donald trump iraq. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm steve kornacki. president trump made an unannounced trip to iraq to visit troops at a base just west of baghdad today. this the first time he has visited troops in a combat zone. just last week, the president shocked his own allies and advisers by announcing a plan to withdraw troops from syria. in iraq today, he indiaed that decision. . >> if they want to us do the fighting, they also have to pay a price and sometimes that's also a monetary price. so we're not the suckers of the world. we're no longer the suckers, folks. and people aren't looking at us

as suckers and i love you folks because most of you are nodding your head this way. >> the visit comes amid that growing stalemate back in washington with part of the federal government still shut down. president spent much of the long christmas weekend alone in washington raging against criticism of both that withdrawal from syria and his ouster of secretary of defense jim mattis. today, he defended those divisions. >> one year ago, i gave our generals six more months in syria. i said go ahead, get them. and it turns out it was really a year and a half ago. i said go get 'em. we need six months. go get 'em. and they said give us another six months. i said go get 'em. then they said can we have one more like period of six months? i said nope, nope. i said i gave you a lot of six months.

and now we're doing it a different way. >> since the weekend, the president has tweeted over 30 times lashing out against a host of critics. trump took particular aim against mattis and brett mcguirk, his special envoy battling isis who resigned protesting the administration's decision to withdraw troops from syria. trump tweeting "when president obama ingloriously fired jim mattis, i gave him a second chance. i shouldn't. i thought i should. interesting relationship. according to "washington post," the president was angered by the coverage of mattis' resignation. senior administration firm reportedly telling "the post" that the president was "seething about the news coverage," and decided to expedite the former general's departure in reaction to negative news coverage. for more, flil phillip rucker, 11 lynn farkas, and charlie sykes, author of "how the right lost its mind."

thanks to all of you. phillip rucker, the unexpected news that crossed our wires this afternoon, the president making this surprise trip to iraq. tell us what you know i think he left washington you reported at 12:06 a.m. today. tell us what you know about when the white house, when the president decided to make this trip and how exactly it came about. >> yeah, that's right, steve. it was a sensitive secret trip. it was being planned for several weeks, no doubt. but the president decided to leave washington in the dark of night just after midnight. so after christmas early this morning and took that flight over to iraq. it was an 11-hour flight. he was aboard air force one. there were some clues that he may be gone but we did not know officially that he was going to iraq until the moment we started getting the news, which was about three hours into his visit on the ground there. he met with troops. he posed for selfies with them. he got a briefing from some local command daernz diplomatic

leaders and he gab that speech to a group of troops there in iraq. it comes at a moment of really intense turmoil at the pentagon. not only the personnel changes that you mentioned but the decisions by the president last week to withdraw troops suddenly from syria and he also has made a decision to his advisers according to the reporting. it's not been formally announced he intends to draw down the footprint in afghanistan. that's the war that we've been fighting for 17 years now. so a lot of change in terms of our military strategy and the leadership at the defense department. >> you say that this may have been in the planning for a few weeks. that's what i'm trying to figure out, if you have heard anything about any direct connection between the decision to make this trip now and with the draw from syria possibly more in terms of a troop withdrawals. is there a direct connection? this is the kind of trip he's not made before. he's given a number of explanations why he's not made

this kind of trip. is it connected directly to that decision on syria? >> that's a good question. i don't think it's directly connected. certainly it's falling on the calendar along with that decision but it's not like he began planning for this trip to iraq last week because of the criticism for syria. this is something that takes many weeks of preparation. trump actually mentioned to report others traveling with him today that he has tried to get out to go to a war zone a couple times before and not been able to make the rip because of security problems. had i an interview with president trump about a month ago in late november and asked whether he planned to try to visit troops before the holidays and he was a little circumexpect but it was clear to me that this was something he had wanted to do and looking for the right time to do it. i don't think it's connected directly to the syria decision. >> evelyn tar cas, we played some clips of it there a minute ago. the mess and the president brought to those troops and to the world today in that speech addressing the idea of this

withdrawal interest syria saying i gave the generals more time than i wanted to give to them. i said enough. what did can he end up conveying today? >> the first thing is that he cares because he went there. we've got to give him a little bit of credit for that, steve. often we don't good-bye him that much credit because he does fumble. there was a bit of a fumble from my perspective because he called us suckers. he said we were suckers and now we're not going to be seeing e suckers is anymore. the decision he made on syria makes us look weak and unreliable. if you notice, he didn't meet with the prime minister mahdi. that was also kind of a misstep. i don't know what the back story was. maybe he was unwilling to leave the base. you can't ask the prime minister to come to the base. that's a little bit tricky. you're in his country. you should go there. overall the message of saying i gave them time and we need to

withdraw, that isn't bad either because if you followed how president obama dealt with the military, he often had that same reaction, that same conversation like guys really, another six months? so that's understandable. every president goes through that. the problem is he made this decision as far as we can tell unilaterally. he went against his cabinet. he didn't seem to consult with anyone except maybe the turkish president and that's a problem because it affects allies fighting with us. we've got 74 other countries in the coalition including some on the ground. the french are on the ground today. the other thing about isis, you guys were talking what's going on with isis, there was just an attack right in talafar near mosul in the northern part of the iraq. isis is very much a threat to iraq. they're concerned about our withdrawal, the syrian withdrawal because they'll have to obviously step up. i think the real message is not that we're suckers, it's a question mark. so the allies are thinking we are looking weak and may not be

the most reliable allies. for the troops, the message is i'm here, i care. i'm going to give you support but it's not unconditional. >> i'm trying to, charlie sykes, figure out i guess we'll see polling on this i'm sure how this is going over with the public. i do wonder just after a decade and a half here of iraq, of afghanistan, sort of all the post 9/11 foreign policy developments, we see in polling there does seem to be more hesitancy than there was a decade and a half ago or so when it comes to deploying troops, the idea of not being the world's policeman. i think trump used that line in his speech today. that does seem to have some popular resonance. what is your sense of the public's reaction to the troop withdrawal from syria? >> well, i'm interested in that, as well. there's no question there's a great deal of fatigue over our endless wars. i think that may be reflected in all of this. i want to echo evelyn.

give the president credit for doing the right thing. i wish had he done it earlier and we did not have to shame him into doing it. after a weekend of sitting home and being petty and petulant, unfortunately at this moment where you could have presidential grace and leadership on display, he chose to be petty and petulant. standing in front of troops describing america's commitments as being suckers is really deeply offensive when you think about it. not only did he lie to the troops and politicize the troops, lie to the troops about the salary increases but to describe american commitments as being suckers, you need to step back and reflect on the crass transactionalism of a president of the united states would imply that men and women who have served their country in the middle east perhaps given their lives were suckers. and this is the tone deafness that he has. so to your point, yes, i think that there are a lot of

americans that are more than willing to draw down, but the way it is being done, the betrayal of our allies, the lack of a process, the lack of the consultation with the military, the lack of respect for somebody like general james mattis and that performance today, yes, the pictures are wonderful and maybe that's all that people will take away from it, but i think it was an unfortunate event on top of a series of unfortunate events. >> you mentioned charlie, too, in the full address today, there were political overtones at several points in the president's speech. donald trump going after democrats at one point noting not just how many supporters he had in the audience. we can watch a little bit of that here. >> when you think about it, you're fighting for borders in other countries. and they don't want to fight. the democrats for the border of our country. we're here to help others. and for all of that you have

those red caps, and i saw them before, i signed a lot of them, it says, make america great again. and you know what? that's exactly what we're doing. >> you know, leb lynn, it's interesting listening to some of these lines from the speech it sounded at times like a trump political rally like we were showing him talking to his supporters somewhere, a lot of the lines and themes he might press there. we know this is a presidency that has to put it mildly broke within protocol in a number of cases of what we've seen democratic and republican presidents do in the past. what has protocol been in the past for a president delivering a speech like this. >> as a defense geek, somebody who worked what, 20 years in washington, d.c. and watched how this usually works, usually presidents do not politicize anytime they're speaking in front of a military audience. they talk about american interests. they don't talk about democrats

an, republicans, maybe they might say i want congress to do x or y but congress is bipartisan and by camera. you don't do what he does. we unfortunately have gotten used to it. it's even more outrageous doing it in a war zone but he's done it in america every time he goes before an audience, he can't help himself. it's kind of a violation frankly speaking of the hatch act which you know prohibits political officials from politicizing in official business, meaning you don't want the incumbent to have the upper hand over the opposition when you're giving a government speech or when you're doing a government function. so technically, the president is actually i guess breaking the hatch act but it's not really enforceable against him. >> a visit to iraq coming after a week where the president's decisions left even his allies concerned. some republicans like lindsey graham have openly criticized the president's abrun the decision to withdraw troops from

syria. graham warned trump over the weekend "a southern wall isn't going to protect you against isis." one former senior administration official telling it "the washington post" that the president's recent behavior might necessitate an intervention. president trump invited reporters into the oval office on christmas morning and delivered this mess and to the american public. >> it's a disgrace what's happening in our country. but other than that, i wish everybody a very merry christmas. >> phillip rucker, we show lid say graham. it brings back memories of the 2016 campaign. that was one of those issues foreign policy, troop deployments overseas where trump during the republican primaries did rhetorically seem to separate himself from republicans like graham. graham has been since trump became president increasingly one of his allies on capital little. in terms of divisions between trump and his fellow republicans, republicans in congress, what has the last week done? is any of it lasting?

>> well, we've certainly seen a fracturing of the trump coalition. when you look at republicans in congress, it's not limited to the syria decision did, you go back a few more weeks back and the senate overwhelmingly rebuked president trump by voting to punish saudi arabia's crown prince for his role, his an apparent role based on u.s. intelligence in the brutal murder of the journalist jamal khashoggi and there are other measures, as well, a group of conservative republican senators voted against the president's criminal justice reform bill last week which ended up passing sort of a rare bipartisan success for president trump but it indicates that rock solid republican support from lawmakers is not as stock as it once was and it portends some trouble potentially for the president going into january when he's going to have to grapple with divided government and a democratic majority in the house that's going to be looking to try to get some things done with republicans over in the senate. >> all right. phillip rucker, evelyn farkas,

charlie sykes, thank you for joining us. coming up, trump says he will do whatever it takes to get funding for his border wall. is there any path to reopening the u.s. government anytime soon? and democratic voters sounding off what they are looking for in 2020. you may be surprised what they're say. i'm going to head over to the big board and break down with some news numbers. interesting stuff there. plus, more on trump's visit to iraq and the dramatic news out of wall street today. let me finish tonight with president trump's perceived silver lining of the looming democratic takeover of the house. this is "hardball" where the action is. house. this is "hardball" where the action is.

how long do you think the shutdown will last, mr. president? >> whatever it takes. i mean, we're going to have a wall, we're going to have safety. we need safety for our country. >> welcome back to "hardball." that was president trump earlier during his surprise visit to iraq.

today marks the fifth day of the partial government shutdown with no end in sight. trump remains adamant about the request for billions of dollars for a wall on the southern bothered. here he was at the oval office yesterday. >> i can't tell you when the government will be open. i can tell you it's not going to be open until we have a wall, a fence, whatever they would like to call it. i'll call it whatever they want. but it is all the same thing. >> the president shifted terminology about the wall. you heard a little of it there. he also called it recently a steel slate barrier. in an interview over the weekend, house minority leader nancy pelosi took a jab at the president. she told "usa today" the fact that we're going to build a wall of cement and mexico will pay for it, he already backed off the cement. now he is down to i think a beaded curtain or something. i am not sure where he is. we're joined by jerry connelly

from virginia and ryan costello. from pennsylvania. congressman costello, i'll start with you. you're leaving the house in a few days, the republicans losing the majority in a few days. do you see a realistic scenario where the shutdown is resolved before that turnover of power? >> i see no chance under the sun for the government being opened until new members are sworn in january 3rd or 4th. >> what will then happen? democrats would have control of the house, republicans maintain control of the senate. do you then see democratic control offering a renewed path? >> no, i think we're going to get less. to the extent you want more border security, you will have less, and jerry can speak to this more than i can, but i think the democratic bill out of the house that the senate will then take up will be less than the 100 to 0 senate vote that was had, or at least no better

in terms of border security, which is why the freedom caucus and the president going this route makes zero political sense and zero legislative sense. >> jerry connelly, the democratic perspective, do you agree first of all with your colleague or do you see a path between now and that transfer of power for the government to reopen? >> i sadly believe that the government will not deal with reopening until the democrats take over the majority january 3rd. i believe one of the first orders of business of the new democratic house will be to pass a clean copying resolution to fund the government. >> it seems the issue here, you heard trump changing the terminology a little bit there, it has been the wall in the past. he used the word fence in the clip we played. the steel slate barrier, he is saying whatever you want to call it. i guess there seems to be, congressman connelly, part of

the issue it seems to me sell democrats say they're willing to fund border security but the idea of giving trump a penny for anything that he can go around and call a wall is a line for you. is that correct? any penny for a wall is too much from a democratic standpoint? >> i think we need to back up a bit here, steve. remember all of the republicans in the u.s. senate voted for a clean continuing resolution without any additional funding for a wall. secondly, trump explicitly campaigned on there will be a wall and mexico will pay for it, not u.s. taxpayers. the idea that somehow we're in a situation where it is the burden of the new democrats coming into the majority status in the house to fund something called a wall, where did that idea come from? then there's a third problem. who do we negotiate with? remember president trump just last week or the white house said he would sign a clean continuing resolution and would accept the fact that there would be $1.3 billion of border

security and no more. what's changed that suddenly there's a hard line and somehow we democrats bear some burden to meet that hard line that wasn't in existence a little over a week ago? >> congressman costello, you were making this point a few minutes ago, to bring it back to what jerry connelly said there as well, if you try to play this out, democrats take control of the house early 2019. they pass a resolution, a bill that does not fund any kind of a wall. it moves to the republican controlled senate which has already shown willingness to do something similar. do you see president trump, do you anticipate at that point president trump gives in? does he change his mind? what do you think would happen then? >> i think two things would happen. number one, the senate won't take up a bill until the president says he will sign it because what happened was not supposed to happen. the senate only put that bill on the floor because the white

house said that the president would sign it. then the president changed his mind after the fact. the second thing i would say there is that i don't see a scenario where no matter what happens the president will say he got money for the wall. let's be real blunt about it. it doesn't matter if there's money for a wall or not, he is going to say there is, and some supporters will say fine, the president got his money, everything is good. that's the world we're living in right now. >> not just democrats going after the president for his handling of the shutdown. here's what some fellow republicans have also been saying. >> i'll just remind the president, the republicans are in charge and so the shutdown is on us if we can't figure this out. >> we have an impulsive president. we know that. >> this is a made up fight so the president can look like he is fighting, but even if he wins, our borders are going to be insecure.

>> the president went back after bob corker, the retired senator there at the end of that sequence in a pair of tweets, trump blaming them for the nuclear deal and he asked for my endorsement, i said no and the game was over. congressman costello, the relationship between the president and the republicans who will remain in congress for the next two years, maybe a split there between the senate side and the house side? is that fair to say? >> perhaps. steve, i would say there will be more solidarity than there has been the past year because many of the retirements, many of those that lost were in districts where you needed some differentiation to have the potential to win. most ended up losing. in the senate, you saw it with two retiring senators. the conference to use the phrase in your phenomenal book is much redder.

when you have a redder conference, you probably have more alignment with the president because the president is popular in the most conservative districts. as we get closer to 2020, you start to see colorado and some other swing type senate seats and perhaps you start to see some differentiation. i think going into 2019, the conference at least in the house will be very much aligned behind the president. >> you may be retiring from congress, but you still have the instincts of a politician flattering your host. i appreciate that. >> you did not. i can vouch for that. >> appreciate that. the shutdown continues over trump's border wall fight, 800,000 federal workers aren't getting paid, half those whose people whose jobs are considered essential have to show up anyway. according to the president yesterday, he has their support. >> many workers said to me and communicated stay out until you get the funding for the wall. these federal workers want the wall.

the only one that doesn't want the wall are the democrats. >> and congressman connelly, your colleague a minute ago said something interesting. i am curious, do you share the view that no matter what happens here, the president is going to be claiming that he got money for the wall? >> the president can turn night into day in his delusional world. you heard him say lots of federal workers are apparently championing the shutdown, the fact they're not paid for work maybe not even called into work. have i yet to meet a single federal employee and i represent the third largest in the country who have said that, so i'd love to meet some of those people. the republican congress has been an enabling congress anyhow. so i probably don't disagree with ryan, but i haven't seen much independence from a republican house of representatives in the last two years. i think that contributed to their demise in the midterm elections, and there are another

dozen republican incumbents who are coming back who saul a near death experience in november and if they continue down the line of enabling behavior for this delusional president, i think they'll pay a price in 2020 whether they understand that or not but i think the numbers are there in a lot of purple and blue states because most of the of this country is disgusted with the lack of accountability demanded or not depended by a republican congress. that's why we have a democratic congress starting on january 3rd. >> and congressman, you said this a minute ago, too, looking at the composition of the new house, the idea of republicans from the sort of swing districts who lost their seats in the november midterm, it is striking that the campaign ended, the midterm campaign ended with president trump pressing this issue, with pressing the immigration issue, with pressing the cultural themes there. do you see a connection between

the way he campaigned in final days and what you're talking about, the idea that the clinton, trump districts, the republicans have been pretty much emptied out of there now. >> we have been emptied out. the final few days of the caravan and birthright citizenship made no sense, particularly if you look at california and florida and competitive house seats there. the last thing you want to do is gin up an immigration issue when you had republicans, i was part of this group, looking for an immigration compromise over the summer, trying to solve daca, trying to do visa reform, and getting away from what i think is an extremely hard line immigration position that some republicans have, and which i think is a political loser and which is certainly not reflective of where 80% of the country is to be sure. so there's no doubt in my mind that shutting down the government over the wall funding and frankly the president's hard line immigration rhetoric, it

will not grow the party. i think it will diminish it over time, and gives me great concern. >> democratic congressman jerry connelly from virginia. republican congressman ryan costello from pennsylvania, thank you both for joining us. up next, tried and true or shiny and new. i am going to head to the big board. we have a new poll of democratic and independent voters, folks that might be voting, probably will be voting in democratic primaries in 2020. who do they want to see challenge donald trump? this is "hardball" where the action is.

welcome back to "hardball." coming up on the end of the calendar year, 2018. it means 2019 obviously right around the corner. that pretty much puts us a year out, believe it or not, a year out and a little change from

the first primaries and caucuses of the 2020 presidential election. who knows, sometimes these things are months-long slogs. can go to spring. sometimes they're neat and tidy and wrap up quick. if it is one of those, we may not be much more than a year away from finding out who the democrats are going to nominate against donald trump in the 2020 election. there's a massive field lining up, we'll see who steps forward, gets in the race, stays in the race, all of that to be sorted out in the year to come. but we're starting to get some polling readouts. here's an interesting one out today. folks at suffolk university took a poll. decided not to do the usual horse race poll. they said that measures too much name recognition at this point. they said we're going to ask voters, democratic voters and some independent voters, independents can vote in democratic primaries, ask them what they think about a number of big name potential democratic candidates. are they excited for that name,

for that potential candidate to run or do they think hey, i hear that name, that's someone that should sit this out, someone i would rather not see run for president. how open in theory that the democratic electorate is to some names. that's what they're trying to find out. here are interesting numbers. these are the bottom line numbers among voters. democrats and independents. this is taking the temperature. what you see here maybe not surprising, but joe biden, former vice president, best known name here, more than two to one margin. the only one with a majority of respondents saying they're excited at the idea of joe biden running for president in 2020. 53% excited, a quarter of them say no, maybe don't run. biden there, promised a decision by the end of this year, early next year. we may be hearing from him soon. then you've got bernie sanders, the runner-up in the 2016 primaries. 36% say they're excited about him running. that number is more plurality

saying he shouldn't run. more than 40% of democratic independent votes are right now saying sanders should sit it out. o'rourke, the flavor of the month for december, 2018, still interesting, off a losing senate campaign, two-term member of the house. fully 30% nationally saying they're excited about the idea of him running. kamala harris is, similar number. cory booker, more excited than not excited. here this may be the biggest surprise of the poll. elizabeth warren, under water, more democratic independent voters say they don't think warren should run in 2020 than she should run. michael bloomberg, he has been a republican, independent, a democrat before, too, he has been all over the place, he is making some noise. you see the numbers in terms of his standing with the democratic electorate. not encouraging for him, hillary clinton as a benchmark,

overwhelmingly folks saying she shouldn't run again, not a surprise there. amy klobuchar her name also got included. there are interesting disparities between white and black voters. different preferences seemed to emerge. a couple worth highlighting, these are numbers among white voters saying they're excited about the possibility of candidacies. if you compare it to what you get among black voters, a couple of things jumped out. warren, we just show you those numbers were upside down for her. more black voters saying they're excited about the idea of warren running than white voters. kamala harris, a double digit edge, sanders as well. then flip it with o'rourke, two to one white voters more excited about the idea of him running. biden near majority of white voters, two-thirds of black voters. that was a majority overall saying they're excited. interesting early patterns here. there are other names out there that are not tested.

sherrod brown comes to mind, but it is an interesting early look. candidates deciding whether to take a shot at it. just this question of how receptive potentially is the electorate to these candidates. that's what they're trying to measure. interesting, interesting look at it. december, 2018, january, february, 2020, that's when the race will be in full swing. it will come sooner than you think. a quick break here. up next, president trump's surprise visit to iraq, less than a week after his defense secretary resigned in protest and put trump's middle east policies in some turmoil. can he turn the skepticism around? you're watching "hardball." n thm around you're watching "hardball.

under my administration we're winning now. we're not playing to lose slowly like they have been doing for 19 years. we're fighting in areas where we

shouldn't be fighting and spending hundreds of billions of dollars doing it. no. you have the right thought process going for the first time in a long time. thank you. >> welcome back to "hardball." that was president trump today during his surprise visit to iraq telling the troops that the country is now winning under his administration. he also defended his withdrawal of troops from syria, saying that americans are no longer, quote, the suckers of the world any more. let's bring in the "hardball" round table. beth is a senior politics editor for nbc news. basel smiblg and bret stephens from the "new york times." brett, i know you've been critical of the president's decision on syria. what did you make of the message and how he delivered today? >> it was totally bizarre because it is so completely in variance with reality. we had been winning in syria, thanks to a relatively small

american presence which led to very few american casualties. i believe just three in the last year. and yet with extraordinary gains, managing to reduce isis' footprint while serving as a deterrent against turks, against iranians, against russians. now he's removing that. remember, one of the key republican criticisms which i thought was fair of the obama administration was it removed u.s. troops from iraq too soon allowing al qaeda to go from nearly defeated to suddenly metastasizing into what became islamic state, isis. now trump is repeating precisely that mistake. at least you could say with obama he was doing so at the end of a long war in iraq. americans were exhausted. there was good political motive. it is difficult to explain trump's logic other than capitulation to islamist strong man in turkey, president erdogan. it is one of the most bizarre,

and upset decisions. it's obviously why someone like jim mattis had to say enough. >> it is interesting to look back to the 2016 campaign, measure what trump said on foreign policy versus what he is doing as president. he sent different messages. what bret is talking about in terms of the obama decision, he was critical of that. he said that obama was creator of isis. he was sending that message. he talked about bombing the hell out of isis. he also did criticize the iraq war. he also talked about not getting involved in as many -- he tapped into a little bit of that sort of noninterventionist string we used to almost associate with rand paul. seems to be trying to go for that same, that seems to be the course he is trying to follow. >> it is a contradictory message, he wants the biggest, most powerful, strongest, best wonderful military on the planet and yet he doesn't really want to engage it in hot spots. that message in the campaign to

withdraw, to draw down troops, obviously there was receipt activity to that among many republican voters which a lot of conservatives were surprised thinking that wait a minute, and the republican electorate want to fight, they want to be number one across the world. actually those laborers, working class votes that supported trump many of whom fit that profile are the ones that sent their kids to fight the wars, not the elite or the people that have no relationship to the u.s. military, which is a lot of people that have been to college and so forth. so the fact that the message was well received and actually could have brought together folks on the left or libertarians, the paul voters, he had an opportunity there, president trump, if he were a different type of politician to sell that message and do it in a strategic way that draw down of troops, which many support. instead it was done in an impulsive way, not consulting allies in the trumpian means of just sort of following his gut. and this trip to the war zone was perhaps a smart move to try

to explain to troops, many of whom are worried and upset about general mattis leaving what he's trying to do in an unchallenged way. but there are a tons of problems with the approach. >> and i wonder about sort of where the country is on this. we talked about it earlier in the show. but you look at iraq, iraq did go through congress 15 years ago, 16 years ago now, afghanistan, right after 9/11, the authorization for that. syria is one of those, the engagement there, i wonder if the announcement from trump was to a lot of people the first they heard of it. how wedded are americans to the mission in syria, were they ever to it? >> i think about that. you talk about barack obama in iraq, he was criticized for not going into syria when a lot of people thought he should when they started to use chemical weapons. it is interesting. i was in israel and talked to some soldiers at a hospital who were being treated there, fighting in the war there, they were concerned that the united

states wasn't doing enough, especially under barack obama, because they felt here's a man who understands and believes in civil rights and was not there for us, which i thought was incredibly startling for me to hear that. so to answer the question more specifically, my guess is there are a lot of americans that are not as focused on this, but folks in the middle east are very focused on the american position with respect to syria. and i think one of the -- what comes out of the trump decision and his visit today is in whose hands is he leaving syria? and what's going to happen once americans pull out. i absolutely agree, i don't think there's a stomach, american people don't have the stomach to fight wars on multiple fronts this period of time. how long have we been in iraq? 15 years or so? i don't think the american people have the stomach for that. i also don't know that donald trump is a messenger for how to deal with the middle east after the fact. >> right now in iraq, we're not fighting a war, we're preserving peace. that's an important distinction

americans should understand. we pull out, we might find ourselves going back in all over again because a new isis emerges. >> round table is staying with us. up next, these three will tell me something i don't know. you're watching "hardball." me something i don't know. you're watching "hardball. dog's towel? [dog sfx] hey, mi towel, su towel. more scent plus oxi boost and febreze in every gain fling.

back with the "hardball" round table. beth, tell me something i don't know. >> trump's trip today to iraq got me thinking about overseas travel compared to president obama, how it compares, trump's

made ten trips to 20 countries in two years, first visit to the war zone today, december 2018, two years into it. obama, 16 trips to 25 countries in the first two countries, first trip to a war zone, also iraq, april of 2009, so four months after he took office. >> tariffs are a little more abstract to the average voter than personal income tax. but an article in the wall street journal talks about the fact that if you want to increase the value of your home by doing something like kitchen renovations, cabinets, refrigerators, sinks, all of those come from china. tariff agreement means you'll pay more to do that. >> brett? >> a lot of people know we're on the anniversary of the apollo 8 mission to the moon. what they don't know, september 26th is the 50th anniversary of led zeppelin's first concert in america. that was when the comet really hit the earth. thank you for many, many years of great music. bob all, "physical graffiti" the greatest album of all time. >> thank you for being with us.

>> let me finish tonight with the president apparently seen as a silver lining in the democratic takeover of the house. you're watching "hardball." ic te house. you're watching "hardball.

let me finish tonight with what donald trump apparently sees as the silver lining of the looming democratic takeover of the house. there's new reporting that the president believes democrats running the house for the next two years will provide him with foils that he can position himself against heading into

2020. this is, of course, how it's worked for a few recent predecessors, bill clinton playing off newt gingrich in the republican congress to bounce back from the midterm drumming of '94 and win reelection in '96, and barack obama doing the same with the tea party congress after 2010 to win in 2012. whether trump can replicate with nancy pelosi and the democratic congress, we will soon find out. it is clear, by now, that to win reelection trump will need some kind of a foil. and this is because of the choices he has made since winning two years ago, past presidents have taken steps to try to expand their appeal and to enlarge their coalitions once elected, but not trump. he seems more interested in locking in the lines of division that existed in 2016 in trying to ride the same coalition to victory in 2020. for two years now his political standing as president has looked every bit as shaky as it did throughout the 2016 campaign. his job approval rating rarely makes it out of the low 40s, that's on a good day, and he's

never cracked 50%, not even in the early days of his term, what they used to call the honeymoon period. the challenge for trump is that the path he took to victory in 2016 was unusually and incredibly precise and narrow. everything had to go right for him to win and it did. but if he's going to try to make that happen again in 2020 then he can afford no slippage. everything will have to go right for him once again. just the right number of votes in just the right places. and that's why he needs a foil. he had one in 2016. hillary clinton. whose popularity by the end of the campaign was as damaged as his, making it possible for trump to get just what he needed to win and nothing more. these are some of the big political questions as we prepare to enter 2019. republicans tried this year to run against the specter of a pelosi-run house. they got no payoff. will it be different for trump when pelosi runs the house? as the democratic field takes shape in the coming months, who

will emerge? will the ultimate winner appear to be as polarizing as clinton? the polling now says no democratic prospects are. how much will that change? two years to the presidency, tonight on "all in". >> we're no longer the suckers, folks, and people aren't looking at us as suckers. >> a surprise christmas trip to iraq. >> if you would have seen what we had to go through with the darkened plane, all windows closed. >> tonight the president's shaky holiday with the ongoing shutdown. >> whatever it takes. >> to the death of another child in u.s. custody. >> this is an extraordinary ly rare occurrence. >> volatile stock market. >> when markets are already jittery about the economic circumstances,as