diplomats, servicemembers, all americans and our allies. lou: and that's it for us tonight. we thank you for being with us. great weekend. good night from west palm beach, florida. david: tonight new airstrikes targeting iran-backed militants in iraq, while 3,000 american troops deployed in the middle east just hours after president trump authorized a drone strike killing a top iranian general. good evening, everyone. i'm david asman tonight in for trish regan. well, iran is now vowing, quote, forceful revenge for the killing of qassem soleimani who commanded that country's security and intelligence services and was responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilians and over 600 u.s. soldiers in iraq. president trump says he approved the strike based on information that soleimani was plotting to kill even more americans.

listen. >> soleimani made the death of innocent people his sick passion. what the united states did yesterday should have been done long ago. we took action last night to stop a war. we did not take action to start a war. david: for more on what could come next, i'm joined by national security analyst retired lieutenant colonel bob mcginnis. he's author of the book "progressive evil". good to see you here, colonel. senator graham was read in apparently on the killing of soleimani and what he had been planning and why he was killed. senator graham said he was ready to unleash holy hell on our embassy. any doubt in your mind what he was up to? >> he's been doing this for decades, david, and he has as you pointed out quite a reputation of killing --

certainly training shia militia to kill u.s. forces there as well as to recruit for, you know, bashar all assad in syria. -- al-assad in syria. he equips to attack the saudis and hezbollah to attack the israelis. he's a bad character. if there was evidence of an imminent attack against our diplomats, our soldiers in that country, of which we have more than 5,000, then yes, it's a legitimate to go after him and to remove the scourge that he has created across the middle east. david: now, the question of what the iranians do next is open to a lot of different possibilities. and people who look at it logically say, you know, they would have to be out of their minds to do anything to the united states because, you know, they are extraordinarily weak right now because of our sanctions. we are extraordinarily strong because of the work that donald trump has done in building up our forces over the past three years. but they are insane. i mean, that's the crazy thing

about dealing with the iranians. you are never quite sure -- like a mad dog, you are never sure what they are going to do next. >> they're autocrats. we need to recognize that khamenei is a dictator, he using the quds force irgc and other militia in his own country. they have killed perhaps 1500 of their own people in the last few months. if they're willing to shed their own blood, they could care less about american blood and would like to do that. now, but what are they going to do? i think that first, they are going to sit back and say well, we're not in a rush. however, we're going to unleash the shia, and you saw that attack this evening. i think that's after the shia militia that are all over that country. they run the place to a certain degree. of course i think we will see perhaps attacks against u.s. facilities in saudi arabia as well as bahrain. you will see an acceleration of their nuclear program which of course will give the israelis,

you know, a concern, legitimately so. there are other things. i don't think, though, they may try like they did in 2011 here in washington, d.c., you know, stage an assassination attempt. david: right. >> they went after the saudi ambassador at that time at a local restaurant. now, that's more sophisticated, more difficult, but they could possibly do that and a host of other things. david: colonel, years ago i did a documentary about a hezbollah cell that was broken up here in the united states. it was back in 2001. it was kind of obscured by the events of 9/11 because it happened right around the same time that we busted the cell down in north carolina. they were selling cigarettes illegally, sending million dollars back to their comrades in lebanon. that was the only hezbollah cell that we know of that was busted here in the united states. are there other sleeper cells that we don't know of that exist now here? >> well, in south america and

central america, we know and have known for some time hezbollah. some of them have been trained by quds force. have they infiltrated in this country? we have had some reports that perhaps. i know there are a lot of iranians in this country. i don't know how many are showing their patriotism towards the united states or are there some that are divided in their allegiance to perhaps the ayatollah. that's something, you know, i'm sure homeland security is going to look at, david. david: right. >> but i think the probability is more they are going to try to get targets close in. they will go after u.s. personnel in baghdad and basrah and perhaps kirkuk and other places in iraq, a lot easier than coming to washington, d.c. or new york city. david: finally, very quickly, it is the response by the media. we will get into that later on in this program, but some of the irresponsible stuff that's come out is -- makes you sick, literally makes you sick. one of them is comparing

soleimani and his quds force to u.s. special forces. you heard that repeated over and over again today. the main difference of course vice president pence made that clear today in a series of tweets is that our special forces do not specifically target civilians, while as theirs do. that's precisely what they do. that's what makes them terrorists and not special forces guys. >> they're very indiscriminate about who they will kill or injure. clearly they did a lot of that damage in iraq, but they are doing it all over the world and would continue to do so if given the opportunity. you know, soleimani, no one's going to miss him except perhaps the ayatollah khamenei because he was his hitman. that's the sort of thing we were dealing with. david: i wish our media and some democrats were a little more discriminating in terms of making these comparisons with our folks, but apparently there's no lower bar than what

they can crawl under. thank you very much, colonel. good to see you. appreciate you being here. meanwhile, democrats on capitol hill, chief among them, house speaker pelosi complaining that they were not consulted about the strike and certainly would not have authorized it. pelosi writing in a statement, quote, we cannot put the lives of american servicemembers, diplomats and others further at risk by engaging in provocative and disproportionate actions. tonight's airstrike risks provoking further dangerous escalation of violence. america and the world cannot afford to have tensions escalate to the point of no return. well, does pelosi not realize the whole purpose of this strike was to protect the lives of american servicemembers who are about to be taken by these terrorists? joining me now is former national security advisor to vice president dick cheney, steve yates. it is extraordinary. sometimes you look for logic and you shouldn't because a lot of these are just political statements, but they are

complaining that they weren't told, pelosi, schiff, a lot of democrats, they are complaining they weren't told, but clearly if they had been told, they would have said nothing doing, mr. president, we can't support that. i think it is probably better they weren't, don't you? >> absolutely. i mean, a shocker of all shockers that people who have been known to leak sensitive national security information through the sham impeachment process are not going to be consulted about sensitive military operations related intelligence, at any point, much less now at a sensitive time. david: yeah. >> it is not surprising that they weren't in the consultation loop. at the same time, all they are trying to do is a very orchestrated communication strategy by obama and clinton likes trying to distract away from obama's provocative weakness. that weakness brought us to where we are today and trump is cleaning up the consequences. david: there's also an issue of timing. you had to make a decision very quickly.

we had eyes on this guy maybe for a few minutes before we could order this strike properly. and yet, we haven't learned anything from benghazi. the one thing beyond anything else that we learned about benghazi is the longer you wait, the more you put lives at risk, and the president knew that better than a lot of these democrats. >> well, the founders were very clear. it's been upheld by multiple terms of president that the commander in chief, and there's only one elected at a time, much to the chagrin of the democrats who are trying to remove him, there's only one commander-in-chief at a time specifically in place to make these kind of operational decisions. this is not a long-term engagement. this is not a military campaign to invade and occupy another country. this is defending american sovereign territory of an embassy and also striking back against the most destabilizing force in the region to keep the pressure campaign on them. david: you have people trying to cover up their tracks of mistakes that they made in dealing with iran. one of them is a woman named wendy sherman who worked with

john kerry in his state department. she helped develop the iran deal which gave the iranians billions of dollars. she wrote a piece today saying trump walked into iran's trap. how is preventing a full scale attack on our own embassy walking into iran's trap? >> well, she would be an expert on traps, having walked into them in north korea and iran multiple times before. however, it's definitely not a trap, to send appropriate forces to defend american sovereign territory, our diplomats, and our soldiers. and there's no question that for decades the republican revolutionary guard have been out there creating this problem, and president trump was the first president that had the gumption to go ahead and hit them hard inside the country of iraq. that i think is an important signal that goes beyond just iran. david: by the way, another thing wendy sherman did was accompany john kerry after he left the

state department on trips, meeting with iranians kind of discussing the problems of the new president trump and how to maybe get around that. i mean, that was something that made state department secretary pompeo almost cry out treason. >> it was very very close. i mean, democrats tried at the beginning of this administration to accuse people of the mostly defunct logan act violations. a lot of the shenanigans that were pulled at the end of the obama years and the actions taken against trump officials were based on the idea of people who were not yet in office engaging in foreign policy while the previous president is in charge. that's exactly what these people were doing in violation. they were going and undermining the president's policies and american national interests for their political purposes. david: absolutely. >> surprisingly we have washington games that go beyond our shores from time to time. david: steve yates always a pleasure to talk to you. appreciate you being here. the liberal media actually

praising listed known terrorist iranian general soleimani and criticizing president trump's attack. >> he was a revered -- >> he was a very popular man -- >> fairly brazen, fairly awe -- fairly audacious. >> almost something of a cult figure. david: tonight an iranian american democrat is here to call out the liberal media. also tonight don't you just love it when hollywood weighs in on foreign policy? it is good for a laugh or two. mcgowan and others. republican congressman andy biggs is here to join i'm your 70lb st. bernard puppy, and my lack of impulse control, is about to become your problem.

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click, call or visit a store today. david: democrats continue to play games on impeachment. speaker pelosi still sitting on the articles of impeachment the house passed weeks ago. republicans say pelosi knows just how weak the case is, so she's holding it back from an actual trial. and now chuck schumer has a brand-new excuse. they have new evidence apparently so the trial needs to

call more witnesses than democrats actually want. senate leader mcconnell shooting back immediately. watch. >> the same people who just spent weeks screaming at impeachment with so seriousness and so urgent that it couldn't wait for due process now decided it could wait indefinitely while they checked the political whims and look for some new talking points. we have heard it plain that the same house democrats who botched their own process should get to reach over here into the senate and dictate our process. their turn is over. they've done enough damage. it's the senate's turn now. but we can't hold a trial without the articles. david: is mcconnell calling pelosi's bluff? joining me now house judiciary committee member arizona republican andy biggs. good to see you, congressman. what happens next week? is pelosi going to appoint house

managers and get this thing moving, or is sh e going to continue to drag her feet? >> well, you know, david, it is good to be with you. i can tell you with nancy pelosi, i believe she doesn't know what she's going to do. i have heard rumors both ways. that she's going to appoint house managers and get it over there and others that she will keep holding on. don't forget, just about a week before now, about ten days ago, you had the judiciary committee chairman's council indicate that they were going to continue to investigate and try to find something else to impeach this president on. i mean -- [laughter] david: forgive me for laughing but the bottom line is it's the only impeachment that's completely partisan and it is the only impeachment that begins without any kind of real crime. so my feeling is is that she's dragging her feet and waiting until some kind of charge drips out.

now, schumer, the senate -- the leader of the democrats in the senate, chuck schumer, has come out with these new e-mails from the omb that he claims shows that the president himself did put a hold for longer than they had said previously on the aid to ukraine. is there anything there, or is this just more boy crying wolf? >> this is just another red herring. what the american people have not heard from the democrats is this, president trump released the funds at an appropriate time as required by law. in fact, he had another three weeks he could have held it for another three weeks. he didn't. he released it by law. if the democrats wanted this aid leased sooner , - -- released sooner they could have specified that in any number of ways in the legislation they authored and passed out. but they didn't. so here we sit, you and i laughing at the democrats because nancy pelosi has a tiger

by the tail. she doesn't want to let go of it because there's teeth on the other end. that's really where she is. david: you know, there was a charge that came out of the intel committee, and that was bribery, but it never made it through judiciary committee where you sit because clearly, clearly they couldn't use the bribery charge because it fit joe biden much better than it fit donald trump. >> well, certainly joe biden fits the bribery charge, but they couldn't figure out how to explain what president trump did and whether there were elements of the bribery offense which there weren't under the federal offense. so remember, they had the law professor from stanford, she spent so long trying to explain how this was bribery that it basically took all of the air out of the room and you never heard them talk about bribery again. david: that's true. by the way, the washington post had a piece last summer about how joe biden was trying when he

was vice president, joe biden was trying to get u.s. aid, that is taxpayer money, to go into the gas industry in the ukraine. now, that could be more than bribery. that's misuse of u.s. funds going into the pocket of his son, if in fact that happened. has anybody looked into that? >> well, we've been real busy doing other stuff. david: i'm sure. >> i believe there are some folks looking into that as well because that would be misappropriations and money laundering as well. david: i think mr. dunham has been looking into that. we may hear his report soon. congressman biggs, wonderful to have you on this friday. have a wonderful weekend. thank you very much. you know trump derangement syndrome is bad when the liberal media actually praises a terrorist over president trump. listen. >> he was a military genius. >> it is difficult to convey how revered he is. >> he was revered. >> as almost something of a cult

figure. david: tonight iranian american democrat is here to call the liberal media out. also tonight hollywood's always giving their opinion when nobody asks. coming up, can you guess how rose mcgowan and john cusack feel about president trump killing another terrorist? i think i already do. but first the media cheering on socialist sanders record 30 million dollars fundraiser but not a peep about president trump's record fund-raising. we set the record straight right after this. (rock music)

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sign up to give the gift of life after you're gone. you'll be happy you did. just maybe, someone else will too. sign up online today as an organ, eye, and tissue donor at organdonor.gov. it saves lives. >> evangelicals, christians of every denomination and believers of every faith have never had a greater champion, not even close, in the white house than you have right now. but we can't let one of our radical left friends come in here because everything we've done will be gone in short

order. david: president trump reassuring and rallying some of his most vocal supporters, evangelical christians in the wake of a blistering antitrump op-ed in christianity today. but that writeup is falling on deaf ears for trump supporters, the rnc and team trump raking in a record breaking 154 million dollars over the last three months. joining me now trump 2020 campaign advisory board member. madison, great to see you. thanks for being here. i'm thinking that the president pretty much put a spike in that fake media story that evangelicals were deserting trump. >> well, yeah, when you look at the evangelical vote from 2016, 81% of white evangelicals voted for this president and many of them of course were skeptical at the time. promises hadn't been made and kept quite yet. he made the promises. they were waiting to see if he kept them. he kept those promises and so many more. the fund-raising numbers are a result of that as well as so much else, impeachment and the

people's resentment for the democrats being a part of that. you look at the numbers, 154 million raised by the rnc in the trump campaign in q4 of 2019. if you look at the year as a whole, you add in trump victory, trump make america great again committee looking at 463 million dollars raised. it's unreal. it's, you know, not anything that any of the dems are able to do. it is not something that obama even did during his reelection bid in 2012. david: i still want to drill down a little bit in this story because it always fascinates me. i used to work for a newspaper, the "wall street journal" and how people can get stories so distorted in this environment. newspapers used to be able to rely on, but you can't anymore. washington post, "new york times," etc., but it came from this christianity today editor. i guess he's resigned now, but the editor, and he's the one who wrote this thing saying that evangelicals are deserting trump. he goes -- you go back three years when right after the election in 2016 he said i don't

know a single evangelical who voted for donald trump. well, clearly he's running in circles that are completely opposite from what most evangelicals are living within. >> yeah, talk about fake news. i mean, it's simply not true. you look at the evangelical vote from 2016. we will see something similar in 2020, maybe even better numbers for the president. i think sometimes you look at many of these reporters across the board, when it comes to mainstream media and a reporter like this obviously with christianity today which is out of the norm for publication like this, but you look at them, and it's almost as if they think if they scream or post something enough times that people will believe it when it is simply not the truth. people are starting to see past that. they are starting to see past the fake news. they are looking directly to the sources like the president's words himself. david: the bottom line with this president is that even some of his supporters have trouble with some of the things he says but the results are just undeniable. the issues on which evangelicals

care so much, care so dearly are issues that he has followed through on, on abortion issues, on issues involving school prayer, etc. those issues that evangelicals care so much about are the ones that he has actually following through on and making life better for them. >> exactly. and you look at those promises made, promises kept. the support for the lives of the unborn, this is something that's simply priceless when it comes to many of these voters. i of course agree with that. we have seen the progress that he's made. we look at the support for israel, and of course where i think his lasting legacy will really lie is in the supreme court justices and in those federal judges. david: right. >> what he's been able to do at unprecedented rate when it comes to nominations it is incredible, originalist, conservative judges that he is' appointing to the bench, they respect the text of the constitution and protecting the rights that need to be protected. david: always good to see you. thanks for coming in. appreciate it. the liberal media hitting