there by force and do operations against them because they are fighting with isis with the help of iraq. surprised.ot be to alabama, richard, go ahead, democrats line. bush 1 and bush 2 that got us into these iraqi , after the world trade center's came down, he and saddamiraq hussein had nothing to do with the world trade center attacks to stayp was elected out of these wars, he said he wanted to make america great

again. he said he wanted to get the easts out of the middle and what have we got? we have got him starting another handnd obama, on the other , he got the man that was responsible for the world trade inter towers going down and just think it is crazy. we don't need to get into another war. all these people, these fathers, mothers over here in this country, they don't want their kids having to go back into any wars and this man, trump, he thinks he knows better than the generals, he said that. he thinks he knows everything, apparently, he thinks he is the smartest person in the world and all he is going to end up doing is getting a lot of americans killed because of what he is doing right now.

this particular interest, do you think the president went against advice from his top generals, including the chair of the joint chiefs? caller: the generals are not going to go against him publicly, but privately, they will tell him how they feel and he said he knew more than the generals and he is the commander in chief and if he wants to start a war with iran, he will do it and there is nothing they can do to stop him. caller: following the -- host: following the announcements yesterday, reaction in europe from the key european leaders, angela merkel, president macron, and the british prime minister boris johnson, here is what part of that statement says, they say we have condemned the recent

attacks on coalition forces in iraq and are gravely concerned by the negative role iran has played in the region including c and the force under the command of general soleimani.we call on the parties to exercise utmost restraint. the current cycle must be stopped. we specifically call on iran to violentfrom further action. we recall our attachment to the sovereignty and security of iraq . another crisis risks jeopardizing years of efforts to stabilize iraq. andcan reach us on facebook twitter and we hear from tony next in maryland. caller: hello?

host: you are on the air. caller: thank you for taking my call. observations.e of this whole thing is based on a lie. you are talking about -- we have been sent the wrong information by the government and people just eat it up. they say this guy is responsible for americans. that is false. saddam hussein was a sunni. when we invaded iraq, the people the sunnis.s were this guy has the blood of americans on his head. why aren't we going after the sunnis? to pretend they

have their hands clean? baloney. bunch of we have to get the facts right. host: republican line, from dennis in indiana. caller: good morning. i would like to say trump done the right thing. if we have to do something else, we need to behead the state. i am shocked and appalled by the cowardice in this country. host: tom, also on the republican line. caller: thank you for taking my call. the first thing i want to say is soleimani is responsible for a lot more than 600 american deaths. this is the guy behind the uthis and the guy that funded all of this expansion of the iranian revolution. these people don't understand --

i mean these people on the left, they don't understand he is a terrorist mastermind and donald trump will go down in history as the first president to get what i call the terrorist patrick, he killed the leader of isis, he gclled the leader of the ir therese lum force -- jerusalem force. they are specifically designed and trained and resourced to siege jerusalem when the time comes. they are the baddest of the bad guys. in addition to that, i want people to remember that soleimani is personally responsible for inviting the russians to syria. he went to moscow, met with putin, and asked them to bring and then theyid started dropping bombs in syria,

flying bombers for the first time since the cold war out of russia. this guy needed to be dealt with . whether they use a drone or not -- i don't like the idea that everybody is calling this an assassination. this guy was a known terrorist for years. agedsee our ambit -- see our embassy in iraq. host: i thought i lost you for a second, go ahead, finish up. iraqi: there is 140,000 popular mobilization forces under the leadership. abu mahanta's -- that is why i say it is a hat trick because donald trump killed the leader of isis and the leader of the

pmc. the only thing left is to get somebody in -- in leadership of lebanon. people need to understand when you attack the u.s. embassy, that the iranians are trying to replicate the same thing they wantn tehran in 1979, they to take american hostages. they want to hold that over our heads so they can seize control of the entire country of iraq. host: reaction on twitter. 202-748-8003 on text. this text from randy. iraq is a sovereign nation and we threaten them with sanctions for following the democratic process, what are we trying to accomplish? dear national media types, what is not to understand? lizzie says president trump cares more for our military than

any president in our history and richard says mike pence falsely claimed soleimani was connected to 9/11, he is learning from the chosen one. he may be getting that story from the associated press, one of many fact checking -- vicessociated press writes president mike pence listing some of the worst atrocities of and, trump took action stood up against the leading state sponsor of terror -- assisted in the clandestine travel to afghanistan of 10 of the 12 terrorists who carried terrorist attacks. there is no evidence iran directly supported the 9/11 hijackers. many of them saudi members of

the al qaeda terrorist group, nor are there reports soleimani assisted in travel to afghanistan. there were 19 hijackers on 9/11, not 12. it was later clarified he was referring to the hijackers who travel to afghanistan through iran before the attacks. it is true iran allowed operatives to pass through their borders from saudi arabia to afghanistan without receiving their passports according to a 19 page unsigned report found among osama bin laden's personal effects. 15 of the hijackers were from saudi arabia, two from the uae, one from egypt and it is consistent with the commission report which found some of the 9/11 hijackers possibly passed through iran. nowhere does the report mention soleimani, let alone indicate he was behind the travel practices that allowed al qaeda operatives

through. from michigan, we hear from tony. welcome, good morning. good morning per happy new year. i lost my -- off the coast of iran a long time ago. 1953, i thinkte this goes back a little bit further to the iran conference. the iraq vote, let's use it as iraq and to leave syria now and we can leave the other countries in the near future. as far as the iranian deal, i don't think it was a great deal to begin with, that is why it was not a treaty. accords and deals on not worth the paper they are written on. thank you very much, have a

great day. host: bradley in georgia on our democrats line. caller: yes, sir. i would like to remind the republicanslic that who are constantly getting into these wars and everyone keeps talking about how trump is using this as a distraction from impeachment, but i would say look at benjamin netanyahu, he had calls with donald trump before he notified congress and i feel like israel is using the united states to fight battles for him. they could have taken out this solomonic guy years and years ago. even israel knew the consequences were too high to do that. america is finally tired of having inbred, redneck republicans controlling our country. enough is enough. the headline, multitudes

march in a solid daily -- solidarity. it tens of thousands of people, some covered in israeli flags and singing hebrew songs poured manhattan as a show of solidarity. the most recent attack inside a rabbi's home in a new york city suburb when a man stabbed five people who had gathered for the /anukkah celebrations . jan.orgia, this is caller: i think we should pull our troops out of everything, let these other countries fight their own battles. take auld just as soon knife and stab us in the back. we do not have an ally. we take care of ourselves. host: south carolina, we speak

to henry. good morning, america. up onk you summed it minute ago when you read the wascle from pence, he lying. i like the 1959 and caller from maryland because we seem to live in the moment and not review history, in 1959, a republican president by the name of dwight eisenhower, who was a great military general, warned america against the military industrial complex. we have all of these "military contractors spread throughout the world and yet we view them as military contractors when a lot of them are acting in terroristic ways.

one thing i want america to think about, when it came to our elections, all of our intelligence agencies told the president russia interfered, he them, that none of intelligence was false, he believed putin. now when it comes to this individual, we have imminent intelligence, where did he get it from? fires createia's their own storms. wildfires ravaging southeastern australia burned so hot, they created their own thunderstorms and lightning similar to during a volcanic eruption or atomic bomb. a huge cloud began to form in the distance on saturday, he knew it was bad news, the area had barely seen a drop of rain for weeks. it was fire that rained down

from the formation of pyro cumulonimbus -- clouds. eli on the republican line, welcome? caller: most americans don't realize, especially those on the war.but it was an act of trump acted justifiably. in addition, i find it amazing that there was no criticism of obama's foreign policy. this is a guy who watched helplessly as russia invaded three countries, crimea, ukraine, and syria. he also destroyed or downgraded or gutted the u.s. military at a time when russia was expanding there's. obama owns this trouble. isis.wned trump unlimited isis, or severely do-gooder them. trump is going to give a wrong pause. we are talking about an

individual who killed millions of americans. liberals are outraged, but when obama drone strike against american citizens without due process, there was silence. the hypocrisy from the left is appalling. in addition, they want us to trust iranian people, who killed thousands of their own people. they don't even trust their own people, and we are supposed to trust them? i find that hard to believe that we have degraded ourselves to this point. host: more ahead on "washington coming. up", we take a look at the week ahead in washington with congress returning beginning with the second session of the 116th. we will be joined by zach cohen. and gabby orr will join us. later, a discussion on the tensions between the u.s. and iran with benham ben taleblu of the foundation for the defense of democracies. ♪

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>> hi, everyone. my name is adam cook, the 2018 c-span studentcam winner. i am here to encourage you to continue to wrap up this competition as the deadline is getting close. don't worry, you have time. this of the time i started filming my documentary the first year i entered. i am in the office is right now, and i can tell you, c-span studentcam was an incredible opportunity for me to express my thoughts and views about the political climate in the current days, while connecting with local and state leaders in elliptical office. i am extremely excited that you all are pursuing this because it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. and i am so excited you are all taking it. announcer: there is still time for you to enter the c-span studentcam competition. you have until january 20 two create a 5-6 minute documentary on an issue you want the candidates to address during campaign 2020.

we are giving away $100,000 in cash prizes, with a grand prize of $5,000. for more information, go to a studentcam.org. "washington journal" continues. host: congress is not just returning to town but returning to open the second session of the 100 steve congress. congress. on -- 160th we are joined by gabby orr from political, she is there white house reporter, and by zach cohen, reporter from the national journal. ? wrote a piece this weekend -- congress faces and impeachment trial stand up. let's start with impeachment. remind us where things are after the house in late december past the two articles of impeachment? guest: so really, nothing has changed for the most part since december 18 when the house voted to impeach president trump on

two articles on obstruction of congress and obstruction of power.- abuse of since then, house speaker pelosi has not sent them to the senate to begin the next phase of the trial, thee senate process by which the senate will decide whether president trump is guilty of those charges, so to speak. the problem is the rules have not been worked out yet, so we don't have a schedule for a trial, which is expected to happen sometime this month. host: in the absence of no plan quite yet gabby orr what is the white house strategy so far their plan for confronting the senate a likely senate trial? guest: there are two divergent views inside the white house. nancy pelosi. , if she sends the articles over at some point in this week, the president would like to have a long trial where he calls witnesses, presumably people like joe biden and hunter biden, witnesses that republicans want to get before the senate but on

unlikely to get democratic support to bring in front of the senate. counsel's office would prefer to see something short, speedy and acquits the president as quickly as possible, and they are working with senator mcconnell to make sure that is a preferable outcome. host: mitch mcconnell is leading all this in the senate but when it comes to what actual senate trial he won't have a eggroll to play, correct? guest: that is why the rules are so important that he won't have -- comes to the actual senate trial, he won't have a big role to play, correct? guest: that is why the rules are so important. they will make the arguments, senators will present questions in written form, then after that, he would like to see a

vote on witnesses, subpoenaing documents, all the things democrats have been calling for. other than setting the rules in place, it is a pretty strict process, there is precedent for how it needs to play. he doesn't have the full control on the matter. host: obviously, nobody could majornticipated a foreign-policy crisis confronting the president and the congress on the return of congress, but how does this complicate not just the days ahead, but the weeks ahead, for the senate and congress in general to get their work done? guest: there are two conflicting tensions. you have the schedule without the articles of impeachment. the senate can keep doing what it has been doing vote on the nominations,. it will process another nominee as early as this afternoon. as well as maybe pass a trade deal this week. there is stuff they can do well the leadership is negotiating the top level stuff. but then there is the issue of

-- senator kaine has a resolution that has to have a floor vote within 10 days that would halt any military action in a wrong -- in iran. that will happen sometime in the very busy days ahead, to have a vote. does thisdoes this -- complicate the president's reelection efforts? guest: absolutely. the president's campaign team is deciding right now, how is it going to impact the month ahead, if we are at war with iran, if there is political turmoil in the middle east, and it is primarily because of the president's actions last week and going forward. that could have a severe impact on his reelection campaign. right now, there are so many unforeseen circumstances, things that could happen between now and november, it is difficult for the white house political shop but also the president 2020 how thisto anticipate might register in, the polls how voters might be what is

happening in the region and whether that will present a significant roadblock for the president such a reelection. host: we are seeing news that the democratic senate leader schumer and senator we read this morning that the speaker pelosi announced yesterday that she would take up a war powers resolution vote in the u.s. house. guest: right. the administration's position on this, secretary pompeo made the case on a number of sunday news shows that this was an imminent threat, that they did not need to notify congress, or they did not need to seek approval from congress ahead of time. however, under the war powers act, they do need to water five congress, and that notification was reportedly sent but is entirely classified. democrats would like to see it declassified so there can be a broader debate over whether this particular action was legal or

justified. host: will white house officials brief the selected committees or members in general on the actions of the president -- and the actions the president took. guest: secretary mark esper is heading to the hill today to decision.ers on the secretary pompeo said over the weekend that they are looking at potentially declassified the letter sent to congress -- the theclassifying the letter from congress. but there are political clarifications of doing so. they want to keep the -- there are political implications of doing so. host: quite early to tell if there is any pulling on this, but the letter generally says, what does the administration feel has been the response from the president's supporters and potential voters to the strike in iraq. guest: among the president's

base, he has said his entire foreign policy outlook is to put america first. that is the argument we have heard him and his allies make in the past few days. i think it resonates with his base to some extent. but if you go back to the things the president outlined during the 2016 campaign, this is not completely in line with the foreign policy outlook that he described back then. he has said for many years now that he is not into nation-building, he doesn't want to get america into a new wars. so it is difficult to recognize what is happening right now and the escalation of potential violence and turmoil in the region with what the president said in 2016. it could very well impact the way independent voters, people who are drawn to the president but are wary of his foreign policy, how they react to his decision. host: the senate armed services, the house armed services, may

they take up the issue in a public hearing or closed? guest: the senate committee has not put anything on the schedule for this. i think in the meantime, you will see plenty of discussion on the floor and in the media over this issue. one thing i would add on the future of this, we shouldn't overlook that any potential drawdown of troops in iraq that has been requested by the iraqi parliament would potentially impact any offensive against isis, and that has been a big priority for the president. host: the news reports indicated the operation has at least temporarily seized to focus on protecting u.s. troops. guest: right. host: what about u.s. personnel, asked to leave baghdad? u.s. statenclude all department officials, department and military being asked to

leave? guest: i think it only applies to military officials. but don't -- guest: it is nonbinding this statement from the iraqi parliament and the current prime minister. they don't have the authority to enforce it, and it doesn't seem like the trump administration is interested in a drawdown. guest: they have been resistant to any idea of removing troops from iraq. the president said that if iraq forced american troops to leave the country, the president would impose sanctions like we have never seen before, a line he frequently uses in terms of threats against these countries, so it is something the administration is very resistant to. host: we heard from a caller who said the members who actually voted on that were that shia representation in the iraqi legislative bond, the council or parliament, if you will in baghdad, not the representatives of the full population in iraq. is that decision by the iraqi parliament, does it complicate

congress's decision on whether or revoke an aumf, war powers, things like that? guest: certainly, lawmakers are reticent to voting on any aumf. i would imagine a dedicated show of force in the middle east would be unwelcome by iraq, 20 some odd years after troops first landed there. i would imagine it would certainly come to get things. cohen covers the senate for the "national journal," and gabby orr covers the white house for "politico." the numbers are on your screen if you would like to contact us. we go first cover city, california of the democrats line? caller: i was enthralled with

the conversation that you almost caught me off guard. i would like to know from the two people that are there, how do you think that the president and this administration can convince anybody of anything, ,fter a history of 10,000 lies of his administration and cabinet lying constantly, constantly lying, having a reputation of being a pathological liar. do you guys know the story of the boy who cried wolf? how is anybody going to believe anything he says? that to me that this event caused him to shoot or kill soleimani, the general in iran, is simply his impeachment. that was the event that caused them to do this. i want you to consider one scenario, if by some miracle we get to the point where o'connell

allows the trial and we get to the point where all the democrats vote to remove him from office and we get down to 19 republicans, what do you think this guy will do when it gets to 19 republicans and he is looking at the 20th republican? thank you, god bless you. host: gabby orr, would you like to respond? what is the white house strategy in terms of the president, selling, or speaking to the american people about his decision? guest: secretary pompeo was on cnn yesterday and was asked about the president's credibility problem, and how that will impact the way he responds to questions about his decision to approve the strike against soleimani. i think the white house is going to roll out a number of campaign weeks, wherext few the president will talk heavily about protecting americans, focusing on national security, bringing us back to the "america

first" message. but it does present a significant issue. this president has many times before been questioned about things he has said when talking about decisions that went into policymaking, or the things he has asked other administration officials to do, whether they so ilawful or unlawful, think it does present a difficult issue for the white house and also the trump campaign to convince prospective trump voters and independent voters, who would not normally consider voting for this president, that they can trust it was the right decision, and that everything that went into this decision followed standard procedure. host: i headline from "the daily beast," reflects a little what the caller said. people are asking if the attack is a distraction from impeachment. the question is why now. why not a month ago? zach? guest: there is precedent for this. in 1998, when the house campaigned to impeach president clinton, there was a bombing in

iraq. house republicans were livid at that, and they thought there must have been some sort of connection and distraction from current impeachment proceedings. remember, that was the first time in over 100 years that a president had been impeached, over weapons inspections. so, yes, senator warren and others on the left have started to question whether this where the dog in fact -- where this is effect, the dog" whether the killing of soleimani is an effort to distract from impeachment. host: interesting connection to the clinton impeachment. still goes back to iraq. guest: as they say, history tends to rhyme. [laughter] ahead.amuel, go caller: my question is to your ywo gusts on parliamentar procedure in the house of representatives. could you address the rule

change they made, h.r. 66, that i think could help them expedite impeachment? guest: i am not familiar. host: what is your familiarity with it? maybe it will jog our memories. caller: i am not a reporter, i am not up on that stuff. it is resolution 66 passed by democrats. host: to be fair to zack, humanely covers the senate for "national journal," and gabby orr for the white house. let's go to maryland on the democrats line. under in hyattsville, maryland. caller: yes. mcconnellissue of as a non-issue, because in the house, they have an assistant leader.

credibility,n and they could sideline mr. mcconnell and give the upper hand the assistant leader to solve the problem? guest: i think what the caller might be referencing is that over the coming days there will is 4focus on the number republicans who would vote with the senators to change the rules. they would need for republicans to vote with the democrats, enough that they would need vice president pence to break the tie. if that were the case, you could see the majority of democrats determining the rules of the senate trial. but that is a heavy lift considering the republicans tend to vote in a bloc. host: who would be the potential four? guest: you have susan collins and senator murkowski who previously have made comments criticizing the lockstep between the white house and majority leader mcconnell. they could vote for a different

rules package, although senator collins thinks the 99 model mcconnell wants is something that should be a starting point. you could see senator mitt romney, who is not a fan of the president, freshman republican from utah who was the republican presidential nominee in 2012. maybe a retiring senator like lamar alexander, pat roberts, mike enzi, a couple of possibilities, but it is a heavy lift for something as high-profile as this. host: what is the white house to do in the white house -- what is the white house to do to keep republicans of the writers in their court, in line? bit.: working the phones a the president has been in touch with a lot of his allies on capitol hill as well as republicans like susan collins, who said the president has not spoken directly with her but has been in touch with officials heading into the trial. and we of course expect that to continue the next few weeks. the president has also brought

down a number of lawmakers to mar-a-lago. he spent three weeks down there in florida wining and dining these people. he golfed with senator graham at one point. really making sure that his allies are not only allied with his strategy on impeachment, but are acting as communicators back on the hill to their politics and making sure their senate colleagues are also in line with what the white house things should happen. host: senator graham will be perhaps the point person other than mitch mcconnell. he was on fox news sunday morning and he said, that he is willing to work with senator mcconnell, but would like to see some rules changes. change the chamber's rules. here is what he said. [video clip] >> we are not going to let nancy pelosi use the rules of the senate to her advantage. this is dangerous to the presidency. they have impeach the president, but the speaker of the house is holding the articles back,

trying to extort from the majority leader of the senate a trial to her liking. they are trying to hold these articles over the head of the president. i think the reason they are. sending them is because they are so weak, and it is a pathetic case and they are looking to add something. what i would do, if she continues to refuse to send articles, as required by the constitution. i would work with senator mcconnell to change the rules of the senate so we could start the trial without her if necessary. >> how soon will you move to change the rules of the senate? sen. mcconnell: days, not weeks. what she is doing is bad for the country, bad for the senate. it keeps us from getting on with the business of the american people. it denies the president his day in court. the founders never envisioned he would have a speaker who would do something like this, would hold the articles, demanding the senate band to her well. it is not going to happen. i hope she sends them over soon so we can get on with

the trial. if not, i would urge my colleagues to change the rules of the senate so we can proceed with the trial without pelosi being involved. host: zach, you pointed out earlier that senate rules are a critical part of this. guest: there is this tension rate have speaker pelosi hoping to get a better deal out of the rules, in hopes that some republicans could come over to leader schumer and vote for a rules package that includes witnesses and documents, because democrats have continued to see emails and reporting by the "new york times," and others that have given a better sense of the circumstances around the withholding of the ukrainian military security aid that is at the center of this probe. so they would like to see that come out in a trial. ishink senator graham alluding to the, fact that the longer this goes on the more evidence could come out, the closer it gets to the election.

and this is not favorable to some of the more vulnerable members of the chamber, people olexander murkowski -- people like senator collins and mccroskey. that is what he points out that speaker pelosi has very little leverage on the issue. guest: it is also interesting that senator graham was saying we could move to start the trial without pelosi even sending the articles of impeachment over because if you look at the president's twitter feed over the last few weeks he has repeatedly shared the perspective of some conservative constitutional scholars who argue that impeachment is not even happen until the articles are sent over to the senate. it sounded kind of striking that a senator would now acknowledge, that even if the articles are not sent over, yes, we can still move on with the impeachment trial. avenue, yousylvania have the president saying, "right now, i am not impeached."

host: the senate gavels in at 3:00 eastern this afternoon. we go to california on the republican line. welcome. caller: i had a question. it was in april, nine months ago, that we declared the revolutionary guard a terrorist organization. evenbviously, we are willing to kill american citizens without a trial, drone strikes, like what happened under the obama administration. if you are considered to be a terrorist, should the congress and all these politicians who are saying they are very surprised that trump was able to make this action should they have seen this coming,, when it was declared a terrorist organization? host: zach? guest: excellent question because this is something democrats have been talking about for a while. they saw the link between the irgc labeled as a terrorist organization, and they weren't back then that this could have

been justification for further strikes in iran and the killing of soleimani. as this goes to the legal underpinning to this action, which is crucial, and democrats are concerned that the trump administration will try to use the aumf, the authorized use of military force asked after 9/11 as a legal justification for any action in iran. that aumf was written quite broadly, and there has been talk on voting on a new one. via iran would1 certainly change the legal dynamic. host: to your knowledge, has the president ever been presented with the option of attacking or taking out soleimani before? guest: i don't know the answer to that question. those types of military decisions, the president has in terms of options the pentagon provides him are held closely.

even national security council officials don't learn of them until the very last minute, or after the president has already authorized one of those options. so it is difficult to say whether this has been on the table before. what i think is important is that, over the last few days, we heard a number of democrats call this an assassination, something the white house has taken a lot of issue with. not only the white house, but also conservative allies on capitol hill. i know senator cotton has pushed back against that. they say it is an assassination, it would be links to primarily religious or political reasons, and they say this is strictly a military strike. i think that is a talking point we will hear more of from the president the next few days. host: let's go to windsor mill, maryland on the democrats line. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. definitely, on one hand, i support of the impeachment and removal of president trump. but this first time, i will be

agreeing with trump on the killing of the general in iran, soleimani. i myself believe definitely that he deserved to be killed. i believe that he has blood in his hands. he has done a lot of evil things around the world. that is no difference between him and osama bin laden. offense when i see some of the presidential candidates and i support very well go around and calling this an assassination. but in terms of impeachment, i will definitely say that i am ashamed of mitch mcconnell and lindsey graham and how they are defending the president has committed these kinds of -- theies by trying to election in the united states of america. i support the president when it comes to the issue of the general, but also i support the impeachment and removal of president trump. .hank you

host: a response. examplet is a perfect of what the democratic candidates are encountering on the campaign trail, and why you're seeing them be so careful about how they talk about the strike against soleimani. you have seen pete buttigieg say that yes, he was a ruthless killer, he has american blood on his hands, we should support the killing of him. but at the same time, we need to take a step back and determine whether or not this was the right time to issue the strike. other democrats have weaved more careful responses to the way the president has handled this, but it is certainly something coming up on the campaign trail. it is interesting to hear from a democratic voter, presumably who does not support this president, but is pleased with the decision. gives thewise, president a chance to respond to the democrats' response to the killing. guest: absolutely, it puts foreign policy back on the

stage, and it is not something we have to talk about in the primary. while it does give the president a chance to his bond, it is also respond, itnce to is also not a topic interest talking about on the campaign trail, so it could put some harm on his campaign. host: andrew on the independent line. caller: thanks for taking my call. i voted for trump in 2016, but there is no chance i will be voting for him in the general election in 2020. i am actually going with andrea. the main reason is this mandatory spending versus discretionary spending. it is going insane. -- i am actually going with andrew yang. i don't see one politician who wants to address this issue. it is upsetting to me that they are more worried about impeachment than the $393 billion just on interest we are spending on just the debt. i would like to hear your thoughts about that. host: zach, we will start with

you, senate reporter for "national journal." guest: it is overlooked that congress passed a $1.3 trillion budget last month, delayed by negotiations over mostly border security and funding for the border wall, if you will. certainly, the debt and deficit is an issue. it has been rising, and there has been very meager efforts to address that. this congress and since president trump came to office, you have a couple of dozen republicans, some freshman, some fiscal conservatives who will be voting against these budget agreements because of what they see as a lacking effort to address the debt and the deficit, but to the caller's point, mandatory spending is the key issue rather than any appropriations package. host: outside of impeachment, beyond iran, what do you see at some of the key issues the

senate will tackle in the coming weeks? guest: the senate finance committee on tuesday i believe, will take on the u.s.m.c.a. agreement, a big priority for the trump administration and for senate republicans, who have been calling for its passage, as speaker pelosi and the trade representative robert lighthizer have been negotiating it behind closed doors. it passed the house late last year and now comes before the senate. senator mcconnell has said -- had said they might probably take it up after the trial. we could see passage of the implementing legislation as soon as this week. host: you also write about the new incoming senator from georgia. he jumps from donor circles to the arena. we understand he will be stored in today. tell us about her. guest: i believe she would be the 24th woman in the senate, the highest number of women in the senate, a historic milestone. she comes from georgia. she is personally wealthy. or and her husband run a number

of financial services firms. her husband actually runs the new york stock exchange they will. have funds to run in 2020 in november in the special election to fill the seat. host: interesting, though, she was not the president's first choice, correct? guest: not at all. he wanted representative doug collins, who was a major figure in the impeachment probe in the house defending the president in the hearings. but he did not get that particular appointment. that is up to governor brian camp, the newly elected republican governor of georgia. host: to buffalo new york, on the republican line. caller: i have a comment and a question. my first comment is, i voted for president trump in 2016, but i expected a republican congressmen and senators to hold this man responsible, and they are falling on their job big-time. my question is, i heard on

different media sources, that the reason why soleimani was in iraq was because president trump asked the prime minister of iraq to be a go-between between iran and saudi arabia. so he was taking the message from the prime minister of iraq to iran's ayatollah. i want to know, is that the reason why where he was, what he was going to iran, bringing messages from saudi arabia to iran? so he was a go-between at the time that we killed him. this is stupid. justis nothing, it is plain dumb. host: ok from buffalo, we go to bloomington, indiana on the democrats line.

go ahead. caller: i am calling to talk about mitch mcconnell and the that he is not going to have witnesses. there must be a reason that he's not having witnesses. he hasall kinds of bills not passed from the house that are bipartisan. he doesn't even bring them out. something is very broken in our government, and something needs to be done. host: gabby orr, on witnesses. remind us again, they would like to see some witnesses? guest: the president would like to see some witnesses, because he really wants to have a made-for-tv moment where you have people defending his actions, people drawing out more links to the hunter biden and thing that he has been talking about. but there are a number of individuals inside the white

house who are more aligned with mitch mcconnell in making that a speedy trial, something that doesn't have this long, drawn , process that doesn't include witness testimony is better politically for the president. host: when president trump holds a rally, he talks a lot about the "witchhunt,"he talks about the impeachment process. thet something he feels best politically is a bonus for him to have this as an issue? guest: absolutely. the trump campaign really thinks impeachment has ultimately benefited them, and will continue to boost him heading into november. the polling they reference has shown somewhat of a stagnant response to impeachment. we haven't seen either opposition or support for impeachment grow exponentially in the past few weeks, so they cite that as the reason that the president is benefiting from it, but also, just a fund-raising.

we just saw the fund-raising calls for a number of democratic candidates, but also the president, in the 24 hours after the house impeached president trump. the campaign raised almost $10 million. so they cite about as another example of the response to what is happening on capitol hill. host: of course, vice president pence is at any of those rallies. the headline in your politico.com these says pence on the campaign trail for trumpet himself. what is that about? guest: just watching him on the campaign trail, it is difficult as a reporter to see him only as a surrogate for trump's reelection campaign, knowing that vice president pence obviously has residential estimations himself. he has taken a very different approach to the president's campaign position. the president will often drop into a major metropolitan area or suburb, just outside of a city or the rust belt,

pittsburgh, pennsylvania, georgia, and hold campaign rallies that draw thousands of people. and mike pence is focused on the more personal, intimate interactions with voters on the campaign trail. he tends to do the pedestrian politicking that the president loathes and doesn't want to engage him. talking to folks who are close to mike pence who he regularly consults about his political ambitions, it is clear that he is using this moment to formulate the winning or successful campaign for 2024. host: zach, how often in his role as president of the senate, how often do we see the vice president on capitol hill, not only casting votes but meeting with senators? guest: they have a weekly latch on tuesdays with senators where they talk about messaging for the week ahead -- a weekly lunch on tuesdays. i think joe biden only ever cast one. he has cast a few deciding votes.

he is in regular communication with senate republicans. they appreciate him and a are happy to air their grievances as well as their compliments to the administration through vice president pence. host: chris in pearl harbor, florida on the republican line. caller: hi, how are you doing, sorry. i have one question, but before you bothch and gabby, seem very young. how old are you? [laughter] host: fairly personal question? guest: i am 28? guest: i am 26. caller: you very much seem like millennials. how can you square the action of this president, of showing strength towards iran versus the prior president, which i guess you both were like in high school, with giving billions of

dollars in cash in the middle of iranight to try to appease ? here, we give you a bunch of money, he will be nice to us. just like bill clinton said, he will give you nukes to north korea and you will be nice to us -- obviously, they are not. how can you square those two things? don't you see the hypocrisy -- actually, you don't, you guys were cheerleading or something. host: chris. thank you. we read a story earlier that the administration is really using the president obama a lot, come peering what this president is doing to what the obama administration -- comparing what this president is doing to what the obama administration did or did not do to iraq. guest: the caller's argument sounds like what we heard from secretary pompeo yesterday when he was making the case for the

president's action towards iran. the administration said that all of the turmoil in the region, that escalations essentially occurred under the obama administration. that the moment we entered the iran nuclear deal was the moment that would serve as a catalyst for what we're seeing now. that is the argument you will continue to hear the president make. just over the past three years of his presidency, he has time and time again positioned himself and cast himself as completely antithetical to the obama administration's foreign policy. he likes to take that and compare it to his america first agenda. i think this is really a moment where we are going to see the white house play that up as much as possible. host: how long have you been covering the trump white house? years.about five i was there the moment he launched his campaign and i am here five years later. host: and zack, how long have you covered the senate? years.the last five

host: we go to salisbury, north carolina on the democrats line. caller: top of the morning to you. look. you guys know just like i know that trump does not want any witnesses to come to the senate. mitch mcconnell hazard he said he will be hand-in-glove with the president, whatever the president was to do, he will be hand-in-glove. so if he is hand-in-glove, why do they have to vote on having witnesses for trump. if trump once witnesses, mitch mcconnell would have said that. we all know that is a lie coming from trump, trying to make himself look good before the public. my question is this -- when the president is impeached and he hasn't gone to the senate yet for his trial to be acquitted or to be removed from office, is it so that once the president is impeached, that his tower is suspended until he gets to the senate trial?

and if so, tell me why he is still doing this stuff as though he is still king of the republican party? guest: that is untrue. impeachment has no force of law behind it. the president still has all the decembere di in 2017 as he did in december 2019 and vice versa. the only vilification of impeachment is it is supposed to force a trial in the senate to vote on whether to acquit or convinced the president. a sitting president has never been convicted in the senate. andrew jackson and bill clinton, their trials ended in acquittal in the senate. jackson rather narrowly, by just one vote. to the callers point, i would point out that trump in recent days has been deferring to mitch mcconnell on the senate rules, saying that he is a fair man, he runs the senate, it is ultimately his decision. but to gabby's point he has been wanting people like joe biden and hunter biden come in. and he was to be a would to come

out saying, i have been acquitted. host: mitch mcconnell, the evolution of the president's view and his relationship with mitch mcconnell. the have covered the white house for five years and he has been majority leader the whole time. guest: it has been fascinating to watch going back to the days of the health care vote. the way the president treated mitch mcconnell as his lapdog, holding him accountable for the failure of republican efforts to replace obamacare. it is so different compared to the relationship they have now. as a have been saying throughout the course of this discussion, and as zach mentioned, the president really wants to see a significant defense mounted for him in the senate. he wants to see witnesses. but if that is not what mitch mcconnell thinks is best, not only politically for the president but also for vulnerable senate republicans, the president will ultimately mcconnell.tch that is a significant change in the relationship or two in the

senate majority leader and the president. host: from the president this morning on twitter, looking at maria barta romo with lindsey graham this morning, president trump saying "the great scam continues, spending time on this political hoax at this moment no history when i am so busy."gabby orr covers the white house for politico , zach cihen covers the senate for "the national journal." appreciate you being here this morning. next, we will hear from benham ben taleblu who, will talk to us about the attack against the iranian general, and the rising u.s. tensions -- u.s.-iran tensions in the region. "washington post" craig whitlock discuss the afghanistan papers here on "washington journal." ♪

♪ >> the house will be in order. years, c-span has been providing america unfiltered coverage of congress, the white ande, the supreme court, public policy events from d.c. and around the country so you can make up your own minds. 1979,d by cable in a c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. "c-span." your unfiltered view of government. tonight on the communicators, our guest from freedom house, a group that advocates for democracy, talks about the organization's report on internet freedom. >> we are generally seeing that social-media used to be this level playing field for free expression by activists.

and ordinary users. now it is really being co-opted by some of the more powerful, well-resourced actors in our society, and i think that is where social media companies need to, say, re-level the playing field, to root out the bad actors, and make certain policy changes within the algorithms to incentivize the type of productive democratic discourse and conversation. announcer: watch "the communicators" tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span2. >> hi, everyone. my name is adam cook, the 2018 c-span studentcam winner. i am here to encourage you to continue to wrap up this competition as the deadline is getting pretty close. but don't worry, you'll still have time. this is actually the time i started filming my documentary the first year i entered.

i am in the d.c. offices right now, and i just want to tell you that c-span studentcam was an incredible opportunity for me to express my thoughts and views about the political climate in the current days, while connecting with local and state leaders in political office. i am extremely excited that you all are interested in our pursuing this, because it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. i am so excited you are all taking it. announcer: there is still time for you to enter the c-span studentcam video competition. he have until to create a 5-6 minute documentary that explores an issue you want a presidential candidate to address during campaign 2020. we are giving away $100,000 in cash prizes, with a grand prize of $5,000. for more information, go to studentcam.org. ♪ campaign 2020. watch our continuing coverage of

the presidential candidates on the campaign trail and make up your own mind. as the voting begins next month, what our live coverage of the iowa caucuses, on monday, february 3. c-span's campaign 2020, your unfiltered view of politics. journal" continues. benhamoining us next is ben taleblu who was with the foundation for the defense of democracies, a senior fellow with that institution, here to talk about rising tensions between the u.s. and iran following the strike against general qassem soleimani. tell us about soleimani. who was he? guest: he was a major general? guest:, commander of the quds force, which is arabic for "jerusalem." it was one of five branches of iran's islamic revolutionary parallelps, iran's

ideological military. the founder of the islamic revolution said the persian military had the shah in its blood. iran's last king. so he wanted to create this parallel ideological force. much of its support and rejection of terrorist groups came from the man who constituted the irgc, and later on, men who fought in the iraq -iran war helped define the foreign policy of the islamic republic doing their postwar service. he saved the assad regime. host: in his earliest days, was soleimani part of the 1979 revolution? guest: it is believed to was but he made a name for himself after the revolution in the period between the revolution and the iran-iraq war. he and other men who joined the islamic revolutionary guard

corps put down local ethnic rebellions on iraq's periphery, and made a big name for themselves in the 1980-1988 iran-iraq war. >> his rise in the iran-iraq war in 1980, what was it about the conflict that brought him not just notoriety, but more responsibility in the revolutionary guard? guest: it was capability and charisma really. unlike a lot of other young military officials, soleimani actually could do battlefield planning. he was able to stay a couple of steps ahead, and he actually captivated and cultivated the respect of his men. he often would steal food for them. he had this symbiotic relationship between those who battles, and those with the sox to preserve and protect and defend. this myth of the warrior hero group about custom soleimani, and later on, when he became commander of the quds force and moved to project iranian power abroad, albeit through

terrorism or proxy warfare, he had the respect and captivation of the men who were in the corps. host: what is your view of the action the president took the killing of soleimani? guest: there is a security policy term, when a terrorist is killed usually through a drone strike, remove them for the battlefield. this is another example of that. think it is historic because washington has gone to using the same tool drones,, to target shia terrorists. again, this one came from the world's foremost sponsor after his them, iran. i think it comes at an interesting time, the first time the u.s. has used force against iran during this thing called whenax pressure campaign, u.s. left the iran nuclear deal and resurrected the sanctions. we have to keep our eyes peeled on what the escalation will look like. i think iranians had hoped it

would dampen the use of force, but with the president signaling he would go after the most important iranian military official of the past four decades means the extradition was wrong. host: do you think soleimani or his us to -- or his associates were directly involved in the violence against the u.s. embassy in baghdad? guest: press daily, absolutely. there is a united nations travel been associated with him. it was quantified in a u.n. security council resolution that enshrined the j.c.p.o.a., the obama era nuclear deal. it should have prevented soleimani from traveling abroad by period of five years. ironically, had soleimani adhered to that travel ban, he would be alive today, just one of those interesting twists of history. host: soleimani the leading military leader in iran. ever any a possibility that he would become the leader of iran, the clerical

leader in that country, the ayatollah? guest: the islamic republic is composed of a series of different older man. the first is the clerical class who have gone to religious institutions. the next is the military class, who have served in the irgc, the men in uniform. unlike turkey, pakistan, south korea even, iran does not have the same martial tradition. so the irgc is 's their influence is not in uniform, it is the men who take the uniform off. at soleimani became a household name in america, and politicians and the american public realize this was the guy killing americans and american partners abroad, there became talk of, good he run for president, not the position of supreme leader, because he is not a cleric. solar many -- soleimani would occasionally reject that notion and express his fealty to the supreme leader, but you could

tell he was bolstered by the increasing coverage of him in the western press. said, and is even strongly concur that the reason he traveled so freely without any concern for security in places like iraq and syria, was that he was believed to be untouchable. what may have fed into it was this steady stream of western reporting. i think there was an article at the time that said -- this is the man who is fighting isis. and it had soleimani's face clad in uniform. host: benham ben taleblu is with us, from the foundation of defense of the democracies. 202-748-8000 is the line for democrats, 202-748-8001 for andblicans, independents all others, 202-748-8002, sent us a text at 202-748-8003. we had a caller earlier take a look at u.s.-iran relations with back to 1953, the troubled state of those relations.

on the scale, where do you think they are now? guest: given the potential for conflict, i think the stakes are quite high. we know leaders in the u.s., particularly president trump, and leaders in iran, particularly ayatollah come i khamenei are willing to signal resolve through messages and military deployments. 2020 will present lots of opportunities for signaling and also lots of opportunities for miscalculation. it would be my view if the iranians took the offramp in 2020. you see reports of sanctions and strikes. what offramp's are therefore iran? the offramp is that the president has restored all the sanctions we obama-era nuclear deal had waived. he is often on twitter wanted to meet the iranians, wanting to get them a bigger and broader deal, and the iranians are capitalizing -- should capitalize on this opportunity.

don't over escalate. see this as a predicate for transformation. host: do you think the iranians underestimated president trump in terms of this particular action? guest: i think so. early in president trump's presidency, the iranians were restraining themselves. satellite vehicles from their launchpad. saying military generals that his men feared america's reaction. you saw a decline according to the director of national intelligence, of the number of attack craft in the persian gulf and the strait of hormuz, likely because president trump had been saying he would blow them out of the water, if you recall his campaign speeches of 2015 and 2016. underway.got in fall of 2017, the iranians said, is this rhetoric or reality, and they believed he was something of a paper tiger. they returned to more missile ballistic -- ballistic missile

tests and more actions in the region. in the years since the u.s. left the deal, the iranians raced to signal that they would not take this lying down. 2019, then may of iranians have been growing their capability thinking that trump would never respond. six months of the u.s. absorbing iranian pressure, even the downing of an american drone, by and cruise missiles from iran into the heart of the global oil economy, and not a single kinetic response. and then all of a sudden, it crisis emerges in late december this year with the killing of an american. understandingral, that it was the iranians behind the strike against the american base that killed the contractor. guest: right, it was in late december in northern iraq. iraqis died as well, but in iran -- an iranian backed proxy group, key, top of hezbollah whose leader also died in the

was theith soleimani one responsible for carrying out these mortar barajas, many of which have been proceeding since followed this year. the u.s. responded to that group for the first time ever with military force under this maximum pressure iraqi and syrie border. host: we are talking about the rising tensions between the u.s. and iran in the wake of the killing of general soleimani. anwelcome you if you are active or retired military member. that line is (202) 748-8003. we will go to sydney. you to i would like for explain what a terrorist is. when we go into our country and bomb and kill them, when they shoot back at us, we are terrorist -- they are terrorists. i served in vietnam, we did the

same thing there. could you please explain to me how you define a terrorist? guest: thank you for your question and your service. he fits that description because iraq is not his country. the decapitation in 2003 permitted iran to grow its influence. many things that happened in vietnam are replicated in iraq, starting in 2003. he was the one who used terror as a political and military tool against iraqis as well as americans starting during that period of time. from he was killed not far the airport in baghdad. do we know why he was going back to baghdad? there was reporting of an invitation. he habitually went to iraq and he habitually went to syria to support the things we were talking about earlier. the iran backed militias.

of u.s. has a consolation partners and proxy forces. some of them are arab, some of them are pakistani. some of them are afghan. iran has trained them, armed them and equip them and uses them as a parallel force so that they can have interoperability with the national military and they will support the military in syria. or, they will fight along iraqi security forces in iraq. overgives iran control the direction of the conflict. in iraq.this to grow he went there and took selfies with commanders of the iran backed militias. affinitygreat deal of and admiration for these men. his lost means iran will not have that personal connection to these proxy forces, even though it has that structural, financial, material connection. host: did the iraqi government just look the other way as

truckloads were coming? guest: yes. even if they did not look the other way, what capabilities did they have to stop these things? iran controlled much of the porter carson -- border crossing. they have penetrated some of the aspects of iraqi society. politics, religious institutions, economic institutions and even the military. to janice in go tennessee. hello. caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: can you hear me? host: yes, we can. caller: i was calling in. this incident happened in december. is what i am concerned about. every time a u.s. president gets in trouble, especially this time, trump, with the impeachment kicked off a war to him beingoff of impeached.

i hope congress does not undermine this. please don't put me off. rachel maddow, chris matthews, i am asking them to keep telling us and talking about this impeachment. this war is cooked up to take americans off of him being impeached. they did it before. guest: i'm not sure if the reference was the clinton era impeachment. a one-off if of memory serves correctly in the late 90's. here, i don't see that to be the case. trump, some of the criticism has beensaying that he has not tough enough and absorbed six months and if he had responded earlier, he could have done something more. i don't think this is a distraction from impeachment. there may be questions that different people from different sides of the aisle may have.

from the national secured he was the, i architecture of iran's security policy. he helped this country do more with less to do worse things in the region. afghanng is surging children into the syrian theater to save the assad regime. concept through a political lens is lest helpful -- less helpful. host: given the president's warstance to enter foreign and wanting to withdraw u.s. troops, were you surprised by this decision? guest: because it has the prospects of escalation, yes, i was surprised. i remember the timing was unique. the u.s. had just used force against iran backed militia. it seemed to be a steady tempo of american strikes.

passive tom being active in iraq. one wonders what the direction of the footprint in iraq might be. parliament or iran backed forces are looking to use this as an excuse to evict america from iraq. been anleimani has advocate of using every crisis to get the iraqi parliament to amend the agreement and eject america from iraq. we will see if that happens into play 20. from here is larry colorado. caller: good morning. i have two questions. you can address either one. how do you define or make a difference between an assassination and an act against the terrorist? would you consider him a terrorist or a high-ranking of an official, which means to me, it would be an assassination?

that is a good point. you hinted at the definition in your statement. i would say this is more of a killing than an assassination. custom sola money, by virtue of being in charge of one of the five branches of government occupied and enforced political office of the islamic republic. know it is less of a stem and leaf plot organ organization. -- of an organization. he indirectly reports to the supreme leader. he had a lot of influence on irani national security. it is not an assassination because he was on a battlefield. he is a man in uniform and precisely because he liaises between multiple hotspots.

he did the things of a terrorists, it is akin to saying the same thing that washington has done to other terrorists, they use drone strikes to take a terrorist off of the battlefield. host: how strong is iran's military? guest: this is an excellent question and you compare it to saudi arabia, which spends more and has more high-tech equipment. the conventional military of iran is weak. the reason the islamic republic has been able to capitalize on its own weakness is because it has gone from being a week, conventional power to being a strong unconventional or asymmetric power. it does not have a lot of great tanks or military planes but they have ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, rockets, mortars. they don't have a great infantry but it has a wide array of proxy forces that permit iran to enter at a cheaper stage.

it shapes direction of that conflict. host: look at the proxy forces from saturday's wall street journal, it is a potent force, building influence. where it is felt. the islamist resistance in syria and the popular mobilization of militias in yemen. and, supplying sea mines, rockets, radars and ballistic r africa.for the c his place, is taking tell us a bit about him. money,unlike custom soli he does not have -- cost seem soleimani, he does not have the charisma. but, like him, he is a veteran

of the iran-iraq war. this is the conflict that oriented the worldview of the islamic republic. continuexpect him to more of his policies. it will be interesting to see how he engages personally, given the sensitivity with those partners. to continue man this tradition of entering conflict zones earlier and trying to shape grassroots resistance and proliferating tons of weaponry. host: do they have any major allies? china, russia? iran's conventional military, as well as the other army, china and russia had done a naval drill with the islamic

republic in the indian ocean. as the u.s. talks about great power competition, we are seeing some of america's peer competitors be willing to support iran against america. willingnesshina's to engage is a signal to america. --america steps ups pressure steps up pressure, they may use iran as upon with the united states. host: let's hear from hicksville, new york on the democrats line. caller: hi. host: go ahead. caller: i am actually iranian. i live in new york. questions for you. my question to you is who is general james mathis -- james mattis and what is his title? host: james mattis is a former defense secretary.

is that your question? caller: yes. that was a question. imaniomment is general sole was an army, illegal army general. he did his job. he was not a terrorist. terrorized -- to be terrorized by mr. trump. he had appointments with iraq's leaders for peace talks with america, for americans. for him to be terrorized the way general soleimani, he did his job. he did not put a bomb between the twin buildings. he was a general in an army, a legal person, just like general mattis. response.ill get a

thank you for your call. guest: i think the caller is trying to compare james mattis to soleimani. he does embody this very contradictory paradigm. yes, he is in a formal position. he is a commander of the good force, like most other military officials. he fought in the iran-iraq war. his legacy is not that of a normal combatant. personot like a normal who has been appointed to lead. you can see it in aleppo. assad remains in power. childreny is sending to fight and die in the syrian theater. his legacy is people who may have been wounded or injured in the iraqi battlefield. his legacy, unfortunately for most of these people who have been to conflict zones is more

akin to that of bin laden. he is more of a threat than bin laden because he had the apparatus of the state to support his terror. chriswe will hear from next, in atlanta. caller: can you hear me? host: yes. the democratic caller who was trying to do the wag the dog thing, a democratic person called that out and i don't buy it. the timing is what it is but i don't buy it. i served in iraq. that is a time when the efp's started coming from iran. i am familiar with that. to include, we saw the handprint .nd the footprint we saw that dynamic starting then. it never looks like it stopped. i consider him fifth

column guy, straight up. space play in that battle , what comes your way is what comes your way. what i thought he was doing, see, --rything i can so, he got what he got. was a followthere on the imminent attack. as far as what you're saying about trump and what he did or did not do, his redline was americans getting killed. buddye is not some getting killed, it is just a machine. he did not want to take life because of the downing of a drone. americans dying, that is the breaking point. host: ok. things toot of

respond to but first, thank you for your service. the issue you mentioned, the explosives that iran had built and proliferated in tehran, unfortunately that was perhaps one of the biggest force multipliers for one of iran's shadow war or proxy war against the united states. it wounded many americans. that is part of the possum soli money --custom soli qassem soleimani legacy. weeks, can wet lower the threshold for the use of force, given his talk of interests and assets and whatnot? thank you so much for being here on washington journal. ared on the program, we joined by craig whitlock, the investigator reported with the washington post. we will talk about his in-depth

reporting on the afghanistan pacers -- papers. more ahead here on washington journal. ♪ >> hi, everyone. my name is adam cook and i am 82018 c-span student winner. 2018 c-span student winner. you still have time. i am in the d.c. offices right now. i will tell you that c-span studentcam was an incredible chance for me to express my thoughts and views about the political climate and connect

with local and state leaders in political office. i am extremely excited that you are pursuing this. it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. i am excited that you are taking it. >> there is time for you to enter the c-span studentcam video competition. time.ve total -- ang away of total of $100,000 in cash prices. the grand total is $5,000. for information, go to studentcam.org. tonight, on the communicators, adrian shabazz of freedom health , a group that advocates for democracy, talks about the organizations reports on internet freedom. >> what we are generally seeing is that social media used to be this level playing field for activists andn by

it is being co-opted by some of the more powerful and well resourced actors in our society. i think that is where social media companies need to re-level the playing field to root out the bad actors. and i think to perhaps make certain policies within the algorithm to incentivize a type of productive, democratic discourse and conversation. >> watch the communicators tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span two. washington journal continues. host: we are joined by craig whitlock. his extensive peace in december is titled at war with the truth. u.s. officials constantly said they were making progress. they were not and they knew it. an exclusive washington post investigation. your reporting and legal efforts

at the washington post brought forth this trove of documents from the special inspector general for afghanistan reconstruction. in addition to memos from a former defense secretary, donald rumsfeld, and others. where did this begin for you? guest: way back. many years back, back in september of 2016, we got a tip that the army general who was retired at that point but was gaining notice for support of donald trump, we got a trip that he had -- tip that he had given a long interview in which he was railing about war in afghanistan. we wanted to know what he said. household name at that point. he had a long career in military intelligence and we wanted to know what he had to say about the war. this was something i thought we would get pretty quickly under the freedom of information act. it turned into a three year legal battle to try to pry these documents loose the inspector general.

we got general flynn's interview first. that turned out to be more striking than we had thought. there were hundreds more. we dug in and it took a while. we finally pried these loose from the inspector general. they have done monthly reports, almost weekly updates. they are very transparent and open. what was the purpose they told you of these interviews and why have they been held secret or classified or unavailable to the public? they did this for a special project called lessons learned in which they were trying to figure out the mistakes they made in afghanistan. started in 2014. this was five years ago. people thought the war was coming to an end. president obama declared and into combat operations. he promised to withdraw all u.s. troops by the end of his presidency. the inspector general thought it would be a good time to figure out what mistakes were made that they could learn about for the future. if they were ever involved in

another war. they did hundreds of these interviews and published a number of reports. out they did is they left all of the good parts. all of the striking quotes. all of the unvarnished commentary from people who were involved about just how bad things were. they left all of that out. we had to go in under the freedom of information act and obtain those. they are not classified. these are public document. we had to persuade the inspector general to release this. reporting,of the they have reported on the inspector general's monthly reports. why did you hear from him -- what did you hear from him in terms of why the information had been withheld? guest: we never got a good answer. they had, in some cases, they had promised people confidentiality. they would not put them by name

in the public reports because they wanted them to speak forthrightly and honestly about what the mistakes were. not have law, they did the right to keep that information private. this is money, this is information that u.s. taxpayers paid for. it is public information. we had to go to court twice. it was pretty clear under our lawsuits with the judge and federal courts that these are public records. it took a while. people were afraid of putting their name with these comments. there is no question that the public has a right to know what people thought about the war and the mistakes that were made. give us a faux pas of the u.s. casualties in iraq. since 2001, afghanistan, there have been 2300 u.s. troops killed in afghanistan. that is a fraction of the overall number of deaths in the work. the estimated number of deaths

with taliban, native troops, it adds up to 150,000 people. that is the best estimate we could come up with. host: craig whitlock is our guest. he is the investigative reporter hind the afghanistan papers. washington post.com is where you can read that. are an afghanistan war veteran, that line is (202) 748-8000. military, or retired (202) 748-8001. for all others, (202) 748-8002. as always, you can send us a text at (202) 748-8003. a little bit of the flavor of your report, these are the things that you are reading and hearing from the inspector general. generalthe inspector wars are. six years into the war, in his

interview, he said we were devoid of a fundamental understanding of afghanistan. we did not know what we were doing. what were we trying to do? we did not have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking. identified -- on identified contractor told viewers he was expected to dole out $3 million. he asked a visiting congressman if a lawmaker could responsibly spend that kind of money back home. he said hell no. well, that is what you obligated us to spin. i am doing it for communities that live in mud hunts. some ofe a selection of the quotes we found and interviews. , the three-star army we don't haveid the foggiest ideas of what we are undertaking. saider quote, where he 2400 lives lost. who will say they are lost in

vain? to have an army general say that all of these lives may have been lost in vain during this 18 year war, that is an extraordinary comment. it was not just general. we heard the same comments from other generals, who said we don't know what we are doing. guest: that is a profound thing to say 18 years into a war. that is why these papers and the reports we had struck a cord with the american people. they feel like they were not being leveled with about the war. host: had congress been pretty to the information? if not, will they follow up with hearings? number of members of congress have said they want to follow up. they did not know the state of this. the general mix reports to reports to makes congress. they had been hiding interviews where people were letting loose about the war. these are people who were running the war.

these were not people on the sidelines. these were people directly involved in war strategies, saying what a failure it was. that is what is being withheld from the american people and from congress. up ofyour reporting made previously undisclosed -- i don't know if they were from donald rumsfeld, they were titled snowflakes. these were one memos to his underlings. there may be 70,000. we got about a few hundred of them that had to deal with afghanistan. many of them were classified and later declassified as part of a lawsuit and shared with us. they, like the lessons learned interviews, they have rumsfeld saying we did not know what we were doing. who are the bad guys. show me who the bad guys are. we will never get out of afghanistan. these are the quotes he is making in his own memo to his

own staff. one of them said i may be impatient. i know i am impatient. we will never get them out of afghanistan unless we make sure and see there is something going on that will provide the stability that will be necessary for us to leave. it has the feeling like all along, there is not a plan. each evolving gear in the war, from your reporting. host: that rumsfeld -- guest: that rumsfeld memo happened six months after we invaded afghanistan. six months after we start the war, he is saying i don't know that we will ever be able to get out. he was right. we were not able to get out. and othersrumsfeld were saying something different. this is not another vietnam, they were saying we were winning. they were making fun of the idea that this could be a quagmire like vietnam. they were puffing their chest out. in private, like you just read,

he was worried that we would get stuck there for the long term. host: what was behind the u.s. effort to end the production of poppies? why was that important and where are we now? guest: afghanistan is the world's number one supplier of opium. these are grown from poppy flowers. they look pretty in the field. by the time you harvest opium from them, it turns into heroin and morphine. afghanistan has been the number one supplier of morphine to the world. since the war has happened, production has gone through the roof. despite billions of dollars spent by the u.s. and nato allies, not only were you not able to curtail the production, it has gotten much worse. host: it is worse now than in the beginning of the war? guest: far worse. ban on growing a opium and this work for a period

of time. afghan farmers went back to growing it again. it is profitable. host: we have seen some public comments from the defense secretary and the chair of the joint chiefs. , thomashe responses campbell said this. there has been no intent. dod officials have reported progress and challenges. the dod provides regular reports to congress that highlight these challenges. wasinformation contained provided for the express inclusion of his public reports. most of the individuals interviewed spoke with the benefit of chicken. the purpose of the interviews was not necessarily public. guest: i think it was meant to be public. he was going to publish these

reports. they have published several of them. they watered it down and sanitize the findings and they left out all of these extraordinary quotations and commentary from the people that we have been talking about. that is what has shocked people. how strident these comments were about how screwed up the war was. host: we have a number of callers with questions waiting. let's go to matt in mechanicsville, maryland. .hanks for waiting pe caller: this conflict has been going on for so long that i have been able to read a few books on it. correct me if i am wrong, you could stay in this region and do this type of fighting as long as you ever could imagine. fighting them,s it was them fighting us. it has traded places. you can see these things taking place in the soviet union. people run proxy armies against us.

it is like we are practicing for something there. my main question is does any of your reporting touch on how many fortunes have changed hands in that region since 2001, meaning how many people have been made ,ealthy and how many people some people have been taken down, like warlords. do you look at any of the fortunes that have been made with all of the money that has been misplaced and blank checks that have been written? guest: we do. a very in-depth look at corruption that has taken place in afghanistan, the united states has spent more than $1 trillion fighting the war. a lot of that money has gone to defense contracts. it has gone to protection forces. things of this nature. so much money flooded into the war zone that people pocketed it.

of people have gotten very wealthy. is that why we have continued the war? i don't think so. certainly that has been a byproduct of one of the failings of these years. we have wasted a lot of money and the corruption in afghanistan has gotten out of control. members our military line, joel in north charleston, south carolina. caller: thank you for taking my call. i am retired military, i retired in 2004. i have two active-duty cousins. -- since they have been in the military, they have been in the war. in 1982. i served the gulf war in 1990. so, since 1990, and in the year 2000, we have been in that war for 30 years.

in the middle east. iraq is on fire. afghanistan is on fire. syria is destroyed three libya is destroyed. turkey is a mess. when are we going to bring the troops home? look at this. are going over right now. 3000 of them. when is it going to stop? politicians don't have skin in the game. they don't have their sons and their daughters going to war. they don't have gold stars. they don't have purple hearts. they don't give a dam. n. bring the troops home and that's it. thank you. host: any thoughts? guest: those are very tough questions. i don't have easy answers to

them. having served in the military, as you know, it is a lot easier to start a war than it is to end one. we have started a few wars in afghanistan and iraq. we are engaged in combat in these other places. one problem is in the last several years, the administration, both the obama administration and the trump administration and members of congress are guilty of this. these words are out of sight and out of mind. we don't have thousands of troops there but we have tens of thousands. department does not make it easy to capture what is going on out there. these are wars being fought out of snipe out of mind. -- out of sight and out of mind. that makes it easier to prolong them. if americans knew that people were dying on a regular basis, it would be harder for congress to go along with it. you cover the trading and

funding of the police force. i want to read a part of the interview of mark. millie. he said this has been effective in combat against the insurgents. i think that is an important story to be told across the board. the is the reality of afghanistan police force and army? isst: what he said in 2013 something the american people have heard for years. the linchpin of u.s. strategy in afghanistan was to train and build up an afghan army and police force that could defend the country on their own so that we would not have to be there anymore. so that afghans could take care of their own problems. years, u.s. generals had reassured the american people that this was working. that they were making progress and training the afghans.

the afghans were taking the lead so we were told. in reality, documents showed that the reality was hideous. you talked to these interviews with u.s. special forces and other military officers who were training the afghans talked about the corruption, the incompetence of the desertion, the illiteracy. this was not a force of capable defending its country and this was not working. there was contrast between what was said in public and the reality on the ground. the pentagon has been defensive about this. they said we did not lie to anybody and did not try to mislead anybody. there have been a lot of problems and challenges. they have tried to downplay commentary. frankly, i don't think they have responses -- good responses. let's go next to fresno,

california. this is kara. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a question about retired general kane, who i understand has been found guilty of breaking several national laws. i have not heard anything about the standing court-martial. he is able to call himself a retired general and probably has a good retirement. he has broken military law. guest: if i can clarify, i think you are alluding to michael flynn who pled guilty to lying to the fbi during his tenure as the national security adviser to president trump. he is waiting shipping in civilian court. he has not been charged with any crimes or misconduct under military law.

he is a retired military general. this is not to say that the military could try to discipline him. none of that has happened. he has only been facing charges in federal court. host: was he cooperative with you in terms of interviews? did he respond to your questions? guest: he did not but he gave a long interview to the inspector general in 2015. it was a remarkable interview where he was talking about the contrast between what was being said in public and how the united states is making progress, the united states is winning the war. he is an intelligence officer reports of the complete offices. host: there was a fair amount of on the ground reporting in some of this too. i remember reading years ago about the trading of afghan forces.

-- training of afghan forces. guest: this is going on far longer than anybody thought. war, theems with this setbacks and challenges and failures have been closely reported on by the news media for almost two decades. the difference in these interviews and these afghanistan papers is that for the first time, the people who are running the war, the people in charge, the people who played a role are unfiltered with all of the problems and failures. this is in contrast to what was being said in public. the: the series is called afghanistan papers. a history of the war. cry quit luck, the investigative whitlock,we -- craig the investigative reporter, we welcome your calls. part of your reporting, the video part of that was interviewing the inspector

general who has been on this program a number of times. let's take a look at some of what you found out. these are people in charge of the war saying it was a disaster and they knew it. i don't see any of these comments in your lessons learned report, why didn't you include those? >> that is the limitation of where we go. as an inspector general, i don't do policy. all you have quoted were people talking about bad policy. did your staff interview all of these people that are quoted if they aren't -- >> they may well be used. guest: not up to now, that is the whole fundamental reason of the questioning? why did you let it drop? >> stuff is available. we are still producing these reports. guest: we had to sue you twice to get our hands on it.

>> i don't know if it would be any more useful than the audits and investigations of other reports we have that make the same point. host: what was your take away from the interview. guest: if you can hear in the interview, i was getting frustrated. and the these generals inspector general's office had these interviews. they knew about it but they were withholding it from their public reports. they were withholding it from the press. they were withholding it from the american people. i don't think he had a good argument or explanation as to why they were keeping a lid on it. did they say withholding it until when? was there any indication they would ever be released? guest: not really. he said we may include them in future reports. these interviews were done in 2014, 2015, 2016. the war is still going on, people are still dying.

we are still spending billions of dollars a year. there is no point in sitting on them for years. the american people deserve to hear the truth. they deserved to hear it along time ago. it took us three years to fight to get them into the public light. don't do policy. why was his office created in the first place? his office was created to track spending and prevent waste and fraud and things like this. this is specifically why congress created his office. what they have been doing since then is providing regular reports to congress about how the war is going and problems with it. this whole project, lessons learned, the interviews we have obtained, there is another project, a side project to examine exactly what did go wrong with policy and other things in afghanistan. i think he is being disingenuous, to put it politely, in his explanations about why they can't talk about

policy. of course they can talk about policy. host: how much did it cost? guest: at least $11 million, as far as we can tell. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. as the afghan war was going on, i thought it was coincidental or was it something more that our opiate crisis in our own country had gotten worse as we were involved in this afghanistan war, thank you for taking my call. guest: that is a good question. i think there is a difference. the opium produced in afghanistan, these come from plants and flowers. ande are for heroin morphine. that is a big problem throughout the world. most afghan opium does not come to the united states. the problem with the united states and opioids, those are synthetic drugs that are manufactured in the lab by drug companies.

that is a different kind of class of drugs from the heroin and morphine that is produced in afghanistan. kevinwe will hear from from massachusetts. hi caller. caller: thanks for taking my call. let's see if i can articulate this. i am not going to insult the troops in afghanistan. i kind of know how things work. bush'sve that president comment was that fool me once, it can happen again. . support the veterans congress should do an investigation because they do these investigations. their job isns and to pass legislation to help the people. the regular folks. gentleman'sis investigation.

into what does go on. i believe he said somebody said something disingenuous. big surprise there. -- going back to previous collars, they have no skin in the game, oh, my god. that hit home right there. politicians have no skin in the game. host: thank you. craig whitlock on kevin's comment in terms of congress and investigating. may beioned their hearings on your report. in your research and reporting, did these issues come up before? did he mention some of these issues? guest: the inspector general raised the issue in terms of

problems with corruption and opium and training the afghan security forces. the inspector general has been aggressive in bringing those issues to light to congress and to the public. the distinction is with the interviews they conducted for the special project with the people who are involved in that. they are the crown jewels of the project. this is the unfiltered, unvarnished commentary. that stuff got locked in the closet. he talked about the problems at large. the commentary, the biting commentary, the incriminating comments, that stuff was kept private. host: is there still stuff in the closet that you are trying to get? guest: there is a lot of stuff in the closet. we have a lawsuit pending, a freedom of information act lawsuit where we are hoping to get hundreds more documents and interviews with people involved in the war as well as their names. we have had to suit the inspector general -- sue the

inspector general. we were able to figure out a quarter of them. host: how? guest: some of them were listed. some of them, we were able to figure out with the context and timing and we would go to these people and they would say yeah, that was me. i gave the interview. it was independent reporting and some of it was through the lawsuit. host: this may be a fundamental question but you spent three plus years reporting on this rose in a text from west virginia says what exactly is our interest in afghanistan besides oil and other resources? please don't say for democracy's sake. the purpose of the u.s. forces being in afghanistan? guest: that is a great question. a basic, elementary question, why are we there? one of the most astounding things when i would read these interviews is that the people in charge of the war were asking the same question, why are we there, why are we still there? we all know we went in there after 9/11 to retaliate to the

hijackings. everybody understood that back in 2001. within six months, al qaeda was gone from afghanistan. they were either killed, captured or fled to pakistan and other countries. they were not there anymore. at that point, the question was why did we stay and what were we trying to accomplish? the people in charge of the war are asking the same questions. who is the enemy? who are we fighting? how long are we going to be there, they could not answer the questions either and they were in charge. host: we will go to stephen in new york. good morning. caller: good morning. first and foremost, god bless you guys. american.year-old i flipped through the channels every day for each of the past year because my family is divided on the situation. i have democrats, republicans, i

believe in god. i have to look at what trump said. trump said in these regions that we are going into, they have been fighting for 3000 years. don't quote me on that but they have been fighting for a long time. if we look at these regions and we see the heat that they have -- hate that they have toured the united states and the burning of our flags and the burning of the israeli flags, we have to look up the whole area and look at their mindset and look at what they feel towards us and then we have to think about trump. trump was never a politician. he was a new yorker and a real estate guy. he was a construction guy, a wholesale guy. into this with an old-fashioned mindset. what i mean by that is this. the president is in control of our policies. he has to deal with these princesand kings and

and princesses. killed qasem soleimani. he killed him for what he did in the past and what he intended to do to us in the future. learned to walk around with grenades at a very young age at any given time. as can't walk in their areas an american and roam freely, you will be killed. if you spit in the street, they will cut off your tongue. this may be out of year-round but how are they impacted by people in afghanistan? the answer is complex. they are afraid if the united states pulls out, the taliban will take power again. they are worried about social games and economic names that could get a raise. there are a lot of afghans who

want the message of taliban -- that resonates is why are they still here? a question that a lot of afghans have that makes them susceptible to the taliban's point of view, which is we don't like having foreign forces occupying our country and they should not be here anymore. ray, aet's go to syracuse native. to correctould like the narrative about american hero that was mentioned earlier. that is the general that is -- --g and sensing awaiting sentencing. the reason he is awaiting

sentencing, yes he pled guilty to lying. but, if you look into it a little bit, the people that interviewed him said he did not lie. disclosure ofed some of the underlying documents. it turns out the things we have werehearing about unlawfully acquired. there is a lot of other paperwork that happened. host: i have to let you go. we talked about michael flynn earlier. we will go to peter in connecticut. welcome. thank you -- caller: thank you very much. thank you for c-span. when we were in there for the international coalition, we actually defeated the taliban. knew your television. go ahead with your comments.

we are listening. caller: good. when we went into afghanistan after 9/11, with the international force supporting us, we defeated the taliban. why did we go into iraq after that? great that's another question. that is a separate issue. the bush administration decided --arately to a van iraq invade iraq on the idea that saddam hussein had weapons of mass destruction. there is another part of the story. the taliban was defeated by the international coalition. -- united states fought the u.s. officials said there was a real mistake made in the u.s. did not try to negotiate with the defeated taliban leadership. if they had cut a deal to bring

them back into the full, there was an opportunity to do that in 2002 or 2003. we did not take advantage. there is some hindsight that if we had worked out a deal with the taliban, we could have avoided 15 years of war. at the moment, that is what we are doing. the trump administration is negotiating with the taliban, trying to have a deal to end the war that way. host: where does that stand? is unclear but talks have gotten close to an arrangement between the u.s. and taliban. they have been dragging on. he could fall apart and we could be stuck there for years to come. or, they could come to an agreement in the coming weeks. the scandal ofed the u.s. navy for the washington post. have you been entirely focused on the story over the past several years? guest: largely focused. i am still working on the story

with this navy scandal. i am working on a book on that. ose thingsg to do th at the same time. there is an enormous amount of reporting energy from the washington post newsroom. not just me but throughout our whole newsroom over the past couple of years. .his is a big project for us and to publish not just our reporting but the original documents, people can see them and read for themselves what people are saying in the interviews. we have posted them on the internet. following up the paper published yesterday, a poll shows how americans think about the war in afghanistan. theyrecently published -- write the regionally published project misleads the american public on the harsh reality of the war in afghanistan. this fall, we asked national representative samples of americans as part of the university of maryland critical issues poll, what exactly they

thought of the state of america's longest war. was say in the report that published yesterday, here is what we found. despite americans hesitancy to deploy u.s. troops into other conflicts, they remain supportive after 18 years of war of maintaining u.s. military footprints in afghanistan. we will see if we can get a couple more calls. we will go to new york city and hear from ralph. welcome. caller: thank you for c-span. i remember when i was in college , that i would listen to the am radio in the middle of the night that heard the description president reagan ordered that we tripoli, libya. i remember telling a college professor at around 8:00 in the morning what i had heard on the radio.

i did not think much of it. i was a stupid kid. this wonderful professor, i remember her reaction. freaked out,so fre in shock and scared. she began to talk about it. i learned at that point that you fort just set yourself up the possibility of going to war. i had a discussion with a vietnam veteran, approach from vietnam veteran, recently. so shockedst how a president who dodged the draft five times due to from anable bone spurs family doctor who probably knew the father and got the letter that enabled him to talk about political favors. the termis interesting

he uses, a lessons learned report, that phrase is often used about vietnam. guest: i went back and did some reviews of what people were saying when the war started. there was a press conference with president bush in october of 2001. the second question he got asked after we started bombing afghanistan is is this going to be another vietnam? would we get stuck in another war like that. ? bush said no, we have studied the results of vietnam. eat the not rep mistakes. he said exclusively that we will not get stuck in another vietnam. that is putting much what happened in terms of the endless nature of the war and no easy way to get out. we are stuck in the quagmire, there are some parallels. nobody intends to get stuck in a long war but it happens. happens and it is a lot harder to get out than it is to get in. host: is a singer still doing

these interviews? guest: as far as i know, they are. they have been cagey since we have been fighting them in court. there have been hundreds more done that we have not been able to get our hands on. host: the reporting on those interviews is the afghanistan papers: a secret history of the war. our guest is an investigative reporter with the washington post. that will be all for us this morning. morehead tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern. we hope you are with us. have a great day. ♪ [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] ♪ with us later today, the

commission's mission is to study u.s. efforts to commune it it with and influence members of the public in other countries. -- communicate with and influence memos of the public and other countries. that will be live starting at noon eastern on c-span and online at c-span.org. you can listen live with the free c-span radio app. the house and senate are back this week. the house has yet to decide on a peachpit managers -- impeachment managers. eventually, the senate will sit as a jury to hear the cases against president trump. we expect the senate to take up the u.s.-mexico-canada trade agreement, which the house did approve in september. congress will hear president trump deliver the state of the union address on february 4. watch the house live on c-span and see the senate live on c-span2. the impeachment of president trump -- continue to follow the process on c-span, leading to a

senate trial. live, unfiltered coverage on atpan, ondemand c-span.org/impeachment and listen on the free c-span radio app app. tonight on the communicators, a group that advocates for democracy talks about the organization's report on world internet freedom. >> what we are generally seeing is social media used to be this level paying -- playing field for free expression by activists and users. somet is being co-opted by of the more powerful, well resourced actors in our society. i think that is where social media companies need to re-level the playing field, to root out the bad actors. make think to perhaps policy changes within the algorithms to incentivize a type of productive, democratic

discourse and conversation. >> watch the communicators tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span two. now remarks from 2020 presidential candidate elizabeth warren. the massachusetts democratic senator hosted a town hall with supporters in manchester, iowa. she talked about why she decided to run for president. she took questions on topics including the economy and social security. afterwards, she greeted and took pictures with some of the attendees. this is about an hour and 20 minutes. ♪ [dolly parton's "nine to five" playing] ♪ sen. warren: hello, manchester. [applause]