reports." and right now on "andrea mitchell reports", cocked and loaded with planes and ships on the move. president trump tweets today he pulled back from attacking iran with just ten minutes to spare. leaving confusion and concern among american allies and leaders on capitol hill. >> frankly, if iryou're going t make a strike, at least in my experience, you ought to proceed with a strike as opposed to suddenly having your planes in the air and having to pull them back. because that could result in even greater miscalculations. >> coming up next, former cia director john brennan and former deputy national security advisor ben rhodes. sorry, not sorry. joe biden calls cory booker to ease tensions or try to after biden's comments about working with segregationist senators in the past. he offers no apologies.

did the former vice president make matters worse? >> joe biden should explain to people, because it's not about me. i don't feel like i want an apology to me. i think that this is something he should speak to the public about. and i think he has an opportunity here. coming up, new york city mayor and presidential candidate bill de blasio, a harsh critic of biden's comments. big little lies, one of donald trump's closest confidants, former white house communications director hope hicks, said she told white lies on behalf of the president, but was blocked by white house lawyers by answering 155 questions before congress. >> i was watching obstruction of justice in action. she would not answer a single question related tod her tenure at the white house. and good day, everyone.

president trump is about to meet with secretary of state mike pompeo this hour. just hours after revealing on twitter that he had stopped a retaliatory military strike against iran last night at the very last minute. deciding he said it was not proportional to iran's downing of an unmanned drone near the straight of hormuz because it would have caused iranian casualties. in a series of morning tweets the president gave the world insight into his thinking, writing, wrote, we were cocked and loaded today retaliate last night on three different states. when i asked how many would die? 150 people, sir, was the center from a general. ten minutes before the strike i stopped it. not proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone. iranian officials claiming before downing the u.s. drone, they were aware of a manned u.s. spy plane close by but decided firing upon it.

the world is wondering if additional steps will be taken to diffuse a situation or escalate. democratic lawmakers are warning the white house not to proceed without congress' approval. joining me now is richard engel, nbc white house correspondent kristen welker, and phil rutger, white house bureau chief at the washington post. richard, first to you, tensions in the region have to be sky high, but the president with this extraordinary tweet today giving exactly the thinking behind his last minute decision. >> reporter: there's a lot of confusion in the middle east. no one here has ever seen a president from any countriy making decisions about war and peace like this. outlining the private presumably top secret meetings inside the white house about whether to

proceed or not with a strike against a foreign country. president trump saying that there were three targets chosen. that there was a presentation given to him that 150 people in iran could potentially die in this attack. and that within ten minutes he pulled -- with ten minutes to spare he pulled back from doing the operation. the iranians apparently not wanting to be outdone by this show of magnanimous restraint that president trump was tweeting about said that they, too, had an opportunity to carry out a military strike and shoot down an american plane. not just the unmanned drone, but an american plane with personnel on board, dozens of american personnel. but they, out of a desire not to escalate the situation beyond what they have already done, decided not to shoot it down. people in the middle east are watching these two sides

threaten, brag, and project as there are great concerns about what will happen in the future. and there are also some real consequences here already after the faa ordered that planes can't fly over or near iranian airspace. that means international trade routes are already -- transit routes are already disrupted because planes aren't going to be flying over the straits of hormuz or the gulf of oman. these are very popular air traffic routes. there are real consequences to this. i think we've seen some moves on the oil market. but the one possible piece of good news just happened a short while ago. good news for those in this part of the world who are concerned there could a further escalation. nbc news confirmed that the u.s. requested on monday to have a closed door meeting at the u.n. security council to brief other members of the security council with intelligence, with

information about iran's activities in the middle east. that would suggest, like in all of this here, we're trying to take the public statements that are out there, some of them extraordinarily public, and read the tea leaves. if there's going to be this meeting on monday in which the u.s. is going to present its case to countries like china and russia, it does suggest that we may have a little bit of an opening for diplomacy. >> and richard, as we both know, we have had no u.n. ambassador for months and months. and, in fact, the nominee to replace the outgoing ambassador has had a very troubling confirmation hearing this week alone. her future is uncertain. at this point, we're not represented very well at the u.n., but perhaps mike pompeo will take over the seat. kristen welker, efforts today to push back against "the new york times" reporting and other reporting that there was

dissension. what are they telling you? >> reporter: let me read you this statement from an senior administration official. this official does underscore that point, which is, quote, there was complete unanimity amongst the president's advisors and d.o.d. leadership on an appropriate response to iran's activities. the president made the final decision. so broader context here. we know that there are various different perspectives here behind the scenes of this administration. the president has talked about that on the record. he's talked about the fact his national security advisor john bolton is far more hawkish on a range of different foreign policy matters than the president is. now ultimately, yes, of course, president trump did have the final decision. just to take you behind the scenes here a little bit, andrea, and let you know how this all unfolded last night from the perspective here in the west wing. i can tell you that there was a lot of activity, officials were

in their offices well into the evening. clear that they were deliberating about next steps, how to proceed and then ultimately cleared that there wasn't going to be any action taken overnight. now that, of course, came after a day in which president trump did huddle with his national security team. also talked to members of congress, house speaker nancy pelosi saying not only does the president need congressional approval before taking any military action against iran, she also did call on him to work with the united states' allies. of course there will be a lot of focus on that u.n. meeting on monday. president trump today will be having lunch with his secretary of state undoubtedly iran, what to do next will be at the forefront. this is arguably the largest foreign policy challenge that president trump has faced to date. >> and phil rutger here, as you've been watching this administration and this president, he campaigned against foreign entanglements. he was responding with his

instincts. no matter what they say about unanimity they may well have been disagreements between bolton and to pompeo on one side, very hawkish, and certainly the military reluctant to engage with iran. >> and there have been mixed messages all week from the president. you have bellicose threats he's delivering about enemies like iran, threatening to rain down terror on these countries. and on the other hand you have him saying i want to talk to the iranians, i don't want to go into war. you talked about how he campaigned against these foreign entanglements. and trump seems to be moving on the fly to reconcile the differences in his own mind and his own team. wa we haven't heard an explanation from the u.s. government, from the president about the situation in iran. the american people are watching this news unfold and reading these tweets without really understanding what is at stake

here and what the president wants to do. that's one of the consequences of no longer having these daily white house press briefings. >> and not having a pentagon chief as well. phil rutger, kristen welker, richard engel, thank you. this morning, leon panetta spoke on the today show with savannah guthrie and craig melvin about where things stand at this critical point. >> the concerns about this whole crisis is that i'm not sure either side has an end game here as to what they want to achieve. iran, obviously, is producing these attacks. i assume they're trying to get the world to pressure the united states to back down. at the same time, the united states is trying to pressure iran into going to the negotiating table. but it's not clear what the end game is from both sides. and that makes it even more dangerous. because as it ratcheted up on

both sides, the danger of a serious miscalculation, bad judgment could produce a military confrontation. >> joining me now ben rhodes, former deputy national security advisor to president obama and former cia director john brennan. director brennan, let's talk first of all about theop opticsf the president tweeting his decision making and explaining that he had 150 sights, targets ready -- rather he had three targets ready but did not because he didn't think it was proportionate because he was told by the military there would be 150 deaths. isn't he sending intelligence to iran and the rest of the world? >> i think once he decided not to carry out the strike it would have leaked out.

and so i think he felt there was an obligation on his part to be able to explain exactly why. i've been a very tough critic of the trump administration's policy towards iran in terms of pulling out of the iranian nuclear agreement. but i do applaud trump's decision not to carry out what would have been a disproportionate strike that would have led to 150 or so fatalities. and that could have had a dangerous excluatory spiral that could have brought that region to greater military conflict. i think trump felt he needed to explain why he pulled back. i give mhim credit and i rarely do that. i give him credit for being the adult in the room because of the war hawk whose are pushing towards this confrontation that is not in anyone's interest, especially the united states. >> let me nail down one point for my understanding and our viewers' understanding. by saying that in these targets, these three targets, there would

have been 150 deaths, is he telling the iranians how much we know about what they have at irgc at revolutionary guard locations? obviously the missile launching sites which hit the drone. is he telling too much about our intelligence capabilities? >> no i don't think so. i don't think that's going to really reveal anything that is going to be harmful to our ability to carry out maybe follow on strikes. hoping we're not going to do that. he felt as though it was responsible to be able to explain why he pulled it back. again, i am glad that he made that decision, because who knows what those consequences would have been afterwards. >> there's a diversity of opinion on this. we heard leon panetta saying once you decide you should go -- let me ask you about that first. any strike against iranian territory might have resulted in

escalation. >> you know, i actually very much disagree with secretary panetta we should have gone through with that strike. the reality is we've been on this path of escalation with iran since trump pulled out of the nuclear deal. if we cross the hurdle into a shooting war, we're hitting targets inside of iran. their interest and capacity to respond is widespread. they could respond in afghanistan, they could respond in iraq, they could respond in the straits of hormuz, they could respond against israel. it could become a dangerous cycle very fast and we could get drawn into a war that goes far beyond anything i think that the american people would be willing to support. and to do that just over the loss of an unmanned drone makes no sense, andrea. just as it made no sense for trump to start the cycle in motion when he pulled out of a nuclear deal that was working, when he stacked on sanctions, reporting by nbc and others said the military warned him if he did that step there could be reprisal attacks from iran.

he's pushed this to the brink of the escalation. now we see we're trapped between the rhetoric of donald trump on iran and the donald trump who said he didn't want to get us into another war in the middle east. those two positions are irreconcilable. either we'll continue down the path of escalation or we're going to have to go back to the iran deal that barack obama negotiated. >> and director brennan, when we look at the response yesterday, the initial response by the president which was live in this hour was so telling. kristen welker and i were comparing notes live as it was unfolding where he was, you know it was somebody loose, not in charge. he seemed to be signaling he had been briefed within the previous hour that we know something about who was responsible and that we know it was not ordered by the political leadership of iran. >> well, that's right. and if these reports about having intelligence that it was

a tactical decision made by a local commander and not something that was authorized by tehran, that's a big difference between something the iranian leadership decided to do. back in 1988 the united states mistakenly shot down an al airplane. president reagan said it was a mistake to avoid that spiral. tactical decisions sometimes can lead to tragic consequences. i'm glad that mr. trump -- even though the planes was in the air and everything was cocked and loaded as he said -- not to follow through. just like president obama decided not to follow through in syria with strikes. and rather to go and work with the russians to destroy syria's chemical weapons arsenal.

i think it's up to whoever is in the white house to decide what's in the best interest of the united states. donald trump finally made a decision that was in our best interest. >> ben rhodes, you conducted secret diplomacy with iran before the interim nuclear deal as well as other former adversaries. what can be done if the secretary of state is dead set against that kind of diplomacy? >> this is a big conundrum because on the one hand what you be had is a policy led by bolton and secretary of state pompeo that's about maximum pressure that pulled out of the nuclear agreement. that ignored european efforts to say if you want to add additional components to that agreement we can work with you to do that. the question that we put forward when we did the nuclear agreement is really you have three options. do we solve this nuclear issue diplomatically, do we take military action and risk a wider war, or do we do nothing? and pompeo's trying to create a fourth where essentially we act like we still want an agreement, but we pull out of it.

we stack pressure on pressure on pressure. and ultimately now the administration has to make a decision. because they're at a point of complete strategic incoherence. they're saying that they don't want a war, but everything that they're doing is making a war more and more likely. we have been through now two cycles where it looked like we're at the precipice of war and trump pulled us back. we're putting our faith in the iranian government and trump administration to find the offramp. i think if president trump wants to follow through on the restraint he's shown, he's going to have to direct secretary pompeo to say you have to sit down with these people in oman, you have to sit down with our allies, the europeans and figure something out here. otherwise, we're all going to be living on the precipice of what could be a much more complicated war than even the wars we fought in iran and afghanistan. >> thank you both so very much. this just in, president

trump was just interviewed by chuck todd at the white house for an exclusive interview airing on "meet the press." his first time joining the sunday program since being sworn in as president. chuck's extended conversation will air in full this sunday, june 23rd, on "meet the press" with chuck todd. tune in to msnbc today and nbc "nightly news" with lester holt at 6:30. coming up, a mess or mondays. joe biden tries to control the backlash over his comments about working with segregationist senators. one of his challengers, bill de blasio joining me ahead on "andrea mitchell reports." stay with us on msnbc. "andrea mitchell reports." stay with us on msnbc.

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joe biden is still in damage control over the former vice president's suggestion, that working with segregationists back in the 70s and 80s was okay as long as they got other things done. after an explosion of criticism over some of the language he recalled they used, biden reached out with cory booker who grew up with the pain of racism and had demanded earlier that biden apology fize for his rema. the two men spoke on the phone yesterday to smooth things over.

booker spoke out about that conversation last night on lawrence mcdonnell. >> when i go home to a black and brown neighborhood where you can see still the legacy of this past. for him to dredge it up in the way he did, we had a very constructive conversation about that. >> did you come to a better understanding of his side of the experience? >> i think i understood very well even before that conversation. i understood where his intentions were. i understand where his heart was. the fact though it's not about me or him. he said things that are hurtful and harmful. i believe he should be apologizing to the american people have having this discussion with all of us. >> joining me now is new york city mayor and democratic presidential candidate bill de blasio. thank you for being with us. >> thank you, andrea. >> obviously, you were, i believe the first person to speak out. you are the father of black children, you have an african-american wife. and with that experience, how

offensive were joe biden's comments to you? explain your perspective. >>and >>andria, it's personal for me and millions and millions of americans. eastland was not just a segregationist. he called for violence against black people. he was very overt about it. he thought white people had a right to kill black people in america. and he said those things publicly. and it is not just a part of our past, we're living with so many of the legacies of segregation to this day. including horrendous economic injustice in this country for people of color. there's still so much more that needs to be done on criminal justice reform. these problems are with us now. the problem is for anyone who understands what african-americans and all people of color have been through, how on earth can you say those times of civility, i wish we could go back to that. you can't acknowledge as a

positive civility with someone who did that much harm. by the way, that status quo that eastland was a pillar of, that biden joined into at that time. that status quo has caused so much pain to this day. joe biden needs to apologize. it's incredible to me that he's kind of puffing up his chest and doubling down and saying i have nothing to apologize for. it's not about who joe biden is as a person. i think he's a good person. it's that he has to recognize he's caused a lot of pain and he's caused a lot of people to have questions. how can someone who doesn't understand what that means for people of color in this country want to be the nominee of this party and move this country forward. our party has to be the party of the future, not the party that's looking back longingly to the days of civility with people who wanted to divide us so deeply. >> is this disqualifying? >> i don't think it's disqualifying if he stands up and says, look, i made a mistake. i now understand the pain i caused.

i want to do better. joe biden, again, i think he is a guy who has devoted his whole life to public service. i do appreciate that a lot, i remember that. i don't understand is how much trouble he's having getting in touch with today's reality of a democratic party. more so the reality of what people are saying in this country. people of color are saying with stronger voices than ever before we're not going to accept the ground rules of the past. we're not going to accept a system that overtly hurts us and then people don't acknowledge it. they expect democrats to speak a blunt truth about how much injustice is happening right now and how much of it is government sponsored injustice that must be changed. if joe biden wants to be the nominee of our party, he better show he gets that and talk about what changes he'll make. i disagree with him on many levels because i don't think he's talking about change. he's a candidate of the status quo. we can't afford to continue the status quo, not only for people of color, but for working people

of all backgrounds. america is not working for working people right now. i think what he's done is made people think that somehow he is buying into that glossy past, that status quo, that for so many people we don't want to go back to. we must reach a different kind of future. >> mr. clyburn, a democrat in south carolina, one of the most prominent african-american leaders in the country, has today told craig melvin that he understands both perspectives here. cory booker's perspective and joe biden. so what is jim clyburn -- you're heading to his fish fry in south carolina -- what is jim clyburn missing that you're getting? >> jim clyburn is an extraordinary leader and someone who was in the front lines of the civil rights movement. i have immense respect for him. i think he's someone who strives -- i've had deep conversations with him on this

same kind of topic. he strives to understand all sides. but i'm speaking as the father of two black children who need to know that the future of this country will include them. and, you know, when you look around this nation today there's still so many signs for so many people of color that nathey're t including and this country is not respecting them and all they contribute. we need change. we have a status quo right now that's broken in so many ways. it's overt racism in our economic system, criminal justice system, our educational system. we've got a lot to change. we've got to change it fast. so i think the point here is why would joe biden want to leave people with any sense of doubt? if someone says hey, i'm hurt by your remarks and i was hurt, my wife was hurt. i know it was something that really gave us a sense he does not get it, what people are going through. why not come forward and say i now understand i was wrong.

i've got to do better. you've got to do that if you're a leader. you've got to understand when you made a mistake. you've got to be able to learn. you've got to be able to grow. you can't just say oh, i'm fine the way things are. because this election is going to be about whether we want the status quo in this country or we want change. i believe this is going to be one of the biggest change elections in our lifetime. it will be the biggest turnout for presidential election we've ever seen. i guarantee you working people in this country, they want change. they'll be voting for the candidate they think will bring them change. if a democratic candidate cannot convince working americans that something is going to change, donald trump will get reelected president. >> i know you're headed to the fish fry. travel safely and we hope to see you in miami next we can if not sooner. >> thank you so much. breaking news on the one remaining abortion clinic in missouri and whether it will remain open. stay tuned here on "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. tunr

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and we have breaking news in missouri with implications for planned parenthood and supporters of abortion rights around the country.

rehema ellis is in st. louis with details. bring us up to date. >> reporter: i should tell you andrea, today was the deadline for the state department of health here in missouri to come into court and tell the judge whether or not it would issue a new license for planned parenthood or not. not surprising to the planned parenthood the state said no it's not issuing a new license for abortions to be performed here. but abortions will still be performed in the state of missouri because there was a preliminary injunction issued more than a week ago. the judge today said that preliminary injunction still stands. he also said that he's going to rule on whether or not to continue the injunction, but that's not going to happen today. so the ruling -- the word is the state has denied planned parenthood a license, but abortions will continue in the state of missouri because an injunction is still in place. andrea? >> rehema ellis, thank you so much. a very hot subject. coming up next, one more

time disgraced judge and defeated republican senate candidate roy moore running again. and his party is running away. vaughan hilliard interviewed him this morning, he'll join us next on msnbc. morning, he'll join ut on msnbc small things. big things. too hard to do alone things. day after day, you need to get it all done. and here to listen and help you through it all is bank of america. with the expertise and know-how you need to reach that blissful state of done-ness. so let's get after it. ♪ everything is all right what would you like the power to do?® ♪ all right whether it's using rewards just pointsaway.wer to do?® toward things like complimentary maintenance. or for vehicle accessories. and with fordpass, a tap can also get you

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for alabama's senate seat. setting up another nightmare political scenario for senate republicans who has said he'll vigorously oppose moore. president trump sparked controversy by supporting moore last time, despite accusations of sexual misconduct. including an alleged sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl when moore was 32. he again denied those allegations with an exclusive interview with nbc's vaughan hilliard. >> nine women made allegations against you in 2017. >> no. you're going off press reports. >> nine women made claims against you for sexual misconduct or unwanted -- >> no, they did not. >> are there any regrets you have of any actions in the past that you have made towards women? >> the question you ask is presuming something that's not true. nine women never did anything. "the washington post" reported three women. one unlawful touching of a person, one said i threw her out

of a car, a restaurant and another said that i took her home to my place and molested her. those were all false. >> joining me now is vaughan hilliard in montgomery, alabama and charlie sikes, an msnbc contributor. your own fact check, as you were sitting down across from the former judge. >> reporter: yeah, we just sat down for 40 minutes with former judge roy moore who announced his bid there yesterday. over the course of 40 minutes we hit on a lot of issues. i think what we'll come to define roy moore's political career is defiance. not only when he was the chief justice of the alabama supreme court, but up to now, up to his announcement yesterday. i asked him, i said why are you running when there are several other republican candidates here in alabama that are also in this race? just 18 months ago voters here in the state turned you away in favor of a democrat, doug jones.

he said it's for nobody else to suggest whether heer should or should not run. i read him the tweet from the president and don jr. he said he believed the president was being influenced by washington establishment voices. he says he's here to prove everybody wrong in this race. nobody is going to get him out, even if jeff sessions were to join the race. he's staying in here. he fervently makes the case that the 2017 election was stolen from him, even though he was not able to provide any instances of actual voter fraud. he did cite that the disinformation campaign that some democratic operatives in terms of building a false flag operation and he truly believes he's going to be able to make that run off and potentially win the republican nomination again. andrea? >> i want to quickly clean up, he flatly denied you citing those allegations against him.

he is incorrect in his denials, at least that those allegations were made credibly. >> this is the debate that took place in the month leading up to the special election. as you just heard again, he was defiant in saying he'd made no unwanted advances on women. he said he's been married, his wife was sitting behind us, has been married to her for 34 years. he's going to make the case, those were unfounded allegations against him. i asked him if he made any unwanted advances on women and he said no. >> you've been watching politics a long time. you've got the president of the united states, his son, who is a chief surrogate and others from that trump wing of the party, which is the party going against him and he's defiantly saying he's running. they could split the vote and reelect doug jones. >> no question about it. again, vaughan put his finger on it.

this is the thing he's running on, defiance. in the trump era, even before those allegations of sexual misconduct, think about roy moore. removed as chief justice several times. conspiracy theorists and yet he won that. remember what kentucky congressman thomas massy said about republican politics? he said he thought that voters were voting on ideas. it turned out they were voting for the craziest s.o.b. on the ballot. and i think that that applied maybe to donald trump winning the primary and it applies to roy moore as well. as long as there are republican voters in mississippi who want to vote for the craziest -- on the ballot, roy moore's got a chance as long as he's defiant. this is the modern republican party. >> and as we can see, charlie, we've got 20 seconds left, it would end up in a closely fought national senate race. it could be a determinate race.

>> yes, and that's why republicans are so freaked out about it. roy moore lost an unlosable race and the senate is in play. they're going to do everything possible to squash him. but, again, in this particular era running against the establishment, running against washington is not necessarily a negative. >> vaughan hilliard, great exclusive, thank you charlie sikes. we have big breaking news. president trump was just interviewed by chuck todd at the white house. here's a portion of their conversation. >> did you green light something s had you said if you do it i'll do this? >> nothing is green lighted until the very end because things change. >> you never gave a final order? >> no, but we had something ready to go subject to my approval. they came in and came in about a half an hour before. we're about ready to go. i said i want -- >> were planes in the air?

>> no, but they would have been pretty soon. and things would have happened to a point where you wouldn't turn back or couldn't turn back. so they came and they said, sir, we're ready to go we'd like a decision. i want to know something before you go. how many people will be killed? and in this case iranians. i said how many people are going to be killed? sir, i'd like to get back to you on that. great people, these generals. they said -- came back and said sir approximately 150. i thought about it for a second and i said you know what? they shot down an unmanned drone, plane, whatever you want to call it. and here we are sitting with 150 dead people that would have taken place probably within a half an hour after i said go ahead. i didn't like it. i didn't think it was proportiona proportionate. >> and joining me now nbc news white house correspondent kristen welker and democratic

congressman alyssa slotkin who services on the armed services committee and previously worked at the cia and pentagon. this was a very measured president trump with chuck todd. extraordinary description, expanding on the bare bones of that tweet from earlier today giving the context. and i have to say that john brennan, one of his harshest critics earlier on this program said he did the right thing by pulling back that strike. >> reporter: it was remarkable, andrea to hear president trump talk about the tick tok. he was incredibly measured. of course he said they were close. he was close to green lighting this, but that he hadn't yet. i would underscore that point. i would also underscore that he said, look, everything was in place but nothing was in motion yet. effectively. there were no planes in the area. i thought that that was significant as well. he talked about the potential

loss of life, something he tweeted about. those 150 lives, according to his military generals that would have been at risk and, from his own calculation, and from his own retelling of it, that was too far for him given the fact that this was an unmanned drone that was shot down. this goes back to something you and i have been discussing since yesterday when president trump spoke in the oval office. he said if this had been a manned drone, the response would be much different. our calculation would be much different. so he sort of underscored that point. and i would just make one other point, andrea, which is again this is a president who campaigned, who promised to try to get out of these foreign entanglements. and so clearly you see him there wrestling with that. and with the reality that if he had moved forward with any type of military action it would have only gotten the united states more deeply engaged in that region. so president trump in his own

words talking through the tick tok of last night. i was at the white house late into the night, as were senior administration official. a clear sign that negotiations were ongoing into the night as president trump grappled with this hugely significant foreign policy challenge he's facing. >> at this stage, nancy pelosi, the speaker has not been in touch with the white house or they with her throughout all of this. democrats have been demanding after the briefings yesterday that there be congressional approval. that this not be done if something is done under the previous authorization that goes back to 9/11. what do you think of what we've just heard from the president exclusively to chuck todd? >> it's a pretty amazing story. i worked in the white house for both democratic and republican presidents. to me it sounds like the planes were still on the tarmac, but the fact that it hadn't been

vetted for this question, the number of casualties before it went to the president for decision, to me just shows a complete lack of staffing process at the white house. i'm glad he made the decision he did. i think it's right. i think it wasn't proportionatet proportionate. it shows you how wily nily these things are happening and given the tensions are so high, he may not intend to get into war but he may get us there with decisions like these. >> when you worked at the white house under democratic and republican presidents, you deployed someone from the intelligence to the national security counsel. you were the professional analysts in the white house not looking for any -- there was one big exception on the syria read line that we have done that was done very very subtly by

president obama and he was criticized by that. there was the deputy committee that the national security advisers and his deputies bring in all agencies and get different points of view. john bolton has been criticized by other cabinet officials for not having that process in place. this may be the first instance where we see so dramatically. >> yeah, i think for john bol n bolton, that's someone literally written about regime change in iran of his entire life. now that we don't have a process, we don't have a place where the new acting secretary of defense pompeo, others can come to the table and hash it out. we should have debates about these things. the guy who's running sort of whatever the process is is someone who has a very clear lifelong policy on iran and should make us very nervous. >> given mitch mcconnell and the other republican leadership in the senate, is it likely that the president will be pressured

by congress getting authorization, democratic senators have been pushing for that and house members for years now of afghanistan. >> we had an over night hearing in the arms services committee last week. both democrats and republicans were agreeing that the president does not have authorization for military force based on the 2001 authorization from right after 9/11 and we actually been working democrats and republicans to come up with language that would stay clearly that he does not have that authority, he has to come back to congress he cannots wants to into a medium or a long-term war. it is extremely important to send that signal. >> what are you concerned about regarding the president's overtures to the iranians. let me interrupt myself a little bit. i think chuck todd is available fresh from the interview, if everyone would standby.

chuck, are you with us? >> i am, andrea. >> congratulations, that was extraordinary. we watched a piece of it. tell us what was your big take away? >> well, i can tell you about his decision about iran, he had enormous confidence about his decision not to do list. you get this sense and this is what i am still not fully, you just talk to him. he was cautious the whole day about this. i think that's where i think is interesting as we continue to learn more of activities at the pentagon and state department and activities in the national security council because he seems to look at it okay give me my options but he seems to have a lot of comfort in the decision that he made. he seems to have a lot of confidence. he thinks, he thinks the entire motivation of shooting down that drone was not to provoke a

response. he still believes there is -- he says no preconditions and he'll sit down either one. so that's what he wants out of this it seems is to talk. we'll see. the iranians have not given that indications yet. that's for sure. >> the iranians have been reaching out but blocked communications with anybody in the senior trump leadership so there is back channel into the media as if they gotten nowhere. it is very difficult no iranians for them to do anything overt special when they feel they are under attack. that's an escalation for their aggressiveness. >> well, there is another issue that the iranians have. the state department may not incentivized to bri to bring th. mike mom ppompeo says there hade

preconditions. i think the tough part for the iranians may be to figure out how to get to the president specifically perhaps. that's again, there is a lot of interesting contradictions in the president's national security team, that's for sure. >> chuck, what are the things that is very striking is this president is confident in his own decisions and prepared to push back against john bolton. one concern is he may not get enough information. he could get it from the generals. >> well, it looks like, he was getting the tactical advice from the joint chiefs. he kept on referring to the generals and there is going to be some minimal casualties. that's who he's listening to on

this. buy but he had a direct message. he does not want war and he's willing to sit down but as long as it is about getting rid of the nuclear weapon. he threw another kaf ycaveat in there. that's a sticking point of this whole time. so complicated, chuck todd, an extraordinary interview. chuck todd, that's exactly what you do. >> i don't know about that. >> we just live in interesting times. >> kristen welker, our congresswoman as well. chuck, john brennan right here praise him for his decision to pull back. more on that to come. we have a lot more coming up. chuck's interview on "meet the press" tonight and on 5:00.

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here is ali velshi and stephanie ruhle for "velshi & ruhle." >> sorry guys, a lot of news. >> have a great afternoon, we'll pick it up from here. >> i am ali velshi. >> i am stephanie ruhle. it is a busy news friday. breaking news as the state of missouri on the only remaining abortion