about what he calls a, quote, strategic new weapon in the near future. we begin with breaking news from iraq. today helicopters carrying marines landed at the u.s. embassy in baghdad. a day after thousands of iranian-backed demonstrators chanting death to america stormed the compound. mark esper announced tuesday that the administration is sending 750 troops to the region. earlier u.s. troops fired tier gas to disperse pro-iranian protesters gathered outside the u.s.'s largest embassy. president trump tweeting that iran will be held fully responsible for the attack on the embassy and iran will pay a very big price. last night at mar-a-lago the president praised the response by the marines at the compound. >> well, i think it's been handle very well. the marines came in, we had some great warriors come in and do a fantastic job. they were there instantaneously, as soon as we heard. i used the word immediately.

they came immediately and it's in great shape, as you know. this will not be a benghazi. benghazi should never have happened. this will never, ever be a benghazi. >> joining me is nbc's bureau chief. we start with you. talk about the level of tension there at the embassy in baghdad. >> well, protests are still continuing in and around the u.s. embassy compound for a second day, but the numbers seem to have dwindled slightly and the violence has subsided compared to the moments yesterday. however, several dozen angry mobs of iranian allied malitia men and their supporters camped outside the gates of the embassy overnight. this morning, more crowds joined them and the u.s. marines guarding the embassy were forced for a second there fire tier gas to push back protesters. after this morning they lit fires on the roof of the reception area and used

makeshift ramps to scale the walls of the embassy. as you mentioned, the defense department is taking this very seriously and it's beefing up its presence at the compound. mark esper, the defense secretary, said that he would immediately deploy an infant reba tal yen of about 750 soldiers from the airborne division to the middle east. the 82nd airborne is a rapid response, and they're assuming there's still potential for escalation and wants to have the ability to respond with substantial force, if needed. frances, iran is also lashing out after being accused of orchestrating the attacks. the country's supreme leader, ayatollah, warned the u.s. against any miss calculations. he said that if iran was threatened, it would strongly strike back without notice. he also said that the anti-american sentiment in baghdad was palpable.

the iranians have also summoned the swiss envoy. they represent u.s. interests, to complain about warmongering comments by the united states. so a lot of tension still between tehran and washington as the situation in baghdad is ongoing. >> and with that becomes the tough talk from the president blaming iran for the protesters allowed to storm the embassy there. so hans, what else are we hearing from the white house? the president spoke last night. he tweeted immediately after word of the attack. what else are we hearing? >> reporter: well, the president is now at his golf resort. that doesn't necessarily mean he's playing golf. yesterday he hosted meetings there on this very subject. when you look at the white house's communications on this, it's really going along two lines. yes, you have the president's twitter feed, which we've grown accustomed to. we should note that it's quite bell koes, what he's saying about iran, not just skarl blaming them, but saying this is a threat, doubling down on that.

and you compound that with what you see in terms of the optics of what the pentagon is going. ali mentioned the 82nd airborne dispatched overnight. some of the troops already up in the air heading there. a rapid response team. it's a way for the pentagon to message and to signal to both adversaries and allies that the u.s. is serious about this and they're taking all precautionary measures. a couple other things we should be looking for, you do have the uss lincoln -- excuse me, it's the pruman that's in the north arabian sea. if they goes toward the persian golf, that is another indication they want to send a signal. and you have marines heading east towards the eastern mediterranean. if they decide to go down the suez canal and toward the golf, that's another indication that the pentagon wants to let everyone know they're serious about the threat and a potential response. >> certainly watching that closely to see what the next

step will be. before we let you go, i want to ask you about the reports that the groups protesting against the united states air strikes told their supporters to withdraw. what else do we know about that? >> reporter: that's right, frances. a short while ago the umbrella group who are in charge of the shia malitias in iraq issued a statement asking protesters to leave the area and respect the ira iraqi government. members of the group have begun to withdraw from the perimeter of the u.s. embassy and have set up camp at a nearby hotel. however, a small group of hard core supporters are still there and they say they won't leave until u.s. forces are expelled from iraq. >> both of you, thank you so this new year's day. joining me now is retired four-star army general barry mccaffrey. it's great to have your perspective here. i want to jump right into this because we know that the administration is sending these

750 troops to the region. of course to protect the embassy, to protect the compound. also i want to ask you whether this could be a broader show of force, and is the response appropriate? >> well, i think the response is appropriate. at the end of the day, the central challenge facing us is the iranians are being choked economically and they're trying to find some way out of the box. the way out of the box is to strike at u.s. forces, using surrogates. there's been a massive strike, as we remember, on saudi arabia, that temporarily knocked out half of their oil production. so we have a significant u.s. navy and air force presence in the middle east. the iranians should not want war with the united states. it would be devastating on them. they're a vulnerable oil

industry. but on the other hand, they see no option, but in some way to not ka pitch late publicly to get the restraints lifted. i think so far this is all signaling. we would never tolerate seizing the embassy. so they know that's the red line. >> interesting that you say that iran does not want war, because last night the president was asked at mar-a-lago if he foresees going to war with iran. i want to listen to his answer and share us with our viewers and then get your thoughts again on that. >> i don't think that would be a good idea for iran. it wouldn't last very long. do i want to? no. i want to have peace. i like peace. and iran should want peace more than anybody. so i don't see that happening, no, i don't think iran would want that to happen. it would go very quickly. >> so the president also saying that iran would also pay a very big price. what message would that send to iran and how would they interpret that as a threat? >> well, i think they're

probably discounting it largely. look, the iranian government is on the ropes. their own people, they've had massive protests. there's tremendous anger at the economic penalty that common people are paying for the constraints. the problem is, in iraq there's almost no government left. the caretaker government has killed or wounded hundreds and hundreds of their own citizens protesting against iranian influence and massive corruption in the government. so when we look at these videos of 6,000 protesters storming the embassy, we're looking at iraqi generals and police generals who are trying to sort out where is all of this going? there is no coherent government structure in iraq that we can deal with. the embassy down to probably 400 u.s. nationals, a giant structure, very difficult to

penetrate. but nonetheless, a target, a hostage that we would be hard-pressed to really defend. >> i want to ask you about the level of expectation of an attack like this happening. secretary of state mike pompeo was on cbs last night and he was asked about the storming. let's take a listen to what he had to say. >> to what degree were we caught off guard? >> we've known for a long time that there was this risk. it's been 40 years that the islamic republic of iran has been at this and we've watched them continue to take actions. we saw them take actions that killed an american in iraq just this past week. we saw the united states act decisively to response to that in a way to signal to them that we would do precisely what i've said and precisely what president trump said we would do when american interests and lives were at stake. >> there you have it. if the u.s. had known about the risk, what evidence do you see that the administration was prepared? >> well, i think the attack on

our base in northern iraq, there's only 5,000 u.s. military, it's somewhat spread out in iraq. we had a contract that killed several iraqi soldiers injured by the attack. the air force carried out five strikes in syria and iraq, and nailed 100 of them, killed and wounded, secondary explosions. i don't think we anticipated the strong reaction directly against the embassy from that strike. but we escalated, maybe properly so, but now we're trying to deal with the consequences. at the end of the day, this is not a good situation for the united states. we need to open clever, private diplomatic contact with the iranians and get them out of their box. >> general, thank you so much for your time on this new year's day. thank you. >> good to be with you. still to come on the docket as senate leaders negotiate the rules for the president's

impeachment trial, new questions about whether key white house officials will testify. and later, fighting words. the north korean leader issues new that's promising a new strategic weapon in the near future. more ahead on msnbc.

i don't really care. it doesn't matter. as far as i'm concerned, i would be very happy with a trial. because we did nothing wrong. >> president trump entering the

new year preparing to do battle on the impeachment front, no matter what deal is reached between senate majority leader mitch mcconnell and minority leader chuck schumer. joining me now, joyce vance, a former u.s. attorney and natasha, national security correspondent. welcome to both of you as we get started in 2020. that means the senate coming back to start off the year and back to work. so are we going to be able to firm up on if this trial is going to get started, when it's going to get started, and the big question, are there going to be witnesses? where do we stand? >> it's a great question and we don't know much because we haven't gotten answers from members of congress. so when they come back on monday, january 6th, hopefully they'll start to outline more of the broad contours of what a senate trial will look like. of course nancy pelosi still hasn't sent the articles of impeachment over to the senate. she is waiting until she is

confident that the trial is going to be fair, and that democrats won't just be walking into an ambush during the trial, not able to present their case after they went through the whole impeachment process and did in fact impeach the president, of course. so we still don't know what the trial is going to look like, though a question of witnesses is a big one. the president and the white house do want to call certain witnesses such as the whistle-blower, hunter biden. they want to make this into a kind of spec tackle. but there are others like chuck schumer who want witnesses like john bolton and mick mulvaney who have been at the center of efforts to withhold aid from ukraine, who were privy to it and involved according to the big "new york times" report that was released last week. so there are a lot of new questions that the democrats have about why the administration is withholding the key witnesses that they want to hear from during this trial. >> so that is the question, to have witnesses or not have witnesses. so joyce, a senate trial, this is legal territory we're not used to seeing. and there's also a debate among

senators who see this more as a political exercise versus approaching this as jurors in a trial. so do you think when it comes to the partisanship that we saw in the house that that will subside somewhat in the senate? >> i think the hope has to be that the partisanship will subside, but that may be sort of an unreachable dream. here we are. we've left the christmas season behind. congress comes back to work ready to work, ready to get serious in early january, and i think we'll hear some of the senators, particularly moderates, begin to make a pitch to their colleagues to set aside politics at the moment and look at procedural fairness. and that of course will be an almost impossible task for this senate, but they will have to create some fundamental fairness structures in their proceed wal rules if the country will have any confidence in the proceedings. >> that may be why we're seeing us at this point now in the new

year. na natasha, i want to talk about rudy giuliani. he's pushing the story that he wants when it comes to ukraine. how much of a problem could he be for the trump presidency and many republican senators who would like to see him move over to the sidelines? >> frances, that's what i was going to point to, which is a lot of the president's allies feel like rudy giuliani is a big liability. he is currently under criminal investigation in the southern district of new york for his foreign lobbying work for ukraine, related to his business dealings with foreign governments, including ukraine. there is a lot here that could provide potential exposure, not just politically, but also potentially legally for the president, who may or may not have, depending on the case that democrats have put forward here, who they say offered a bribe essentially to ukraine, and that he was involved in the conspiracy with rudy giuliani and some of his aids over the

course of the last year to have interference in the 2020 election by getting ukraine to investigate his political rival. so these are things that the southern district of new york is investigating for. lev parnas is trying to cooperate with the house intelligence committee now, could provide documents, could provide recordings. the contents of an iphone he wants to turn over. there's a lot here that could some back to bite the president, especially because parnas, the giuliani associate, is very angry that the president has distanced himself from both giuliani and parnas who were doing this work for him in ukraine to try to get dirt on his political rival. so trump's allies are very eager to have him distance himself from giuliani, but he was just at mar-a-lago for the new year's eve celebration. >> and there is talk about him testifying in the senate trial. what would that look like when it comes to this process and the testimony from him? >> well, i suspect the notion

that giuliani will testify is more something that's inside of giuliani's head than inside of expectations in the senate. because to underline natasha's point, parnas isn't talking about cooperating with the senate and providing information about giuliani. the senate isn't investigating giuliani. their trial is about impeachment of the president. so presumably, what parnas has to offer involves the president. that means giuliani should be as distanced as possible from these proceedings. it's never a good look to have your lawyer be someone who is a potential co-conspirator or who is involved with you in questionable activity. and i think that we'll see republicans join democrats in trying to ensure that giuliani is no place near these proceedings when they begin. >> i know it's the first day of january, but let's fast forward to november here because it's going to come just like that. and you've got the politics of impeachment. do you think that this is going

to be the sticking point, what we're all going to be talking about by the time we get to the point of president trump and his eventual opponent and that will still be around? or will they be fighting on a completely different political ground? >> i think the latter. i don't think that democrats pursued impeachment because they thought that it would be good for them politically. in fact, many moderate democrats faced a really hard question, and hard questions from their districts, about pursuing this impeachment process, because many in their districts thought it would be very polarizing, that it would further divide the country. but they made the difficult decision based on a matter of principle to move forward with it. so i don't think that nancy pelosi and the caucus here thought that they would be able to advertise off of impeachment and really make this their selling point to win in 2020. but that being said, the president has this stain on his legacy, so this is going to

follow him forever. i mean, being an impeached president, he was only the third in history, and of course the first to be impeached in his first term. so no matter what his allies may say about this being good for him politically, the fact is he did not want to be impeached. he does not feel like this is going to be a big plus for him come 2020. he may have been able to fund raise off it, but this is not something that any president really wants to go through. and i think democrats will point to that as they move into the election. >> and as we know, when it comes to november there is so much that we have all seen that can happen between this time and that point as well. joyce and natasha, thank you. >> thank you. up next on the trail with just over a month before the iowa caucuses, it's the race to see who can go the distance in the race for the democratic nomination. plus too far? watch this woman right here. she reaches out at the pope and look what he does. he gets angry and gives that reaction. we'll have more. this is msnbc.

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the pace for this entire election system, and i have no

doubt, no doubt, that with your support we're going to win here in iowa, and with your help in 2020, we are going to defeat the most dangerous president in the modern history of america. senator bernie sanders wrapping up his speech in des moines last night as 2020 democrats fight it out in the hawkeye state, about a month out from the critical first contest. joining me now from des moines, nbc news correspondent vaughn hillyard. i know you spoke with senator sanders yesterday and asked how he differs from elizabeth warren. what was his response? >> reporter: exactly. his response -- this is an issue when we're looking at this campaign, 3030 days away from the iowa caucus, and i asked the question of bernie sanders, top line, you know you can go and find little policy differences if you go to their websites and look through their full detailed

policy plans about different initiatives they've put forward. but top line, what is the big difference between elizabeth warren and bernie sanders candidacy? i put that question to bernie sanders, because by and large he has allied with elizabeth warren, trying to make the case to voters that big, real significant policy change is possible. when i asked him that question, at first he said i'm not going to attack any of my opponents here, but when i followed up, i said give me something a little here. and he said medicare for all. and he said look at the transition period between his plan and elizabeth warren's plan. what he's talking about is with medicare for all, essentially he put forward, he said -- he told me yesterday we will look to pass that in week one, we will put forward a policy proposal over on the capitol to ultimately make its way to the white house, as opposed to elizabeth warren's plan, where earlier this fall back in november, she said her plan

would essentially first create a medicare public government option, but then by year three is when private insurance, by the large, would be phased out. i think that's an interesting note to make, because as you saw earlier this week, pete buttigieg began to separate himself with joe biden when it came to foreign policy. that is where you see bernie sanders kind of for the first time open up a little bit into where he may look to differentiate himself between elizabeth warren here in this month ahead. >> it was a big day for her yesterday. she was in massachusetts, exactly a year from when she jumped in the race. we saw her also taking swipes at biden and buttigieg yesterday. >> yeah, i mean, this is -- elizabeth warren has been pretty straightforward with where she sees herself in this, and she said when it came to the question of compromise that was put forward to her, join has long suggested that ultimately you're going to need to win over not republican independent

voters ultimately, but it's about those members in congress in order to actually pass key legislation. and that's where elizabeth warren pushed back last night to reporters, saying, you know, yes, compromise may sound good and be the ultimate goal, but when it comes to passing big legislation like medicare for all, democrats need to do what they need to do. and even if that means eliminating the filibuster and passing legislation with a simple majority in the senate, that democrats should be ready to do that come 2021 under a democratic administration. >> crucial time for all of them. they're pounding it. as are you there in des moines. thank you, vaughn. i want to bring in my panel, editorial page editor for the washington post and a former spokesman for senator ted cruz. >> ruth and rick are also msnbc contributors as we get started with you, ruth. first of all, what do you make of -- vaughn touched on it a little bit. what do you make of the disagreement between elizabeth warren and joe biden, especially when it comes to compromising

with republicans? both had pointed a finger at each other saying naive. is this an example of that? >> well, sure. and i think this is part of a larger thing that we're seeing at the moment, which is this is gloves off time for the candidates. this is the moment -- there's always a risk and senator kamala harris experienced the reality of this risk when she went after joe biden. but you do have to distinguish yourself from your opponents and the time to start to make those distinctions a little sharper is when you get closer and closer to a critical election and to critical votes in the caucuses. and so i think that the broader -- that's one thing that's going on. the other thing that's going on is there is this larger discussion within the democratic party about pragmatism and compromise and realism versus pushing hard for what you want, even if it's going to be

difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. and that's encans lapsulated in medicare for all debate, but more broadly. >> joe biden, rick, facing the criticism when he went out and said -- he was asked if he would be open to a republican vp nominee. he said he would. would that help him, and at what level with the republican-leaning swing voters? >> gosh, i'm a little torn on this. >> i want to hear it. tell us why. >> because from a perspective of winning a democratic primary, i think it was a real tactical mistake, because of the nature of our tribalism in politics today. being open to the idea of putting a republican on the ticket is just different than anything democrats are trying to achieve. and whether it buys him any -- i think republicans don't like trump might be open to biden anyway. he doesn't need to talk about --

it's just premature. it assumes that he's already the nominee and he's not. >> interesting to put it that way, too. that's the thing, if you have those swing voters who tend to go republican and they'll say, well, trump, i'm getting more and more turned off, that you would think that that in itself. but you're saying he's going to get those anyway. >> i think he may get them anyway. it depends on -- look, there's so much up in the air and there's so many things about trump. trump has a lot of things going for him. the economy is going well and the stock market. i know half of people aren't in the stock market, but the other half are. unemployment, wages are ticking up marginally, but they are ticking up. he'll claim victory on this china trade deal phase one, even though i would consider it capitulating. and usmca, not a big deal,

change from nafta. but he can claim it. so if he runs on the economy and he's focused on that, he'll be a real challenge to the democrats, who by the way, biden is their lead -- still their number one front-runner, and he's underperforming hillary clinton in my home state of virginia. that's not a good sign against a president that has a 42% approval rating. >> they say pete buttigieg's campaign raised $24.7 million in the fourth quarter, but when it comes to black voters, minority voters, he still has to broaden his support when it comes to that beyond the white voters. >> so for a smallish town mayor, pete buttigieg has shown remarkable performance during this campaign, and so that fourth quarter fundraising number is another illustration of that remarkable performance. but even as he's been impressive on the money side, he's been

problematic on the african-american voter side, and that doesn't seem to have improved over time at all. and you can have all the money in the world and we've seen this with other candidates, but if you don't have the voters that you need in the primaries going to the polls for you, then you are not going to win. and that is something that he's going to need to demonstrate as the election goes forward. i'm going to say one really quick thing about the notion of joe biden picking a republican as vice presidential nominee. i agree with rick, it's not smart tactically as a way to get the democratic voters that he needs to be energized for him in the primaries. but also it's not going to happen. let's remember what happened when john mccain, a republican, wanted to pick joe lieberman to be his vice presidential nominee. the party wasn't going to let that happen. we're not going to have a republican vice presidential nominee for whoever the democratic nominee is. >> that's the end of the story

as far as this conversation. thank you, ruth, and rick, you're going to say with us. we'll chat in a little bit. up next, new year, new threats. kim jong-un leaves the door open to new diplomacy with the u.s., while at the same time promising to take unspecified shocking action. >> and the man that will preside over the trial, cites for americans to get educated about how government works. this is msnbc.

north korea's leader kim jong-un announced on wednesday an end to the self-imposed suspension of nuclear and long-range missile testing. he also gave a warning of a new strategic weapon that may be revealed in the near future. he had previously promised a so-called christmas gift to the united states, raising concerns of a possible weapons test around the holidays. joining me the msnbc global affairs contributor, wendy sherman. thank you for being with us on new year's day. i want to ask you about secretary of state mike pompeo who was asked about kim jong-un's comments, and whether this was a turning point between the united states and north korea. he was on cbs last night and i want to play that. >> if kim has reneged on the commitments he made to president trump. i was there when chairman kim made the commitment that said he would not engage in missiles or test firing of milk weapons, testing their nuclear weapon

systems. he made those commitments for president trump in exchange for president trump agreeing not to conduct large scale military exercises. we've lived up to our commitments and we continue to hold the hope that he'll live up to his as well. >> so you've been involved with the leadership there and can sense the dynamic. is there current standstill between the united states and north korea any different than the past stale mates? >> i think what's different is that kim jong-un has played the president like a violin. he has used the time and the photo ops to gain credibility internationally, while at the same time gaining time to continue to develop his weapons and indeed probably does have a new strategic weapon, at least on its way to reality. though i think what's important here, frances, is two things. one, kim jong-un is signaling that he's still open to diplomacy, though what his objectives are is to reduce the sanctions or get rid of them

entirely, where as the president's objective is denuclearization. and secondly, kim jong-un is watching what's happening in the rest of the world with china, in iraq, with iran, and all of that says to him that the president of the united states is in a much weaker position. >> given that, we had the president's former national security adviser john bolton who just tweeted. it was just tweeted in the last hour that the united states should fully resume all canceled or downsized military exercise in south korea. hold congressional hearings on whether u.s. troops are truly ready to fight. what is your take on that? >> my take is john bolton is being john bolton. he has never seen a war he didn't want to wage. that is true where iran is concerned, that is true where north korea is concerned. he believes in force. he doesn't believe in any kind of arms control agreement. so john bolton is just being john bolton, whether it has an impact on the president who really doesn't want to send more

troops abroad, but does want to look like a tough guy, remains to be seen. >> given that and the way you put it, playing like a violin, i'm not familiar with the type of violin, played here. given that, you know, you have north korean state media that wrote about kim jong-un's comment, saying the world will witness a new strategic weapon to be possessed in the near future. what is the next step? the united states is being played, as you put it here. what does the united states need to do that's not already being done? >> i think the united states needs to be engaged in vigorous diplomacy. the special envoy, and i assume still is, is now on his way to be deputy secretary of state. he's a capable person, he hasn't been able to really get any traction with the north koreans. so diplomacy, the president should say well, i hear what you're saying inside your language, that you're open to diplomacy, let's get that under way. but it shouldn't be at the presidential level, frances. it should be the hard work to get a negotiation going. and secondly, if the president

on january 15th is going to announce the first phase of a trade deal with china, he should use his leverage with china to get china to intervene and to ensure that diplomacy gets under way. the president, the secretary of state, have a lot of crises on their plate. north korea, iran, iraq, afghanistan, the middle east, syria, yemen, many things going on here. hong kong, the protests this morning with more tear gas being hurled at those protesters. it's a tough time. voi venezuela, i could go on and on. diplomacy is what we should be doing, but it's hard to do that when the state department has been undermined, when senior foreign service officers have been sent out of the state department, when we've reduced our footprint and our alliances around the world. >> i wish we could go across every single country when it comes to diplomacy that we're talking about. but specifically it's been our

headlines for the past two days, where is the united states? where do we go from here when it comes to the attack at the u.s. embassy in baghdad? >> well, look, we're in a really, really difficult place. iraq is never easy. there isn't a government, as your earlier guest said, that's really stood up and solid and stable. it's in our interest to have a stable government. we should have done two things, had more conversation with the iraqi leadership before we took the retaliatory strike. we should have made sure that was proportional. i'm not sure that it was. and we should have, in fact, reinforced our embassy or assumed that there might be protests, because the government does not control the malitias inside of iraq, particularly the iranian-supported malitia. but this goes back to really strategic decision that the president made to withdraw from the iran nuclear agreement. that put the hard liners in iran in charge.

they have done more maligned behavior throughout the region as a result. this is just the escalation. we need to get back into a diplomatic stance. we had really aligned with iran and iraq to defeat isis. now that isis's footprint is largely gone, we need to figure out what our next chapter is, and there really is not a strategic concept that this administration has put forward. >> so glad to have you cover so much in this short amount of time. we appreciate i. wish we had more. thank you. >> thank you. we have to show you this viral moment from the vatican where last night a woman reached out to pope francis, a little too forcefully. do you see that? the little swat after she appeared to grab his hand. he swatted her hand away and seemed pretty angry. after the incident, during a traditional prayer, the pope said love makes us patient. we often lose our patience, me, too, and i pom jazz for my bad

example last night. coming up, take warning, the chief justice of the supreme court says we can't take democracy for granted and drops a not so subtle sleight against those who push fake news. this is msnbc. hi, i'm jonathan, a manager here

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new neutrogena® bright boost with dullness-fighting neoglucosamine. boosts cell turnover by 10 times for instantly brighter skin. bright boost neutrogena®. 2020 already starting with an impeachment showdown on capitol hill as washington continues to fight over what a senate trial will even look like. all eyes focused on chief justice john roberts who would

preside over the trial. he's making remarks about judicial independence in his report. he writes, we should reflect on our duty to judge without fear or favor, deciding each matter with humility, integrity and dismatch. we should each resolve to do our best to maintain the public's trust that we are faithfully discharging our solemn obligation to equal justice under law. i want to bring in mack mcclarity former chief of staff for hillary clinton. welcome. mack, let's get started with you. pretty pointed remarks from the chief justice as this impeachment looms. he also has famously said a judge's job is to call balls and strikes. who do you think he's trying to reach? >> there's no question that chief justice roberts put down a serious and strong marker going into the impeachment hearing. i thought it was very depthful,

well stated, needed. he talked about national junity as well as rule of law in his communication, underscores civics which is consistent with justice sandra day o'connor's i sive vicks program. i thought it was timely, very eloquent, thoughtful and serious message. >> i want to continue on with his message, especially when it comes to the spread of false information in our country. chief justice roberts writes this. in the ensuing years we have come to take democracy for granted. civic education has fallen by the wayside. in our age when social media can instantly spread rumor and false information on a grand scale, the public's need to understand our government and the protections it provides is evermore vital. the process is heavily political. are democrats, mack, doing enough to get through all the noise, everything around here and really make clear and explain the impeachment process and why when it comes to witnesses or not, they do want them?

>> i think it is incumbent on the democrats to make their case, how they want this perceived, organized. what they think is fair. you've seen senators milwaukee a mauks and collins. it's incumbent on the democrats to make their case, to make this a serious endeavor when they move to the senate, i think they ultimately will. i think speaker pelosi and leader mcconnell will work their differences out over time. justice roberts will be the steady and thoughtful hand that will certainly play a major role in these proceedings. no question about that. >> the very difficult one, particularly doug jones, democratic in alabama, really a tough rope he's walking there, democratic in a red state. he basically write this, for americans to have confidence in the impeachment process, the senate must conduct a full, fair and complete trial with all relevant evidence regarding the president's conduct. i feel, however, we're headed

toward a trial that is not intended to find the whole tr h truth. for the sake of this country, this must change. kamala harris singing a similar tune. at what point will we see this when it comes to, you know, public calls for the senators to sway leader mcconnell and call witnesses there. rick, let's start with you. >> the republicans have to decide whether they want to go down the road to a banana republic. i don't say that glibly. i think that's where we're at. the senate trial for the impeachment of donald trump is a very serious matter and by playing these games and mcconnell calls it a political exercise. he's right about that, but it's a serious political exercise and the constitutional republic is at stake. if the president did nothing wrong, fine.

let's have witnesses an documentations and he can make his case he did nothing wrong. meanwhile, nancy pelosi has decided she's going to hold the transmittal of the impeachment articles to the senate, and i think that's right. she should do that because it is her managers. they are members of the house who are part of the senate trial. >> mack, before i let you go, when the senate comes back and it's down to business, what are you going to be watching for? >> i'm going to be watching a couple things, one, how quickly speaker pelosi and leader mcconnell move forward, if they do. you've got the state of the union as well. ambassador sherman talked about there are multiple, multiple hot spots around the world, some very serious, and i think that's what's unsettling the american people. they want to get things moving here and get on with their lives and have 2020 be a good year for them and their families. >> a good year and a krubl one.

to both of you, mack mcclarity and rick tyler, thank you so much. ahead, teargas and stun grenades. the latest on the escalating situation in iran where protesters are surrounding the u.s. embassy in bagdad. we'll have the military response as hundreds of troops make their way to the area. for a cold sore,

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yasmin vossoughian picking up our coverage. hello everybody. i'm yasmin vossoughian. hundreds of u.s. troops are on their way to the middle east in response to the dangerous and developing situation in bagdad as the u.s. embassy faces a second day of protests. also, a new year's threat. kim jong-un says he's ready to take shocking action and unveil a new weapon as the north korean leader signals he could restart nuclear and long range missile testing. with the iowa caucuses about a month away, new fund-raising numbers from 2020 contenders that are giving some candidates a reason to celebrate. we begin with the hundreds of u.s. troops heading the the middle east in the wake of the storming of the u.s. embassy in iraq. defense secretary mark esper saying 750 troops have been deployed and more can ship out if needed. they join the 14,000 troops already there, sent to the region in response to concerns about iranian aggressi.