charles. thank you very much. that's it for us tonight. thanks for watching. please remember the spin stops here because we're looking out for you. breaking tonight, calls for unity and remembrance following the assassinations of two of new york city's finest. apparently falling on deaf ears. welcome to "the kelly file." i'm shannon bream in tonight for megyn kelly. as the city mourns the murders of two police officers just days before christmas, some demonstrators are defying a call for no protests until those officers can be laid to rest. staging a die-in at new york's grand central station suggesting authorities are trying to silence them. they're even demanding an apology from police commissioner bill bratton who has worked to try to improve relations between the community and his department. it all comes as we also learn about a new message to the city from commissioner bratton that says in part, quote, over the

past weeks many in the city and across the nation have been attempting to define the new york police department in their own terms, but the men and bwomn of this department know exactly who we are. we are police officers wenjian liu and rafael ramos. they were loving fathers, husbands and sons, points of great pride for their communities. we begin with david lee miller reporting from new york city. david. >> reporter: shannon, mayor de blasio is doing what he can to try and heal the city and towards that effort this morning he went to the memorial in brooklyn with his wife to place flowers. this is not just any makeshift memorial. this is the very site where the shooting took place. this is where the two officers were executed. wenjian liu and rafael ramos. later in the day the mayor called for a moment of silence at new york's city hall. the mayor spoke briefly

beforehand. he talked about trying to bring the community together with the police. here's some of what he had to say. >> we have to put the divisions of the past behind us. left to all of us in this generation. we have to overcome them. we need to protect and respect our police just as our police protect and respect our communities. we can strike that balance. we must. right now i want everyone to focus on these families. >> earlier at city hall, that very same location where the moment of silence took place, a coalition of activists said they were not going to stop street protests, this despite the request from the mayor's office. they said the protests, the street demonstrations are going to continue. and the rhetoric, it was inflammatory as ever.

>> murdering pigs and what they are, they are pigs, get away with murder. they get away with impunity. and this has to stop. and people are going to be out on the streets on new year's eve demanding, demanding that they stop murdering our children, demanding they stop murdering black and brown people. demanding that these killer cops go to jail. >> new york city's police commissioners said the decision to continue the protests was, in his words, an unfortunate one. he went on to say that the police department here will deal with the protesters as they always do, quoting again, he said, professionally. shannon? >> david lee miller, thank you so much. joining us now former new york city mayor rudy giuliani who has been very outspoken in the wake of these murders and led the city through one of its biggest crises ever, 9/11. mayor, thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> let me ask you, your response to what we heard from the mayor in the last 24 hours or so. he said we need to protect them.

our community should honor them. we have to protect them as part of our duty. if you see something, report it. is that enough for you? >> obviously, you can't disagree with that. i agree with that. no, it's not enough for me. the mayor owes an apology to the police department of the city of new york and to the people of the city of new york for the way in which he's characterized the police department over the last year as a candidate and now as mayor. he has played into, unfortunately, the national rhetoric of, you know, police officers being racists. he's done it at numerous times you've seen him on television attacking the police. and the reality is he owes them an apology. they shouldn't have turned their backs on him. that was probably not right. but i understand the emotion. and they're trying to send him a signal that they do not feel that he supports them. and he should apologize to them for having allowed that situation to, you know, to

occur. not the murders. i don't consider him impossible in any way for the murders. murders have happened under all mayors, and they're tragic. i just spent some time with both families, both the ramos and the liu families, and it is quite true, as commissioner bratton says, these two men were exceptional men. really remarkable, remarkably dedicated, officer liu joined the force because of september 11th. he was motivated to become a police officer because of what happened on september 11th. officer ramos worked for years to become a police officer. this is what our police department is all about. it's about men like this. they're not racists. our police department is not an all-white police department, in fact, whites are not a majority in the police department in new york city. so it's absurd for this mayor to have played into this notion that the new york city police department has some kind of a

substantial racism problem. and then you get these maniacs on the street who are calling for the killing of police officers. where was the mayor when that was happening? might have helped two and three and four, five days ago if the mayor had condemned the fact that these people in the streets were calling for the death of police officers. i mean, we're talking about hundreds of people doing it. and it also would have been very helpful if he hadn't allowed them to take the brooklyn bridge, the fdr drive. when i was a mayor you didn't get to take the brooklyn bridge or the fdr drive. if you're a protest, you have to be on the sidewalks like everyone else. the streets don't belong to protesters just like anyone else. you can protest but not on the streets. i just talked to someone who a person who was in a serious accident was seriously delayed in getting to the hospital because of the brooklyn bridge being blocked. this is a matter of life and death in new york city. if an ambulance takes eight minutes instead of four minutes,

somebody dies. and for the mayor not to understand that is really kind of a monumental failure. >> i want to play a little bit of what he had to say yesterday when he was asked by a reporter about some of those protests that use the language that was very inflammatory and those who are marching and accusing the police officers of being racists, here is how the mayor responded to that question. >> what you managed to do is pull up the few who do not represent the majority who are saying unacceptable things, who shouldn't be saying those things, and some who actually physically attack police officers which i said is absolutely unacceptable, we'll prosecute them to the fullest. everyone must participate in finding those individuals, providing information to the police, intervening to stop them, alerting the police. i will keep saying this over and over. the question is will you tell the world about it? because you all are part of this, too. so yes, there are some bad people who say inappropriate things. there are some people who say

hateful things. they have no place in these protests. they are not what i'm talking about. >> so does the media play some responsibility for playing those remarks for letting people know they're being made? >> what about the first amendment? you have a first amendment obligation to report what is going on. i thought the mayor agreed with the first amendment. i didn't realize he wanted the first amendment amended so that when people say inflammatory things they're not reported so that the public can be alert to it. the public can be alert to the fact that there are these possible threats that are out there. and the media hasn't overplayed it. if anything, the mainstream media has underplayed it. i don't think you realize how many police officers were injured. i don't think you realize how many people were yelling and screaming. we're not talking about a few people. we're talking about a lot of people who were doing it for a long period of time. and we're talking about a mayor who was silent about it when it happened. now all of a sudden police officers get killed and he starts talking about it.

he should have been out there from day one condemning that kind of language and he should not have allowed the protester, the good or the bad, to take his streets. the streets do not belong to the protesters any more than they belong to the pedestrians. the streets belong to the city of new york including the ones who are having heart attacks in ambulances who are trying to get to the hospitals in three to four minutes so people can live. this mayor doesn't seem to know what the heck he is doing in the job. >> we got to leave it there. there's still questions about whether or not he'll continue on in that position. >> and he should apologize. failure to apologize is going to create such a serious rift. i hope the man has the ability of self-reflection. >> all right. former new york city mayor rudy giuliani, we've got to leave it there. merry christmas. thank you for your time. coming up, why leaders say critic from eric holder helped to create the anti-police feeling. plus sony over its controversial

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inherent problem with racism. joining me now the vice president of community activists joe hicks and former doj attorney jay christian adams. we'll begin with joe. welcome. >> thank you. good to be here. >> let me get your take on eric holder. he's made no secret of the fact, in fact, has bragged repeatedly in recent months that there are numerous investigations, they've doubled the number of investigations into police departments across the country as compared to what we had just five years previous. do you think it sends a message or are these legitimate investigations? >> well, this is attorney general that has shown himself to be more of an activist than in fact the kind of attorney general i think this nation needs, someone who in fact acts out the laws in a very dispassionate kind of way. and he has simply not done that through all sorts of ways. he's obviously talked about this country being a nation of cowards. he's organized with a lot of black activists around the country to get rid of voter i.d.

laws, laying out his litigation strategy. he's attacked schools to say that the policies, where disciplinary policies act disparately in regards to black and other minority students. that's ridiculous. he's given this kind of wink and nod that's encouraged activists and protests certainly in ferguson even before down in florida with the trayvon martin case and now in the current case in staten island. so he's acted in ways that certainly has given a wink and a nod and encouraged activists to see themselves as victims because, after all, this man is the highest law enforcement officer in the country. that combined by the way, with messages that we heard delivered by the president and the first lady in "people" magazine interview. so it's not been a good year for race relations in this country and holder fits dead center in that critique. >> joe, the attorney general has said we are a nation of cowards when it comes to talking about

and doing something about race. and you mention a lot of the activities that he's been involved in. you said also you mention the word "activist" he himself embraced that title and said -- i think it was he said a thousand percent embrace the title of activist, that's what i'm supposed to do and there's a lot i can accomplish in that vein as the attorney general. >> well, fine, then he stands to be judged on exactly that kind of embracing of this notion of activi activism. we don't need an activist in that sense that he'll take a side, in fact, of people saying there's been little or no racial progress and he's one of those -- and he does this very interesting kind of dance where at one point he'll say, yes, we made a fair amount of progress and on my watch we're going to do even more progress, but kind of leftist notion of what progress should be on race and other kinds of social issues. so i think on his watch, this nation has been set back a great deal in terms of its race

relations because the notion of racial victimization has flourished under this president and under this attorney general. >> all right, joe hicks, thank you so much, good to see you and merry christmas. >> same to you. >> more now with jay christian adams former doj attorney and author of "racial injustice." good to see you. thank you for coming in. joe brought up a lot of good points. the attorney general has said he is an activist, that's what he's about. he's gone after numerous other things. i want to ask you as a former doj official yourself do you think it's improper for him to go visit these families in high profile crimes that the just department is investigating these crimes? >> it may be appropriate but how he did it that's so outrageous. when he went to ferguson, he announced, i'm a black man. we all knew that. when he did that, he took sides and he incited a mob.

he told all those people angry in ferguson the federal government has got a thumb on the scale of justice. we're on your side, not on the side of the police and we're getting involved to help you. when the grand jury came down the way it did it exploded because of the rhetoric that holder has been putting out there. >> what happens now, though? because there are ongoing federal investigations in a number of places in a number of very hot cases even where the state grand juries have come out with their results. what happens now? can the attorney general deliver something different? and what kind of pressure is he going to be under now that he's made certain suggestions or assurances? >> not only do they use rhetoric but they abuse their power. take a look at ferguson. they actually sent a letter to the ferguson police department to tell the cops to stop wearing jewelry. they had no statutory authority to do that. but that's how holder operates, he abuses his power to achieve a racial end. they'll go after police departments around the country. it doesn't have to be criminal. it could be pattern and practice

cases where they're too mean to people. they're actually doing this to the nypd right now over their stop and frisk policies. you'll see more abuses like this. >> a number of these investigations are not just you're intentionally discriminating. of course, none of us think it's okay for any police officer to say because your this color or this nationality i'll come after you harder, no one thinks that's okay. but some of these investigations are into you police officers may not realize that you're biased and that you're hurting people. so even if you don't do it on purpose and you don't know you're doing it, you're doing it and we'll investigate it anyway. >> holder has brought into this far left radical idea that police are inherently racist, that everything they do is being driven with a sometimes very subliminal racial motive. so community policing, things of the nature of having consultants come in, the justice department forces people to hire, forcing on local police departments overseers like they're trying to do in new york city. these are the types of things that holder will attempt to do

to hamstring local police departments over the next two years or his successor. >> we'll wait to see what that process is and if the baton is picked up in the same fashion. always good to see you. merry christmas, happy holidays. thanks for coming in. sony pictures pulling the release of its film "the interview." that's still ahead. how cuba is responding to calls that it sends one of the fbi's most wanted terrorists back to the u.s. and christmas message for embattled christians across the middle east.

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urging christians in the middle east to remain in the land of christ's birth place

despite the horrific attacks they face from radical isis extremists. the pope said in a christmas letter that he hopes to visit in person, but that for now he wants to write to provide words of comfort and solidarity. president of the family research council. good to see you. >> good evening, shannon, how are you? >> i'm very good. i want to ask you about this letter. it's very poignant. you can hear that the pope is sympathizing, he's empathizing with these folks who are under relentless attack, paying with their lives, the lives of their loved ones but encouraging them that it's important their presence just be there and to stay there in that important birthplace of christianity, many say. >> you're right, shannon, if you think about it, this is where the oldest continuous christian communities have existed. some of jesus' own disciples, two of them took the gospel to this region. paul made his missionary journeys down there. this is an important place for christianity. what's happening there as most of the world prepares to

celebrate christians -- or christmas, rather, the birth of jesus christ, you have christians who are not unlike mary and joseph who had to flee with the brutality of her odd into egypt. the brutality of isis and what they're doing to christians in that region of the world is indescribable. >> some people are calling it a genocide. they say literally christians are being distinguished. there are countries where you can't detect any level of the population as those who are openly professing christians. they're being completely wiped out. >> we shouldn't be surprised. isis has said they want to eradicate not just christians but other religious minorities. yazidis and the christians. yet the united states and the united nations have refused to acknowledge what's going on there. it is genocide. there is an attempt to eradicate and cleanse, in their terms, the area of christianity. they're going through it now at these churches. some of the oldest churches in

christian dom. they're looting them, taking the artifacts and selling them on the black market and turn these churches into prisons and torture chambers where they're torturing some of the remaining christians. >> the pope says in his letter that it is important that christians be there and be part of the conversation with other denominations, with other religi religions. he says being there you are like the leaven in the dough. he said staying there and trying to be part of the conversation. reminding your brothers and sisters that islam at its root is a religion of peace. >> well, shannon, i mean, i think i'd have to take issue with that. we're not seeing a peaceful demonstration of islam there in the middle east. but here, i agree with the pope's words, it is very important that christians remain in that area. however, it's one thing to say that from our positions of safety, be it here in the united states or be it in rome. it takes more than that.

the united states, the united nations, the world community needs to stand with the christians in iraq and the other religious minorities who are being systematically murdered, women, children, including men are being killed there, but the brutality toward women and children is -- i talked to some hardened warriors that have seen a lot in their lifetime, who have been there in iraq and have said what they have seen and what they've heard of is beyond description. and we need to be standing with them. in fact, i would challenge any christians across this nation as we move into christmas to be praying for the christians there and to encourage our government to be like the wise men and to stand with them as they are forced to flee their countries. >> absolutely. we all have an obligation to remember. tony perkins, thank you so much for helping us to highlight this issue. merry christmas to you and your family. >> thank you, shannon. merry christmas to you. next up, breaking news over

sony's controversial decision to delay the release its film "the interview" following a hack by north korea. new calls for the convicted cop killer to be returned to the u.s. from cuba. i'm angela,

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in recent years and can no longer walk. i'm kelly wright. now back to the cell eye file. o. breaking news on what some

have called america's first cyber war. sony pictures announcing today that its film "the interview" will see a limited release on christmas day ever a their computer systems were hacked that the fbi pinned on north korea. >> hey, shannon, what a big plot twist this is. as you know, president obama was very critical of sony for not releasing this film, "the interview" on christmas day as planned, but then the white house just issued this statement following the release from sony. the president applauds sony's decision to authorize screenings of the film as the president made clear we are a country that believes in free speech and the right of artistic expression. the decision made by sony in participating theaters allows people to make their own choices about the film and we welcome that outcome. no reaction yet from north korea which has been dealing with a major internet outage that some are speculating may have been a countercyber attack by the u.s. in retaliation for the hacking

of sony. the country's internet service was completely down for about ten hours. but if the obama administration had anything to do with it, officials aren't saying. >> i can't speculate on why that was, if it wasn't, i can't speculate on reports that it actually wasn't. i would check with them. they're the right people to speak to this. >> before coming to hawaii president obama propromimised a proportional response on our time. part of the response would be knowable to north koreans but some would be covert to diminish their capacity to carry out future attacks. we may never find out if the u.s. crashed north korea's internet, but some say a move like that does carry some risks especially to u.s. companies. >> so if we start going in for a tit for tat playing cyber chicken with them, we better be prepared for a lot more shadowy groups claiming, you know, what they're going to do to american

businesses and then going in, destroying your network, releasing your intellectual property and the like. >> we don't know how many theaters will show the movie "the interview," but we do know that one of the actors, the stars of the film, seth rogen, just tweeted out, freedom has prevailed. shannon. >> all right, dan. thank you so much. we've heard from the white house now. but how is north korea's leadership likely to respond to what's happening now. joe trippi is a fox news contributor. good to see you today. >> good to be with you. >> what do you make of this? no one taking responsibility for this outage in north korea although we have to question how many people there actually have the internet or electricity or anything else. but some concerns there raised in dan's report about potential backlash if we start playing chicken with them in this way. >> for exactly the reasons he pointed out. for having three-quarters of people don't have electricity. there's only 3,000 internet ip addresses in the country of on

exposed, i think, is some real problems with how corporate america is dealing with online security. sony's shown that here. and that vulnerability is there for every -- for a lot of american corporations. most of them are not up on the really tough stuff. they haven't hardened their security. so now the problem is no matter how tough we get with north korea, they can take out a different company. i mean, assuming this tit for tat keeps happening, mutually assured destruction as we used to have in the cold war, doesn't work so well given their lack of an internet compared to how many american corporations are on ours and haven't hardened their security and could lose hundreds of millions of dollars. >> sony's ceo earlier in the week said that, based on what he knows, 90% of american businesses would have been susceptible to the same kind of attack that hit them. so how many companies do you think are out there scrambling, people working a lot through the

holidays to try to get things beefed up just in case? >> that's the whole problem here even for the u.s. government now. to the extent we do retaliate, it opens -- american corporations are not ready for the potential attacks. sony's right. 90% of american companies would be in trouble. they haven't done what they need to do to harden their security. still trying to stop these attacks with software isn't going to go anywhere. they've got to change the way they're doing security. none of them have done it because why add expenses when you don't do that. but the problem here is the most important thing in the report is if the government can degrade north korea's capacity to attack, that would be probably the most important thing they could do because that would protect the corporations from potential retaliation from korea. >> we talked a little bit about how the administration is categorizing this attack. i want to play what the president said earlier about this particular attack. trace back to north korea.

>> no, i don't think it was an act of war. i think it was an act of cyber vandalism that was very costly, very expensive. we take it very seriously. we will respond proportionally, as i said. >> so a lot of folks saying it's not an act of war because you don't have necessarily two countries going after each other, you have a country potentially going after a private business. it's not like they attacked the u.s. department of defense, which i'm sure they'd love to do something like that. but cyber vandalism to a lot of people sounds like something that's like jaywalking. they didn't spray graffiti on the internal mechanisms of sony. they created a lot of damage. >> no, i think that's true. but on the other hand we're not going to war over angelina jolie being upset because one of the sony execs -- >> yeah, i'm not worried about that. >> there's the terminology it's not war and also i think escalating to that is not necessarily -- to that rhetoric is not necessarily a good thing. >> this is a whole new way of us

experiencing an attack because, like we were saying, it involves private companies, private actors going after u.s. businesses and whether we do that in return. it's a 21st century version of warfare, of attacks of some kind. >> i just shows how things have changed dramatically in the internet age when everything's connected now. the problem we've got, again, is had sony released as planned to thousands of theaters, millions of americans went out and we showed we're going to stand up -- which is what i wanted. >> i want to ask you, are you going to see it? we may have the handful of theaters. >> if i can find it. >> because if we don't we feel like the terrorists win. >> so now we have to go, now they decide to take out, you know, bank of america, i mean, in other words, take out some different -- and how does our government retaliate against that when they've got 3,000 internet addresses and their ip addresses in the country?

this is a lot -- i mean, there are things we can do, shut down their ability, sanctions on their banking so they can't trade in dollars. it would be very extreme. okay, so you do that, we've got a bunch of american companies that are totally vulnerable to this kind of attack because they haven't hardened their security on passwords, on authentication. >> you can't use password 123, that is not going to work. if we can find a theater, maybe a double date, we'll go and the terrorists won't have won. >> we'll go, double date. >> new calls for the extradition of a convicted cop killer who was on the fbi's ten most wanted terrorist list. what cuba is saying about that possibility now. and for the ninth time in just over a decade u.s. troops will be deploying to iraq as we ring in the new year. what it means for the fight against isis. ♪ (holiday music is playing)

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developing tonight, cuba looking like it will not bend to u.s. calls that it sent back a convicted cop killer. and one of america's most wanted domestic terrorists who has been hiding in the communist nation for decades. joanne chesimard was a member of the black liberation army and was convicted of murdering state trooper werner foerster on the new jersey turnpike. she was sentenced to life in prison but escaped. she's been hiding in plain sight in cuba for more than 30 years and she was actually granted political asylum by fidel castro. she was the first woman added to the fbi's most wanted list. offering a million dollar reward for her capture. now they're renewing their calls for justice.

new jersey congressman cri mama smith has called for her return. >> thank you very much for having me. >> my first question is how was joanne chesimard not part of this deal? >> it's incredible to me. it's a betrayal really by the president of the united states that the human rights activists and the convicted felons who are now residing and walking free in havana like joanne chesimard are free and this wasn't part of the deal. you know, to open up to a dictatorship that is now, as raul castro has said a couple days ago, they're going to stay communist, they're going to continue their repression, their use of torture, the coastro brothers should be held for crimes against humanity for the crimes of torture. anyone who has ever read the books including the book "against all hope" knows s tha the mistreatment, the soviet

union has done, north korea and we're extending a hand of friendship. >> why? >> and also beguiling in terms of the timing. "the washington post" possessed an excellent column, what was happening, the soviet union used to be or cuba was a client state of the soviet union, that's how the money flowed. venezuela has played that role in recent years. unfortunately, for fortunately, however you look at it, we've seen a huge decline in oil. and that means that venezuela cannot continue to provide those huge amounts of cash payouts to the castro regime. in comes the obama administration providing an opening, a lifeline of economic possibilities that will revive this dictatorship. joanne chesimard ought to be in a prison in new jersey. she gunned down a state trooper in cold blood, shot him in the back of the head according to -- i mean, she was convicted.

she escaped, unfortunately, and made her way where she got asyl asylum. but she's not the only one. and again convicted felon, cuba is a safe haven. human rights activists, they're the people who are in prison who are being really treated like criminals in that gulag state. >> i have to ask you about this, too. because there were three convicted cuban spies that we released in this deal. one of them, his wife is pregnant and about to have a child and people are asking how did that happen. through artificial imsemination, but he was in jail in california. now we find out a top adviser to patrick leahy said he went there on a visit, he and his wife who was a nurse felt badly for her, so they facilitated this. i as a u.s. citizen find that a bit shocking. >> it is a bit shocking. it is also on the dr in the realm of bizarre. i mean, these three convicted spies are notorious, they're thugs, and to treat them in a way as if there's a prisoner

exchange going on here, the man that was released back to the united states worked for the -- was a contractor for the u.s. agency for international development. hardly comparable to a cuban spy who used all kinds of chicanery and really they tracked people, they used force, they mistreat cuban exiles here in the united states. >> so serving multiple life sentences. >> i feel like the trade was wrong. it reminds me of what happened when we gave back three people from guantanamo back to and released them for one u.s. prisoner. >> five. >> five, yeah. that just is disproportionate. it also suggests some kind of equality between what these individuals have done. those people were convicted, due process rights were followed in the united states. in the case of cuba, there are no due process rights. if you're accused by the

dictatorship, you go to prison, you're guilty. there's no free press. none. it's owned by the government. trafficking, child sex trafficking is rampant throughout the island and the government gleans great profits from the abuse of little children in communist cuba. this is not a dictatorship or a government that we should be saying, oh, let's just exchange pleasantries, let's open up, you know, a diplomatic response. the embargo has been in effect for 50 years. we were seeing, i think, especially with the fact that venezuela could no longer provide the funding that it has had in the past, an opening for the human rights activists in cuba and that now is deteriorating. >> congressman, always good to see you. we know you work very hard on human rights around the globe. we thank you for making time for us today, too. we have troops being deployed for the ninth time in

just over a decade as we ring in the new year. plus, senator rand paul getting into the holiday spirit. wait until you see some of the grievances he's airing this festivus. instead of mailing everyone my vacation photos, i'm saving a ton of time by posting them to my wall. oh, i like that one. it's so quick! it's just like my car insurance. i saved 15% in just 15 minutes. i saved more than that in half the time. i unfriend you. that's not how it works. that's not how any of this works. [ male announcer ] 15 minutes for a quote isn't how it works anymore. with esurance, 7 1/2 minutes could save you on car insurance. welcome to the modern world. esurance. backed by allstate. click or call.

some say buy gold. others say buy soybeans. i say, buy comcast business internet. unlike internet providers that slow down when traffic picks up, you get speed you can rely on. it's a safe bet. like a gold-plated soybean. reliably fast internet starts at $69.95 a month. comcast business. built for business. for the ninth time since 2003 the new year will come with a new deployment of u.s. forces to iraq. it's all part of the president's promise to provide an additional 1500 troops to help train the iraq es. while the u.s. reportedly took out several isis leaders in recent week, it isn't expected to make our mission any shorter or easier. national security correspondent

jennifer griffin is live in washington with more. hi, jennifer. >> hi, shannon. most of these 1300 u.s. troops will deploy from the 3rd brigade combat team of the 82nd airborne based at ft. bragg, carolina. >> they'll begin to deploy to iraq in late january and their mission will be to train, advise and assist iraqi security forces. this deployment is part of the additional 1500 troops that the president authorized in november. >> there are currently 1,860 u.s. troops in iraq. the new deployment will nearly double that number. the u.s. strategy currently relies on air strikes like this one from december 18th which targeted a vehicle-borne ied near mount sinjar. >> there's a weak hand that we're playing in syria and iraq and they need more forces to assist those indigenous forces. we're going at that very incrementally. so that's a pattern that they've seen before that's very disturbing to them. >> in fact, five months after

the u.s. relaunched military operations in iraq, the pentagon says there are still yazidis trap on mt. sinjar. a new amnesty international report describes the treatment of girls under isis, quote, torture including rape and other forms of sexual violence suffered by women and girls from iraq's yazidi minority who were abducted by the armed group calling itself the islamic state highlights the savagery of i.s. rule. the troops deployed in january will not be engaging in combat. families preparing to send their loved ones back to iraq making for a poignant holiday season. >> thank you. fox news contributor and iraq and afghanistan war veteran. concerned veterans for america. pete, great to see you. >> thanks for having me, shannon. >> what does this mean for those families? as jennifer pointed out we heard months ago from the president

and numerous members of the administration that there wouldn't be, quote, boots on the ground. we're told these aren't combat troops. they're not going to see combat. but where do we draw that line but saying we're not sending in boots on the ground but sending in troops? >> this is a glass box of confusion right now as we look in and try to figure out what these guys will be doing. i can confirm from my sources these troops will be wearing boots. the question is for their train, advise and assist mission, how much will they be able to assist iraqi and peshmerga forces. a commander in chief who is really a community organizer who doesn't believe in american power. you've got american combat troops that are going to be -- should be -- these are 82 and airborne paratroopers who will do a noncombat mission to a war he never wanted to finish, always wanted to end, against an enemy an islamic state who he declares is not islamic. they're told to defeat this

nonislamist islamic state. and they're going to delay any outcome. what these troops and their families want, if they're going to be deployed into the new year is decisiveness, is leadership against a vicious enemy. hopefully we'll untie their hands in a spring offensive and allow them to go after this islamic state. >> clear direction is what they deserve. i'll put up a poll about how the military is feeling about the situation, their confidence in the president. these are active duty service members who were polled, their approval or disapproval of the president. you can see from 2009 it's shifted greatly. now to 2014 where they're in extended service and going back again. the approval is just at 15%. that's their commander in chief. what can he do to bolster that, to reassure these folks that the man who is leading the charge for them has their backs? >> well, he can talk about the nature of the enemy. he can talk about the importance

of the mission. he can empower commanders on the ground. these soldiers, 15% approve of the commander in chief. that's abysmally low. why they don't believe in barack obama, that 3rd brigade believes in their brigade commander. and the question is will those first line leaders on the ground be empowered to allow those troops to sufficiently train, sufficiently advise and then assist nine iraqi brigades and some kurdish brigades to go out and take the fight to the enemy. otherwise they are just sitting ducks training the an inevitable force that will go out and not be able to defeat the islamic state and their army. it's about clarity, it's about leadership and empowering commanders to make calls on the ground. but this administration, this president has said more what our troops won't do, than what they will be allowed to do and therein lies the problem. >> and the enemy is always listening. pete, thank you, thank you for your service to this country and our thanks to all the men and

women serving around the world this season, their families as well. >> likewise, we think about all of them. merry christmas. >> merry christmas. rand paul getting into the holiday spirit and getting a whole lot of attention for it. coming up, the tweet that may be a clue to whether he's running formally in 2016. . . ♪ you don't need to think about the energy that makes our lives possible.

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in its place. that's why i only choose nicorette. you think it smells fine, but your passengers smell this... eliminate odors you've gone noseblind to for up to 30 days with the febreze car vent clip. female passenger: wow. smells good in here. vo: so you and your passengers can breathe happy. today is festivus, a time for airing your grievances. senator rand paul was in the spirit taking to twitter to make fun of congress, himself and even hinting at 2016 saying this season of course everyone has to be themselves. i have my own style. i think this will be a popular item this year. i'm shannon live from america's news headquarters, i'm kelly wright. much of the nation prepping for what promises to be a very white or soggy christmas. that could lead to treacherous

traveling conditions. south dakota saw nearly 2 feet tuesday. wind-blown snow forced a shutdown through kra colorado and kansas. chicago is anticipating a winter storm that could strand 3 million holiday travelers at o'hare international airport. >> and the bright lights of manhattan were dimmed tuesday night. a tribute to the officers that were gunned down last weekend while sitting in their patrol car. officer ramos will be laid to rest saturday. "hannity" starts now. tonight in new york city and across the nation, cops are on high alert after the killing of two nypd officers this past weekend. welcome to