general soleimani was actively developing plans to attack american diplomats and service members in iraq and throughout the region adding, quote, this strike was aimed at deterring future iranian attack plans. the united states will continue to take all necessary action to protect our people and our interests wherever they are around the world. by most accounts, soleimani and his quds force were foresponsib for the deaths of hundreds of americans. he's accused of being part of the attack last week. he was part of the attacks in baghdad this week. iran supreme leader vowed, quote, harsh retaliation and severe revenge. iran president hassan rouhani said iran and, quote, other free nations of the region, will take revenge. iran's foreign minister said the

u.s., quote, bears responsibility for all consequences. he called soleimani the most effective force fighting isis and al qaeda and said it is dangerous and a foolish escalation. mike pompeo tweeted this video posting, quote, iraqis, iraqis dancing in the street for freedom. thankful that general soleimani is no more. nbc news has not been able to independently verify this video. we don't know when and where it was taken. president trump had no words after the attack tweeting only this image of the u.s. flag. with us this morning we have washington anchor for bbc world news america katty cay. associate editor of "the washington post" and political analyst eugene robinson.

columnist for the daily beast and coauthor of the best selling book "isis, inside the army of terror michael weiss. hans nichols in mar-a-lago. former allied commander, retired four star navy admiral, he's the chief international security and diplomacy analyst for nbc news and msnbc. and edward luce of the financial times. so, admiral, let's begin with you. the common reaction among policy officials, opinion leaders of the united states and across the west last night was that soleimani is a bad man with the blood of americans and other allies all over him. and, yet, many, many concerns

about an escalating conflict with iran that could lead to a war, about the ramifications of an administration not thinking through this policy, and, of course, for those who actually are concerned about the united states constitution, the fact that the united states of america last night had a president who approved the killing of the second ranking public official in another country that we were not at war at. we'll let you unsort that. tell us your chief concerns this morning. >> well, let's start where you did, joe, which is soleimani is an evil person. he's a villain. we are better off tactically for his piece being taken off the chessboard. he was smart. he constructed very clever attacks on us. so tactically this is a positive. strategically -- >> and also, admiral, just off

the top, he considered himself to be a swon enern enemy of the united states of america and i suppose you would agree with dexter that he may have been the most significant military force in the middle east over the past generation? >> absolutely no question. when i commanded the mission in afghanistan, we saw his fingerprints all over attacks in western afghanistan on u.s. troops. blood on his hands doesn't begin to get at soleimani. so tactically i'm glad he's gone. strategically, however, we are pouring gasoline on a smoldering fire with no structure or strategy for where we're going to take this thing next. and i'll tell you the pentagon today is going to be on all hands on deck doing the defensive measures all over the world to make sure that we're prepared for the response. because there will be a significant response.

killing soleimani would be roughly -- it's hand to categorize this, but it would be roughly like killing the current chairman of the joint chiefs of staff general mark milley and also, by the way, taking out the second most active political actor in the united states in the government. so this will demand a response from iran. so, we've got to up our defensive game in the persian gulf for our ships, in afghanistan for our troops there, in iraq, in syria, in europe, our u.s. troops in europe are will be targeted. our ally israel will be targeted. defensive measures. and then we've got to start to construct a real strategy here that lays out a case for how are we going to control this ladder of escalation which has jumped from iran killing a contractor to us killing their chairman of the joint chiefs of staff? big escalation. we better be prepared for the

wave that is going to hit right now. >> and, ed luce, it may be more in like with if nancy pelosi were the speaker of the house and the chairman of the joint chiefs combined, that would be where soleimani is or was in iran's government, again, a government that we don't have -- we haven't officially declared war against. let's talk about the consequences. is the world a safer place with soleimani gone? same question we could have asked after the death of saddam hussein and after the death of . >> clearly assassinating foreign leaders is not something states normally do with each other. there's been, i think, very misleading comparisons made between the assassination of

soleimani last night and osama bin laden. there's really very, very little in common with these two. bin laden did not command a state. he was hiding for several years. soleimani was the all powerful figure in iran. and so the consequences of this are unknowable. there's going to be retaliation. i don't think iran is a suicidal country. i think the retaliation is not going to be overt direct warfare. i'm sure it will be via proxies. i'm sure there will be cyberattacks. i'm sure there will be terrorist actions through proxies in the region and beyond. there's all kinds of ways in which iran could react, which the escalate it but not -- but not mark overt war. the question i think that all of us are asking and should be asking is whether president trump knows what he's doing and who is advising him? he made this decision from mar-a-lago.

he clearly felt humiliated by the occupation of the u.s. embassy in baghdad. he clearly felt a need to respond. the question is, does he know what the massive escalatory implications are of this assassination? and if not, you know, who is -- who is providing counsel to him at this time? >> well, and that's been, hans, of course a concern for those covering the white house and donald trump for the past several years. you have a president who, again, escalated this from the killing of a u.s. contractor, as tragic as that was, to the killing of, perhaps, well, the second most powerful man in iran, a country with the ability to strike back at will across the region and across the world. what can you tell us about the lead-up to this decision by donald trump? >> well, in terms of the briefing he's receiving, late last night he spoke with his

secretary of defense mark esper was well as robert o'brien. those conversations took place around 9:00 p.m. last night. look, the president has a variety of decisions to make. he's obviously being briefed, but the question is, who is he going to brief? is he going to bring in foreign allies? will he speak with house speaker nancy pelosi who has passed articles of impeachment but hasn't transmitted them? these are the sort of questions that the president is waking up to. and then there's the rhetoric. i would put the rhetoric in two categories. one, what does the president say? so far it's only tweeting a picture of the american flag. but you'll remember to what extent he celebrated the death of albag da baghdadi. he does have a scheduled rally this evening at an evangelical group. but the other message they can send is what sort of assets do they publicly acknowledge they are sending to the region? in some ways i was talking to an official last night. this was telegraphed by what

esper was saying on this idea of a preemptive defense, preemptive action, but also sending in elements of the 82nd airborne. that was a clear signal that was something going on in addition to those 100 marines. now, there is an aircraft carrier in the arabian sea, they've got a marine unit steaming to the east, transiting through the mediterranean. but to what extent they announce that, that will be interesting rhetorically. and just in terms of assets and risks, everyone in the middle east, at least in the sitcom area of responsibility understands that the u.s. troops do have vulnerabilities there. they sent patriots out the last couple months in swraub saudi arab arabia. no one is under any impression that there isn't any vulnerabilities. and yesterday the combined joint task force put out a list of civilian casualties from 2014 to 2019 and the civilian casualties aspect was interesting. but what struck my eye about

that is in the last five years, there have been 35,000 strikes against isis, and that's when you look at a precision strike that happened in baghdad, one of the reasons they're so good at this is the military and the pentagon has been shwacking terrorists for five years and they can bring a lot of firepower should this escalate. >> gene, they asked last night whether this wasn't the president of the united states who had promised to get us out of the united states. i can think of no move that would more guarantee the united states entanglement in the middle east for some time, because if we are not there, iran and their proxies will follow our allies and us here. >> yeah, the president trump promised to get is out of these endless regime change wars in the middle east and he seems to have started one.

that's the only way i can read what happened with the assassination of general so soleimani who was an evil man responsible for the deaths of many americans but who was also a leading political figure in iran as well as the leading military figure. and so what was this about? what was the reason for this? was it just a sort of trumpian reaction to his humiliation that what happened at the embassy? or was it, as john bolton, his former national security adviser and iran hawk just tweeted this morning, was it long in the making and hopefully a step toward regime change? that's certainly the spin bolton wants to -- wants to put on it. i don't know if -- if that's what the president intends it to be. that's the way it will be seen

certainly in iran. there will be reaction. we will have to react to the reaction. i, you know, tell me how this ends. >> yeah. >> and i don't see thenning -- this ending well. this seems to lead toward war. >> well, katty ckay, i spoke wih the middle east leader last night who said you're going to have a media excitement and a lot of applause for this in political corners, but then he said it's going to get very complicate and very ugly for you all. very ugly. and this is a middle east official who has been hostile to iran for some time. even -- we were both wh-- when got the news, we were both absolutely stunned that this had actually happened because, again, he is -- he's certainly considered himself to be enemy

number one towards america, considered america to be enemy number one. at the same time the consequences to this, most people believe, even those in the middle east who despise iran, believe the consequences are going to be grim. >> we el all hope we are not on the eve of war, but make no mistake washington has just upped the ante. look at the reaction around the world with the israeli prime minister cutting short a visit to greece today to get gak to zra israel because there are concerns there could be retaliation with israel and americans being told to get out of iraq. if you look over the last couple of years, the drone strike that killed the commander of islamic revolutionary guard is being viewed as part of a broader campaign that stretches back to president trump's decision to withdraw in 2018 from the iran nuclear deal. well, the u.s. has since imposed massive sanctions on iran in efforts to force tay troon negotiate a new agreement to

curb nuclear ambitions, end its ballistic missile program and stop funding those proxy forces in the region. it's only led to a string of increased provocations that has brought us to this point today. in may, the u.s. pointed a finger at tehran for a wave of attacks on two saudi arabian oil tankers and two other vessels from norway and the uae near the straight of hormuz. nis days later, they launched drone attacks in saudi arabia and those struck a major pipeline. riyadh, a u.s. ally blamed for the attack. president trump tweeted a response saying, quote, if iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of iran. never threaten the united states again. a new shipping incident occurred the following month as the u.s. blamed iran for the june 12th attacks on two oil tankers in the golf of oman. and then on june the 20th,

iranian forces shot down a u.s. military drone over the start of hormuz bringing the countries to the brink of war at that point. before trump called off a retaliatory military strike on iran the night before it was set to take place, that move reportedly led trun believe the president was nothing more than, quote, a twitter tiger. on the week before, iran received uran yammium in its stockpile. indicating that iran was drawing out of the pact and the renewal of sanctions hitting oil sales. another shipping incident on july the nine teeth as iran seized a british oil tanker in the strait of hormuz. iran had announced it captured 17 alleged u.s. spies work for the cia and sentenced some of them to death. the white house denied that claim. in august, iran's president announced a new long range

surface to air missile defense system in the september, the u.s. blamed iran after yemen's houthi rebelled had drone attacks on two major oil facilities. and last weekend, the u.s. carried out military strikes against an iranian backed militia group in response to the killing of an american civilian contractor in iraq which led to this week's storming of the ambassador in baghdad and, joe, of course then to the attack last night on soleimani. >> the killing of soleimani and michael weiss, i remember back in may i believe it was of 2011 after the killing of osama bin laden, americans stormed the white house with american flags, chanted usa, nothing like that last night. certainly no one would expect that to happen considering that very few people knew who soleimani was in the united states before last night.

but at the same time is it not fair to say that the killing of soleimani will have a far greater impact on the shaping of events moving forward in the world, middle east and the world than even the killing of osama bin laden? >> i think it's fair to say it's the most seismic event in the middle east in the 21st century. dexter filkins is right. he was perhaps a commander we've seen in one generation but several generation single handedly responsible for overseeing and orchestrating iran's proxy wars in i lost count in the number of countries, at least half a dozen. boasted in 2007, i believe, to his counterpart in iraq on the other side, i hope you enjoy the brief respite that you're getting here in baghdad. i've been busy in beirut that. was during the israel/lebanon war. he is singular and in fact i would argue he's irrelevant replaceable, although his

replacement has just been announced by the quds force. an iran/iraq war veteran, very chair ra charismatic. soleimani has risen in this cult to personality style of a figure which is led to all kinds of speculation that he was plotting a political career in iran perhaps as president, perhaps as something even bigger. he was doing a lot of selfies on the battlefield, essentially taunting the united states. it's important to remember, joe, when the u.s. waged its occupation of iraq, we forget this. we think that we fought a campaign against sun naijee h

one was called task force 16 which went after alkider qaeda. by the u.s. government's own estimate, iran, again, with soleimani orchestrating all of this, was responsible for 603 u.s. soldier fatalities in iraq. at one point, i believe it was june of 2007 shiite militias under his command were overseen by him were responsible for two-thirds of the u.s. fatalities in iraq. if you look at the u.s. history of the occupation of iraq, that, i think, will give you a fore taste of what is to come. this is the kind of thing iran and, again, soleimani especially were past masters at. waging plausibly deniable attacks against american targets, drawing loads of american blood on their hands and then sort of saying, well, it wasn't us, it was somebody else. that's the kind of thing i would anticipate going forward. but, again, this is such a sort of unprecedented event, i can't emphasize that enough. that it's almost impossible to say what the next steps are going to be.

is it conventional war or is it, as mentioned, proxy war and cyber warfare by iran? more attacks? tanker warfare in the gulf and so on and so forth. but i think the supreme leader of iran himself doesn't know what to do that the moment. remember, on january 1st, two days ago, hamanny was taunting donald trump on twitter saying the u.s. could do nothing. you're basically calling the president a paper tiger. if you know anything about donald trump there are say man who doesn't like to be taunted, who doesn't like to be sort of bullied back by somebody else. i would wager that one of the precipitating factors for this operation was, indeed, the supreme leader of iran basically saying, bring it on. >> that, michael, all great points. admiral, i suspect, perhaps, that taunting, the president being taunted by the leader of north korea, all may have led to this. i'm just curious, though,

whether -- first of all, would you agree with michael that this is one of the most significant actions in the middle east in the 21st century? would you say that is -- as i was trying to explain to some friends last night that hadn't followed iran as closely, i had suggested that this was the most significant foreign policy decision we had made in 17 years since we decided to invade iraq. >> yeah. >> would that be your assessment? >> indeed it would, joe. and as you were saying in the 21st century, my mind went immediately to the decision to invade iraq. and you can drop a plumb line from that decision to where we are today. this is an inflection point. and so what's happening in the pentagon, two things. one are all the defensive things we talked about a moment ago to prepare for all the wide potential range of

counterstrikes that iran can do. and, by the way, i do want to draw a line under cyber. we have an enormous cyber vol neb vulnerability here. i think that will be the first tool in the toolkit. but the pentagon is working on those defensive measures. the pentagon, because it's what we do, is developing the offensive options right now for the president. because if iran does lash out in a very significant way, we are going to be prepared at least to go back. and that is going to take us off to the races. and that will be everything from aircraft carriers flowing to the region, marine expedition air units, ground based air there, that whole package is going to be prepped and ready. and we need to think through the strategy. and, again, that's what's missing. and i'll close by saying a strategy for this ought to include our allies, partners,

and friends. we've been talking for 20 minutes and really haven't mentioned the role of the europeans, the role of the israelis, the role of the arabs. we need to strategically think about how to integrate our allies into what happens next. we need an interagency coordination here. we're going to have to deal with this with all the elements of national power, not just the pentagon. and thirdly and finally, private sector vulnerabilities here. again, i'll close with cyber. we ought to really be focusing on that as we think about it. we've got to also control the strategic narrative here. a few tweets is not going to get this done. the president has some big decisions today. who's he going to call? what's he going to say publicly that's going to steer this? hopefully there's some strategic ideas along that military package that i assure you is being developed right now. >> all ride right admiral, thank

you so much for being with us. hans nick ahols, what are you expecting today? any word from white house officials? >> i think the first thing we need to see if this trip speaking to evangelicals is still on and whether he'll decide to summon the pool. he's not scheduled to leave until later on. but will we see him on camera. and what call house speaker nancy pelosi and chuck schumer and i form congress on what everyone seems to agree on is a momentous foreign policy decision. >> greatly appreciate it. still ahead on "morning joe," president trump has the united states on the brink of war when just a few years ago he was mixing up the quds and the kurds. and didn't even know who general soleimani was. we'll rewind the tape ahead and

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welcome back to "morning joe." it's 6:29 a.m. the white house, a shot there of an empty white house and one wonders whether donald trump and his team will return to the white house today because they have the first major international crisis on their hands. a crisis that began last night in earnest with the killing of general soleimani. as michael weiss said, a singular presence in the middle east over the past generation. and certainly throughout this century. katty, this is one of the problems with provoking allies.

your closest allies in nato, across europe, is in times like these it's hard to pick up that phone and have the immediate rapport that, well, most presidents have had with great britain, france, germany over the past 20, 30 years or so. so -- so where -- where does donald trump go to shore up support for this attack last night? with the backdrop, of course, that even over the past 30, 40 years there has -- there have often been divisions between the united states relations with iran and european countries relations with iran. we have always been in a far more hostile stance, of course, since that 1979 hostage incident. >> yeah. usually the go-to country in europe for america in situations like this is the uk, right?

but today the reaction from london is pretty tepid at best with the foreign secretary urging deescalation on all sides. now that's not really coming to america's support. and if that's the reaction from london, the reaction from continental europe isn't going to be much friendlier to the united states either. because there are, as you're suggesting, splits ever since donald trump pulled out of the iran nuclear accord. it's the europeans who have tried to work together to keep things going with iran. they're the ones that have tried the policy. they're the ones that have been keen to keep iran in the kind of stable of nations whereas america's policy is being constantly to step things up. and now today as it's in a situation where it needs to turn to its allies it's not getting that kind of reaction. it's no surprise. the europeans are not jumping to the president.

there's also the question, does the president know what he's doing? does he have a strategy and does he understand what's going on in iran? it appears that president trump is doing some on-the-job training here. he clearly knows who general soleimani is now. but if you look back at the 2016 campaign, he did confuse the quds with the kurds and had to be told exactly who soleimani was. >> are you familiar with general soleimani. >> yes. go ahead, give me a little. go ahead, tell me. >> he runs the quds forces. >> yes, okay. right. >> do you expect him -- >> i have been hotly dem month -- >> not the kurds, the quds forces, the iranian revolutionary quds forces. >> the right. >> do you expect his behavior to change. >> i thought you said kurds. >> no, quds. >> i think the skrurds bekurds very poorly treated by us. >> soleimani runs the quds forces.

do you expect his behavior will change as a result of this deal with iran zblink that iran right now is in the driver's seat to do whatever they want to do. >> soleimani is to terrorism sort of what trump is to real estate. >> okay. >> many people would say he's the most dangerous man in the world and he runs the quds forces which is their navy s.e.a.l.s. >> he's the gentleman going back and forth with russia, meeting with putin, i read something and that seems to be also where he's at. >> that's the guy. >> he's going back and forth meeting with other countries, et cetera, et cetera. >> that's the guy. on the front of islamist terrorism, i'm looking for the next commander and chief to know who he is and aljaw manny and al baghdadi, do you know the players without a scorecard yet, donald trump? >> no, you know, i'll tell you honestly by the time we get to office they'll all be changed, they'll be all gone. i knew you were going to ask me things like this and there's no reason because, number one, i will hopefully find general douglas mcarthur in the pack. i will find whoever it is that

i'll find and we'll -- but they're all changing. those are like history questions. do you know this one? do you know that one. >> i don't believe in gotcha questions. i'm not trying to quiz you on who is -- >> that is a gotcha question. when you're asking me about who is running this, this, this. that is not -- i will be so good at the military your head will spin. >> it's not gotcha, i'm trying not do that but i wanted -- >> it is gotcha you're asking me names that, you know, i think it's somewhat ridiculous. >> don't know where you start, michael, with the treatment of the kurds and how badly they've been treat and what they're feeling when they listen to that today. i guess is the broader issue the lath of strategy coming out of the white house, whether it's long term strategy with iran and the assumption by squeezing, squeezing, squeezing and i guess with trump it is often about money, thinking that would produce a result and it hasn't produced that result. but then there's the shoort of

short-term strategy. are you chaffed as tonfident th united states was planning this attack it had decided to get its ducks in a row beforehand to protect its assets in the region and it knew what the potential ramifications might be? >> well, i should think that the pentagon certainly does, as does the cia and whoever's advising donald trump on the broader ramifications of these actions. my concern, though, is, look, the u.s. has a dramatically smaller footprint in iraq and well now iraq and syria than it did 2007. as i mentioned earlier, the height of iran's proxy war against the united states. but that's not to say that iran still cannot wage war. plausibly deniable proxy war against u.s. targets, indeed. hezbollah, one of the leading proxies on the ground essentially kicked off this sort of tit for tat exchange by

rocketing u.s. military personnel and killing an american contractor. that appears to have been donald trump's red line, as it were. and recall in the past few months you guys ticked off a number of iranian provocations in the region, tanker attacks, the rocketing of the saudi oil company and so on and so forth. and trump's response seemed to be a mixture of chest pounding and then deescalation. who can forgot iran shot down an american drone and it looked like he was about to launch air strikes on iranian soil which would have been a massive escalation. but, again, as i mentioned, taking out qasem soleimani is really hard to understate how significant this is. the question is now iran will have to do something to respond. it may not be immediate. the iranians are quite good at playing a long game. they may buy their time, wait this out and wait until donald trump is no longer president or he feels that he has put them in

their place and then something major catastrophic will happen. and it doesn't have to be in the middle east, by the way. quds force has orchestrated terrorist attacks on european soil in the past. in the lead-up to the iran deal it was, orred by british media that hezbollah had been stockpiling weapons, chemical weapons, i believe, in the uk where i am now. so these guys have form. they don't have to pull the trigger immediately and precipitously. and i think right now, you know, if you're in tehran you're probably thinking what's our best way of getting back at this man for doing what he just did? no, i don't see a concerted all of government approach if the would be one thing if the u.s. had articulated a coherent this is our long-term five, ten, 20-year plan for dealing with iran. but it seems to be, you know, ad-hoc and very sort of reactive. >> all right, michael weiss, thank you so much. we greatly appreciate you being with us this morning and adding

really important perspective. let's bring in right now the cohosts of "morning joe's" first look ayman and yasmin. they've been on the phone all night working their sources. yasmin, let's begin with you. what can you tell us? >> yeah, it's been pretty shocking news overnight to say the least, joe, as i'm talking to sources overseas. any separation, i mean, any ideological separation we saw between the power structures in iran that we thought existed because of the jcpoa have now been unified. as you were talking about earlier you had the president and the supreme leader vowing revenge. you have the new chief of the irgc already in place. iran has a contingency plan for attacks like this one, hence, the reason why you see so many americans in the middle east and especially israel on high alert as we speak. and as you heard from michael weiss, you can't help but think that people are also on high alert in europe as well.

i read a piece about the general who talked about a time when he had the opportunity to take out soleimani and talked about the scope of his power throughout the middle east. he basically said the reason why he didn't take out soleimani at the time is because he knew of the political reper kuctions and the ramifications that would have taken place. the big question why is that i've been trying to figure out, why would the trump administration choose to take him out at this point? and the only thing you can hope for and think of is that the united states actually had some actionable intelligence in place to suggest that soleimani was planning an attack on american assets somewhere in the middle east. we have no confirmation of that whatsoever. but it is the only thing that you can expect in a situation like this when you're taking out someone at such a high level as you mentioned, the number two in iran. >> yeah, which of course ayman, we don't know and we won't know for some time, if ever, if that is, in fact, true that he had

plans -- any specific plans that would be a step above what he's been doing for years. but, ayman, i wonder if you've been struck, as i have since the shocking news broke last night, that even iran's fiercest enemies in the region, lot sunnis, the sunni leaders across the middle east all quietly were deeply concerned, shaken, in fact, by this killing. i mean, you might expect some of them to offer words of support, but they are not. and several -- several leaders i spoke to last night openly concerned about what this is going to bring not only to the united states, but to their countries. >> yeah. absolutely, joe. in fact, i've been kind of talking to a few different sources across the region from

lebanon all the way to the gulf countries to get a source of what the sentiment is this morning. in fact, i think one of the most poignant quotes that was summed up to me by an official i spoke to was that america is playing checkers, iran is playing chess. so when you have in the region right now is america is bouncing around from point to point, canceling the gcpoa, deciding to rachet up the pressure, killing iranian commander, violating iranian sovereignty with all kinds of other legal questions around this air strike. but the iranian government is playing a long-term game here. you have so many proxies in place across the region, their assessment was that they're not likely to respond in the short-term. they're expecting iran to regroup, go through this mourning period and plate long game as they have been in the past 40 years in the region, whether it's in iraq, syria, yemen, lebanon. all of those are possibilities. so the question then becomes about whether or not the united states thought this through over various stages. the day of the decision to carry

out the strike certainly not likely to see a response. day after what's going to happen in the immediate term? we've seen the iranian government announce the replacement of the quds force commander. and that suggests something very important here. that the iranian government, the paramilitary forces, the quds force, they are although definitely dependent on soleimani, it allowed them to recruit more. they have a strong infrastructure if t infrastructure. this is not a government that's been weakened as a result of this air strike. expect them over the course of the long term, over the next decade or so to still maintain their posture across the middle east if not much more aggressively. a lot of the country's waking up this morning may be expressing relief that soleimani is dead. but by far much more concern about what iran is going to do in the months and years ahead in terms of destabilizing the region even more. >> let me say something really quickly in that a lot of people are talk about the fact this may

very well cause a war overseas in the middle east. and let me just say this. iran believes they have been at war for quite some time, especially since the new economic sanctions were leveled against them after the united states pulling out of the gcpoa. they have been clear about that. we remember from the signer is attacks from iran over the summer as well. as to the matter of whether or not this will cause a war, iran is already at war. >> all right. thank you so much yasmin and ayman. greatly appreciate it. this from the "new york times" state department is urging americans to leave iraq. of course after that drone strike last night. we're going to be speaking more to ed luce with the financial times and gene robinson with "the washington post" welcoming up and also new reporting about unredacted emails between the white house and the pentagon that appear to reveal the ukraine aid freeze came at the clear direction of donald trump. emails now to prove that.

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welcome whack to "morning joe." we are talking still about the killing of iran's general soleimani, a singular force in the middle east over the past generation, as michael weiss said. and as the admiral said earlier this morning, the decision by donald trump to kill general soleimani is the single most significant act in u.s. foreign policy since the decision of george w. bush's in march of 2003, some 17 years ago to invade iraq. let's -- let's go to ed luce. and, ed, yasmin and ayman were talking about how iran plays the long game. i think, again, for people who don't follow this story that closely, it is important to remember that the iranians for being -- still being a revolutionary republic, the

iranians have been conservative with a small "c" in managing their power and have been quite agile over the past 40 years. i suspect very few observers of the time would have believed there would still be islamic iran in 2020 and yet here we are. >> it's also been quite agile at managing its geopolitical interests, not just through these proxy wars in the region, but in terms of cultivating relations with china, with russia. just this week something we haven't discussed much, but very significantly iran held joint naval exercises with china and russia in the gulf of oman. just this week. and that, you know, that's never happened before. there was every indication that it's going to continue to happen. so this isn't a pariah country in the way that perhaps kim jong-un's north korea is.

in terms of how trump now reacts to whatever -- whatever iran does, wherever it does it, i think what the admiral was saying is really, really important. this is about relationships. the american president has with other leaders, with allied leaders. of course the first one, you know, they'll look to will be benjamin netanyahu in israel. but he faces another election. he's trying to get immunity from prosecution before that election is held. and he's going to be a much more aggressive force even than he has been in the past on iran because he's in a corner politically. in terms of the european allies, as katty said, we have to remember the eu three, britain, france, and germany remain in the jcpoa. they did not withdraw from that deal. they did not want the united states to withdraw from that deal and the trump

administration did not consult with them properly in their view before it withdrew from that deal. so bearing in mind the need for sort of relationships, strategic thinking, and multilateral action that this situation triggers the need for and donald trump starting at a very, very low level. there's going to have to be quite a steep learning curve here. >> yeah, all right. financial times ed luce, thank you so much for being with us this morning. we hope you will come back very soon. gene robinson, we were talking about the agility of the iranian government over the past 40 years, not just militarily, but also diplomatically. agility is not a term that's been used to describe the american president, the 45th president of the united states. >> no. >> i do wonder how he bridges the gap that is present right now between the united states and our closest allies,

especially on the issue of iran. >> right. i think that's another asymmetrical conflict in the other direction. you know, we have this powerful military, much more powerful than that of iran. i think iran strategically is more agile, perhaps, more -- far able to look farther into the future and be strategic about its -- about its posture in the world than the trump administration is. just a couple of thoughts as we -- as we think about what just happened. the united states assassinated, perhaps, the second-ranking political official certainly the highest ranking military official of a country with which we're not at war on the soil of another country with which we're not at war and we did this with

a surgical air strike assassination. i hope there's been some thought given to what precedent, what kind of precedent that sets. not a lot of countries in the world that are capable of pulling off that sort of thing right now, but i think we can agree that we don't want a lot of that going on. and the united states is -- it should worry, i think, about blazing a trail here. a second thing is, this happened on iraqi soil and will doubtless seriously the relationship between the united states and iraq which was already strained. one imagines that u.s. forces will be likely ejected from iraq. that was already in the works, i think, as we saw from what happened at the embassy. this is, you know, we talk about 2003. i really do believe that is the

invasion of iraq, is the sort of touch stone. that's the last time we did something this potentially big and destabilizing in the middle east. it looked like a good idea to a lot of people at the time. and now it looks like a very bad idea. and i worry that we're going to have the same view of what just happened last night. >> well, katty, in terms of precedent this actually moves beyond even the invasion in 2003 of iraq, because the united states of america last night, the president of the united states of america last night decided to assassinate the number two leader in a sovereign nation, regardless of what we think of soleimani, regardless of what we think of iran, this president's foreign policy now includes the assassination of a

top leader in a foreign government. and what the united states does to iranian leaders, iranian leaders now obviously will feel free to do to american leaders. >> yeah. and everybody's expecting some type of retaliation. we're going ta talk to dexter filkins who wrote the profile of soleimani in a minute. but there are also issues here at home on the ukraine side that the president has to deal with today as well as that iran story. there's a new report now from the website just security that details unredacted versions of documents related to president trump's efforts to pressure ukraine to investigate the bidens as his administration froze nearly $400 million in military aid. the documents seen by the national security website affiliate with the new york university school of law were originally released last month under court order in heavily redacted form by the government to the center for public integrity.

according to the report, the documents reveal that on augt 30th after meeting with trump associate director of national security programs at the office of management and budget michael duffey told the acting pentagon controller in an email that there was clear direction from trump to hold the aid. and he let her know that he would be sending new paperwork extending the hold soon. the emails also showcase the growing tensions between the white house and the department of defense over the hold on the ukraine funds amid concerns that the aid would not be released before the end of the fiscal year. nbc news has not confirmed the emails independently and just security declined to provide them. but there's this line saying this game directly from trump. joining us now, founding co-editor and chief and professor of law at new york university school of law, ryan goodman. ryan, to what extent does this change what we know about the relationship between the white house and the pentagon when it comes to this ukraine aid? >> so in some respects it just

provides hard evidence for what was provided in some testimony and reporting. but there's also new revelations of deep tension between the pentagon and the office of management and budget over a period of weeks. the very powerful controller at the pentagon, senior defense department official is warning the omb that this is illegal to hold the aid and that the hold on the aid would mean that the pentagon would not be able to give all the funds to ukraine by the end of the fiscal year. and that actually proves to be correct, that they break the deadline because the omb is not listen together pentagon. and there's another dimension to it which is extraordinary in which the controller time and again firmly says to omb that they are making misstatements about the policy. the general counsel for the omb

circulates talking points in reference to the aid was being held. and the controller writes to omb and says you can't circulate the talking point, it, quote, just is not accurate because it was false. it was a false statement. so this shows in some ways very good light in of the pentagon that the omb seems to be engaging in pretextual misrepresentations to the public and also to congress directly about the rational for holding the aid. >> you have -- you have seen these explosive emails which -- which i agree, seem to be a game changer. are you able to share them with the rest of us and let the world see them? and if not, why not? >> a condition from the source is that we would not share them otherwise. so that's the situation that we're in with them. but one of the emails that is in the unredacted form was also

reported "the new york times" on sunday. that's when the controller writes back to mr. duffey and says, you can't be serious, i am speechless. when duffey is trying to throw her under the bus by saying that it's the pentagon's fault after this whole process has been laid out. so it seems as though "the new york times" either has the same batch that we have or they have at least part of the same emails as well. >> okay. all right. >> thank you so much. oh, gene, go ahead, gene. >> no, no, go ahead, joe, that's fine. >> no, i was just going to thank you for being with us. i'm sure there's going to be, ryan, there's going to be some follow-up. we'd love to have you back on this very busy morning. greatly appreciate you being here. so here we go back to the top story breaking news. the united states is on high alert as iran vows revenge as the strike that killed the top iranian commander soleimani in

baghdad last night. iran's supreme leader is now vowing harsh retaliation and severe revenge. the iranian president said his country and, quote, other free nations of the region will take revenge. while iran's foreign minister, the united states, quote, bears responsibility for all consequences. earlier this morning the state department urged u.s. citizens to leave iraq immediately due to iranian-backed militia attacks at the u.s. embassy compound adding that everything is suspend and u.s. citizens should not approach the embassy. katty kay and eugene robinson are still with us. let's bring in national security expert and author of the book "the death of expertise" tom nichols, also chief white house correspondent for "the new york times" peter baker. and pulitzer prize winning journalist and staff writer,

dexter. you've written the definitive piece on general soleimani. but peter baker, awaiting country and awaiting world awaits you assuring us that donald trump thought this out long and hard with his top advisers. please take us through the past several months that led up to last night's decision. >> well, this is the thing, right? of course president trump has said all along that he doesn't want to get involved in middle east wars. he, in fact, hesitated on a couple of occasions on pulling the trigger in retaliation against iran. one time this summer of course after the attacks on the saudi oil facility. he pulled all the way up to the ten-minute to go mark and then changed his mind. so to have this sort of, you know, escalation not just a strike but a strike at the heart of the iranian leadership is a drastic change, 180 degree

change in effect. the president he had sent signals over the past year and several months that he wasn't willing to use force if provoked and this that this needed to be corrected in effect. but it's a big, big moment, i think, for this administration. >> you know, peter, it's something that we said yesterday, i asked the question. i said what is going to be the impact if the president's getting pushed around by iran and getting pushed around by north korea, he has sent the signal over the past several months that there will not be a military strike. and for regimes like this, that obviously is seen as a green light. so any indication, any suggestions from people close to the president why he changed his mind? why he so drastically changed his mind and actually moved the united states closer to a middle east war than any time since 2003? >> yeah, that's a great question as to one we'll be reporting out today. there have been, you know, the threats on the embassy in baghdad. one thing that soleimani has

been responsible for for years have been attacks on americans in iraq, the soldiers during the combat phase of the iraq war and other instances over the years. other presidents have decided not to try to take him out as a retaliation. they look for other ways to respond. but they feared that taking out soleimani would, in fact, spiral into a larger confrontation that they didn't want to have with iran. president trump decided let's do it. let's make our message known and in a powerful and forceful way. it's a huge gamble. there is a lot on the table right now. this is a turnl point, perhaps, perhaps, for this presidency heading into a new year. >> he was described earlier, dexter, as a singular presence in the middle east. you said last night that soleimani was the most significant, i believe you said military presence in the middle east over the past 30 years, over the last generation.

explain why and explain how, first of all, let's explain how strategically taking him off the battlefield actually is a positive for the united states of america. and then talk about the consequences as you see them that follows what many would consider to be that positive development. >> well, soleimani is, when i said he's the most significant player in the middle east over the past 30 years, he really is. i mean, if you -- it all starts with the end of the iran/iraq war in the late '80s which was cataclysmic for iran, a mill people dead. soleimani who was then a young man basically vowed this is never going to happen again. and so he began to kind of -- he was the architect of this vision to extend and to build a sphere of influence across the middle east into iraq, into syria, hezbollah and lebanon and he

succeeded. he's incredibly effective. so many roads lead back to soleimani in lebanon, in syria with assad, in iraq, the houthis in yemen. is he really, if there is one personality and one guy in the middle east that has been at the center of everything for the last 30 years, it's soleimani. so taking him out is -- it's huge. i don't think he's -- i don't think he's replaceable in any kind of meaningful way. there's nobody else like him. he was a brilliant general but he could sit with politicians and diplomats as well. so it's a -- it's huge. it's a body blow for the iranian regime. >> so talk about how just from your reporting over the past 30 years, 25 years, talk about what the united states should expect. what american allies in the region should expect. what is the iranian response to this? because we've heard over the past 12 hours or so it's

probably not going to be immediate. it's probably going to be thought out, and it's going to be bloody. >> well, i think -- i mean, it's hard for me to imagine that they won't respond. they have to respond. but i'm not convinced that they'll respond in the middle east. the middle east and particularly iraq, it's locked down. the iranians have been trying to kill american soldiers for years there and they've had a really difficult time. and so my sense is that, you know, the iranians are very cool customers. they're very smart at how they do these things. there's a lot of places you can kill americans if you want to. and it's not necessarily -- i mean, i think baghdad is probably the hardest place to do that. and they've got capability through hezbollah across the world, latin america, africa, asia, pretty much everywhere. i think -- bear in mind over the years there's two things the iranians do really well. one is truck bombs and the other is hostage taking. and so just keep that on the table as the days and as the

events unfold. >> would you consider them to be too conservative with a sma"c" strike in the united states itself, understanding the ramifications that that would have, that if donald trump were still president that would certainly would probably mean an invasion of iran, a full scale war? or do you think that everything is on the table right now? >> well, it's hard for me to imagine the iranians would do that because they're pretty shrewd and they're pretty cool. however, soleimani himself, the fbi several years ago broke up a plot in some soleimani and the iranian regime plotted to kilt saudi embassy to the united states in washington. and that was the ambassador to saudi arabia. basically the plan was to put a bomb in the restaurant in downtown washington, d.c. so they've certainly shown a willingness to do that. i honestly, i think that they'll

be stunned now after -- after solomonny's death a soleimani's death and they are not will go to be capable to do these kinds of things without him. there's nobody apparent who is going to step up and take over. it's going to hurt them. it might take a while. >> tom nichols, it is a regime already back on its heels, a regime that's been facing more internal unrest than any time since the '79 revolution. also facing dire economic -- dire economic situation, this maximum pressure put on the iranians has hurt them. all the more reason after the killing of the most significant military force in the middle east over the past generation that the iranians likely have no choice but to respond in a very

significant way. >> and the problem for us is have we thought about that? you know, the idea of trying to take out somebody like soleimani, it's not a new idea. you know, dexter and others pointed out that this is something that other administrations thought about doing. but if you're going to do something like this, you have to be prepared for the next steps. and i'm very concerned about whether this administration is really capable about thinking, you know, even five or ten or 15 minutes ahead here about where this could go. because now we're going to be faced with a lot of unpredictability over the long term about what kind of response. and i agree with the other guests, i think there's there h a response. one of the things that really concerns me is this is a president who's been at war with his own intelligence and military leadership which is not a good situation to be in when you're about to do something

really dramatic like this in the middle east. you need have all your ducks in a row. you need to have your team well aligned. you need to trust the information you're getting. you need to be able to respond and to move quickly with events because now we're going to be in a much more fast-moving situation with the iranians. and i'm -- i think that a response from the iranians is inevitable, but i'm not sure that we've really thought that through. and that really concerns me quite a lot. >> so, peter baker, some more cynical opinion shapers last night were suggesting a possible wag the dog scenario. we want to show you this "new york times" headline from december 17th, 1998 looking early similar to what we are waking up to today. it reads impeachment vote in house delayed as clinton launches iraq air strikes citing military need to move swiftly. according to the times, then

president clinton launched the offensive on iraq just minutes before a house republicans began their closed-door strategy session to discuss the impeachment vote. of course this morning for the first time in months, well, in years, we're talking neither about ukraine or russia. i'm sure these are -- well, we'll just talk about parallels between now and 1998. do you see any? >> well, obviously we'll raise those are questions and it will raise suspicions on the part of the president's critics. one of the things that president clinton faced in 1998 was this confluence of events at the same time that republicans were justice as suspicious as democrats may be today about his motivations for launching that attack. the advantage president clinton had 21 years ago when he did that was he had a republican defense secretary in william cohen who he had been a senator from plain for manooirn many ye

said this was legitimate and that helped the president get through that. the question is whether this president or anybody working for him has that credibility with the congress that will be able to say don't engage in this kind of conspiracy-minded suspicions. it's a harsher time now and it's a more suspicious time and we'll see. it hasn't yet played out the way it might in the days to come. we'll see how democrats respond to this. so far what democrats are saying is to criticize what they see as the reckless quality of this without necessarily tying it to politics. they're worried about escalation or say they're worried about escalation even as they agree he was a bad actor on the stage. but we'll see where that goes. the old rally around the president during times of national security crisis phenomenon we used to experience in washington seems to have dissipated in the recent years. even moments like this when, you know, a country is facing, you know, serious overseas conflict, tends up being, you know,

divided into politics. the water's edge is no longer a boundary for that. >> i guess to some extent it will depend on what happens in the days and weeks to follow and when the retaliation comes. on that point wanted to pick up on something you seemed to suggest earlier. the blow to iran with the death of soleimani might be so big that actually he is not replaceable, this significantly diminishes the ability of quds to respond. so are you saying that we may get it wrong in terms of our expectation that there's going to be a retaliation and escalation because of this and that actually perhaps the iranian threat is significantly neutralized just because of the death of this one person? >> well, it's going to hurt them. it's going to hurt them a lot. there's nobody really like him either with the presence or the charisma or the experience. he's the main event. he had a personal relationship with the supreme leader. it makes me wonder, you know, we talk about what's going on

inside the white house. and we know that trump has been ambivalent about getting involved in the middle east. but let's not forget, i mean, the policy of the white house has been regime change in iran. and everybody around the president, pompeo, secretary of state, everybody around him wants regime change. and they believe that with the sanctions, i mean, i've had these discussions with people in the white house, they believe they can cripple the iraniania rah jee iranian regime. >> peter baker, i'm curious what you expect the political fallout to be today in the senate and the house and we really can't underline this enough how unprecedented this seems to be that the president of the united states ordered a strike against

a man who considered killing americans one of his top priorities. so obviously no tears will be shed for general soleimani today. still, regardless of the man, regardless of the regime, the president of the united states ordered the killing of the top official, one of the top officials in a sovereign foreign country that we are not currently at war with. the ramifications of that, the legal ramifications of that are extraordinary and the justification that it gives iranians and any counterattack against u.s. officials just as extraordinary and chilling. >> well, think that's right. and the timing, of course, comes not just as the senate was going to return for some sort of an impeachment trial once they get their organization together with the house and the articles of impeachment. it also comes right when we're heading into the thicket of the early voting in the democratic presidential race and you heard

already, you know, joe biden, elizabeth warren, pete buttigieg, you heard these candidates, bernie sanders out there reacting to this. reacting sharply negative to this. it's going to force that issue on to their debate stage, in effect. it's going to raise questions about the -- who's would be the best commander and chief in the next administration if the democrats were to win. if they're critical of this what would they have done instead and we'll see how that plays out. president of course not above using mixing policy and politics and it wouldn't be surprising to see him, you know, bring this on to the debate stage himself through, you know, tweets and comments and rallies and so forth. but for the moment anyway his twitter feed is sticking to, you know, to warnings to americans to get out of -- out of the way in iraq, to stay away trt embas from

the embassy and he's playing it somewhat restrained at the moment. we'll see how long that lots as >> thanks so much for being with us this morning. we appreciate it. still ahead on "morning joe," do progressive democrats need republican moderates to beat donald trump? tom nichols says they surely won't agree on everything, but they might have enough in common to save the constitution. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. you're wat" we'll be right back.

our president will start a war with iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate. he's weak and ease ineffective. so the only way he figures that he's going to get re-elected and aas sure as you're sitting there is to start a war with iran. unfortunately, we have a president that doesn't know the first thing about negotiation. we have a real problem in the white house. so, i believe that he will

attack iran sometime prior to the election because he thinks that's the only way he can get elected. isn't it pathetic? >> everything is projection or confession with that man. that was donald trump back in 2011 safely in the cocoon of his corner office at trump tower. part of the video series that was later removed from the trump organization's youtube channel. as you heard there, donald trump has repeatedly suggested his predecessor would strike iran only to help him politically at home. 2011 trump tweeted, quote, in order to get elected, barack obama will start a war with iran. the following year he posted, quote, now that obama's poll numbers are in the tailspin, watch for him to launch a strike in libya or iran. he is desperate. a few days later, quote, don't let obama play the iran card in

order to start a war in order to get elected. be careful, republicans. in 2013, trump tweeted i predict that president obama will at some point attack iran in order to save face. speaking of presidents in trouble politically, the year of their election, let's look at a new poll that shows a majority of americans believe that president trump has committed an impeachable offense and should be removed from office. that's according to a new poll this morning. 57% of americans polled agree that trump committed and impeachable offense unchanged since december 15th. 41% disagreed return one point. 52% said there is enough evidence to remove donald trump from office, that's like that fox news poll we saw several weeks ago. 45% there is not enough evidence. but 52% a clear majority say

there's never evidence to remove donald trump from office. and 55% of americans said they disapprove of president trump's handling of the impeachment process. only 28% approved. 52% of americans said that the house should not delay the senate trial of trump. 45% believe that they should wait. and 86% said that senators should be impartial jurors, unlike mitch mcconnell and lindsey graham. 10% said they should be guided by their party on how to vote. who are those 10%? and 57% also agreed that new witnesses and testimony should be heard. that's 57% said new witnesses and testimony should be heard during the trial. 39% disagreed. my gosh, gene robinson, if impeachment has been a bad

political play for nancy pelosi, donald trump would hate to see what a good political play would look like because those numbers are devastating for the president and the numbers are actually quite hopeful for democrats who believe they needed to do the right thing. >> absolutely. i mean, we've never had an impeached president seeking re-election so we didn't have really -- well, andrew johnson would have liked to be renominated but that was never in the cards. and so we didn't really have a data point to look at to -- for the political impact of impeachment. but there was no reason to think that it would be good for the impeached president, that just always seemed to me counterintuitive. that if you committed a high crime or misdemeanor by the house of representatives and

you've been called on the carpet in the most extreme and meaningful way that congress can do, how could that possibly be a positive for you? there are people in trump world who believed it would be, i think, they just had been just drinking the kool-aid and not taking an objective look at it. so now you have substantial majorities of americans, clear majorities of americans, who -- who think he committed an impeachable offense who want to see an actual fair trial, what who want to hear new evidence. and those numbers are holding for nancy pelosi if not getting better and better for her. so i think she's -- her political calculation has certainly been borne out. >> and by a clear majority, americans want to see the president removed from office as well.

tom nichols, we have a president in the middle of an impeachment crisis who now through his decision last night has placed america squarely in the middle of an international crisis. >> and i don't think that's going to help him. you know, this is a president who ran on staying out of middle east conflict, was heavily critical of the bushes and his predecessors. and now whether people think he's wagging the dog or know the, i think even if he were not being impeached, this would raise some eyebrows. for a guy that said i don't want to get into these things, he took out one of the senior officials of the iranian regime almost guaranteeing a conflict. it's really interesting -- >> he's -- really -- >> we couldn't -- >> he's in nixon territory. >> tom, we really couldn't name something else that he could do short of sending troops into a

country that would be more provocative, could we, that would move america closer to war than what he chose to do last night? >> no, this is about it. i mean, he has sent -- for somebody who claims that he's going to pull us out of all of these places, he's actually sent troops into these places, including into saudi arabia which his supporters don't seem to mind. one thing that i think this should underscore is that when it comes to trump's base, they just don't hold him responsible for anything. and i doubt they will in this case. i doubt that, you know, most of the people out there that are going to support him on this really understand who soleimani is. they will be caught by surprise when the iranians finally respond. but i don't think it's also going to help him out of this jam. i think that nothing has helped him thought of jam because he's a serial confessor. and he keeps incriminating himself. and every day that goes bye b,

piles up more evidence in favor of impeachment. i agree that this rally around the flag effect isn't going to happen and i don't think this is going to help him very much. >> all right. coming up, one of the florida's most prominent republicans joins us to explain how his opposition with donald trump cost him lifelong friends, law clients, and ultimately his job. and yet he has no regrets. we'll talk to this former powerhouse in the republican party coming up next on "morning joe." e republican party coming up next on "morning joe." hey, saved you a seat.

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from serving as executive director for reagan and bush in 1984 to serving as senior adviser to jeb bush for his gubernatorial race ten years later, max has always been at the forefront of republican politics in florida. he calls himself a never trumper and says that has cost him quite a lott. let's bring in right now legenda legendary political consultant. max, thanks so much for being with us. you diagnosed yourself and you

did it yesterday in a column as having -- you self-diagnosed yourself as having trump derangement syndrome and said he has changed your life and not for the better. talk about losing friends, losing money, losing your job because you refused to remain silent about donald trump. >> well, it become apparent pretty early on, you know, to my shock and surprise that the republican party, including the establishment folks with whom i had worked for so long were going to take a knee no in front of donald trump. and i wasn't going to do that. i went couldn't do that. i consider myself a patriot and i consider him to be a danger to american democracy. so i spoke up, speaking out, many of my former friends i think didn't like it primarily because they were embarrassed by what they were doing. even though that's not the way they phrased it. and so many of us aren't friends

anymore. so my clients didn't like it so much. my law firm is in the business of making money, not enemies. which is perfectly understandable, i don't blame them. so now i'm not there anymore. and it's 2020 and i will do what i can for the restest year of to see if i can help get rid of him. >> so have you been as surprised as i have how many people who i worked with stood beside, fought with for balanced budgets, for less spending, for a strong nato defense, for a pushback against russian aggression, for free markets, for things that we were taught were conservative values, are you shocked by just how many of your friends and former coworkers have, as you said,

taken a knee before a man who is the biggest spending president in the history of the republic? >> i'm appalled and stunned beyond shocked. you know, when i think back to the party of ronald reagan and the years following that, you know, when you and i were both making our bones and look at the republican party now and its so narrow and stunted and backward looking, you know, it's nothing but make america 1956 again. and the trump party is fear, fear of the future. and that's not going to cut it long term and if they don't change, if we can't turn it around, the republican party will become an ethnic rural minority party in the upcoming years and that will ab i great tragedy. i don't intend to participate in it. >> you know, i've had several liberals say that the party that i was a part of, the party that you were a part of has led to

donald trump. and, you know, i think we have to look long and hard at that party and what part we played in that party. at the same time, i remember george w. bush in 1998, 1999 coming to washington along with rowe telling republican congressmen and women you better get your heads screwed on straight, you better have an outreach operation to hispanics. you better get right with hispanic voters because they are the future of our party. and of course w. got 44, 45% of the hispanic vote in 2004. man, that is a long way from donald trump calling hispanics breeders and locking their children up in cages at the border. talk about that disconnect as well. >> yeah, it is -- in my judgment, at the bottom this

principle of fear i spoke about is white fright. it's the consistent subliminal message in the whole immigration disaster in the voter suppression is the fear that america's becoming less white and be that soon what is it? 2030 white americans will be a minority in the country, as will everyone else. but think that's what's driving most of this is fear and insecurity. anger, angst, and envy. and it's just so unpleasant, so ugly and so backward looking that it's -- it's really -- it's really a betrayal of what true conservativism is, in my opinion, and what ronald reagan and those who followed him tried to make of this party and what they tried to make of america. and it's -- as i said a while

ago, i'm appalled. >> tom nichols, some of our friends might disagree with what mac just said. but if you look at what ronald reagan said about immigration and his poll virs they aicies o, they are 180 degrees of where donald trump is trying to take this party and this country. >> mac put it so eloquently about fear and the look back and trying to make america not really into 1956 but into some idealized version of 1950 sthaix they remember but didn't exist. but the thing i find so striking is how fast under donald trump the republican party lost its confidence in its own ideas. that this optimistic party that daniel patrick moynihan once referred to the republicans as the party of ideas at the dawn of the 1980s. there's no longer any of this self-confidence. it's this churlishing an gris a

resentment that has no confidence and optimism, no ability to believe that it could convince not just hispanics, but young people, women, you know, that there was anything to offer in the republican party. they've simply gave up on that and doubled down on a base strategy for the short-term win. and that means that the republican party and to a larger extent the conservative movement now stands for nothing. it stands for just staying in power for the sake of power. >> that's right. donald trump may survive 2020, but i doubt the republican party's going to survive donald trump. >> no, i think we all agree with that. mac, thank you so much for being on today. we really do appreciate it. hope to see you soon down in florida. >> all right. see you back down here. coming up next -- yes, sir. coming up next, much more on

"morning joe." we're going to be talking about gene's message to democratic party leaders. what he's called the collateral damage of the party's debate rules. we're back in a moment with more "morning joe." we're back in a e "morning joe."

i ran a bold campaign. i didn't compromise on what i believed in so i can hold my head eye. we got about a month until the iowa caucus and it just became clear that we didn't have the resources, didn't have the organization because of the lack of resources. and i lost a mayor's place in 2005 when i was 30 years old and it always, you know, it never feels good to loose. but one of the things i remember clearly from back then it's about ti about timing as much as anything else. >> julian castro after ending

his presidential campaign yesterday, and, gene robinson, you've been looking at all of this and what it means for the democratic race. your newest "washington post" op-ed is entitled democrats are starting to look like a white only party. you fwliet part, let me get this straight. kamala harris and julian castro are out of the presidential race while pete buttigieg and tom steyer are still in. and there may not be a single person of color on stage at the last debate before actual voting begins with the iowa caucuses. this is the democratic party we're talking about, you will recall that the race began with well over 20 candidates forcing the party to hold two night debates. the rules were design to win over the field and they did the job perhaps all too well. diversity is among the collateral damage. order had to be imposed on an unruly race. but the party's debate rules have done so mee prematurely. as a result, the democrat's greatest electoral strength diversity likely will not be on display. whites only is not a look at

that party should want. gene. >> yeah. katty, i'm not saying that the rules are unfair, i'm saying that their effect is unfortunate. i don't think we should ignore that. right now the only five candidates who shall qualified for the next debate are joe biden, elizabeth warren, bernie sanders, pete buttigieg, and amy klobuchar. and they all worked very hard to get where they are to satisfy the democratic national committee's increasing requirements for numbers of contributors and standing in the polls. and so congratulations to all of them. but, that -- that field that we see on that last debate before iowa will not reflect the party's diversity, which is its greatest strength. and i think that's an unfortunate thing for the party. and i think you have to -- you have to conclude or i have to

conclude that the rules did do the job too well. and so candidates like -- who are still in the race like senator cory booker and businessman andrew yang and former governor deval patrick will not be on that stage. they don't have enough support, they don't have enough contributors. that's all well and good. but those are voices who speak to important constituencies of the democratic party and it's a shame that those voices will not be heard. >> but, gene, tofobviously it w black voters in south carolina and across the country who heard kamala harris's pitch, who heard cory gardner's pitch, deval patrick's pitch, they're still hearing that. and, you know, they actually have run effective campaigns but

never broke now. >> absolutely. >> so can it really be blamed on the dnc or is it just for some reason black voters prefer joe biden this year? >> and -- and if they biden and prefer joe biden, there's lots of good reasons for that i think and we'll continue to support him. i don't question the idea that -- again, i don't question the fairness of this process, but i think it was a bit premature, the winnowing ended up -- it looked to be a huge problem with the 25 candidates or however many there were at the beginning, and we have to get this down to a manageable level somehow. i think in the end that was done a bit quickly and it's -- you know, we haven't even -- there hasn't even been any voting yet. we are not even at iowa.

>> right. >> i think so, you know, how many candidates should be in this debate? not all 14 who are still running probably, but probably maybe two or three more than five. i think we streamlined a bit too quickly. >> i had said cory gardner. of course, i meant to say cory booker who is running a very good race in the democratic primary. tom nichols, you are offering democrats some advice in your latest op-ed for the "usa today". if you read twitter for three minutes a day you know democrats love when you offer them advice. true? progressive democrats need republican moderates to beat donald trump in 2020, in which part you write this. if president donald trump loses in 2020, his defeat will come at the hands of a coalition led by the democratic party that will be composed in the main of energized and angry democrats. in swing states they could get

the support of a small but important kcadre who intended t vote republican in the past. if this happens it shows they can put differences aside when a threat that trump poses to our values and the constitution itself. the republican party has been main lining the narcotic of issue rational rage for years now, and republicans are not going to quit cold turkey. there will be no moment of clarity. most of them are older people who will take this addiction to their graves. the democrats, however, must think about defeating not only trump but also the next trump. there are plenty of gop opportunists in waiting to capture the nationalist populous mantle. it comes with a built-in reservoir of votes. to build a resilient consensus, the democrats need to govern instead of trying to outbid the gop in the culture war, a game at which republicans will always be better.

tom, maybe you are talking to democrats, your democratic friends on twitter, but it seems to me you look at the polls right now, the democrats seem to be moving towards a more moderate biden candidacy. you look at the polls that we've been reading out on this show for a year now, and the majority of democrats have wanted a more moderate course than, say, sort of a progressive course that is more representative of twitter. >> you know, i think my point kind of dovetails with what gene wrote because in order to break out of the pack, to try to get above the noise in these thunder dome primaries where, you know, you get 20 people showing up, you get candidates trying to stakeout more extreme positions. eventually those positions get hung around the neck of the eventual nominee. i know democrats hate to thing anything in a primary matters

later, but it does. i mean, you know, joe, you were a republican, you know the republican strategists watch democratic primaries very carefully. that's future ad material for whoever the nominee is. i think that one of the problems here is that the democrats have to think about the fact that they can beat donald trump. i still think trump maybe has 50/50, 60/40 to get re-elected because of the electoral college, but then they have to govern. they have to put together some kind of a coalition that can be durable, that will last more than the first ten minutes of an election next november. you know, i don't think they need republican moderates. i think they need suburban women in particular in swing states. as i point out in the article, they've already got me. i have already committed to voting for their nominee, but i think that they have to think about the kind of positions that they stakeout early and they have to think about creating a

durable governing coalition if and when they finally beat donald trump, and i'm not sure they're thinking that far ahead. >> well, demographics are changing dramatically, and we haven't talked about this enough on this show, that what we may see is a new democratic coalition that like the fdr coalition actually governs for 20, 30 years. this republican party of donald trump has pushed itself into a corner. demographics is destiny. if texas goes democratic in 2024 or arizona and georgia do, which demographics suggest it is likely that will happen, you have a republican party that is going to be isolated for a very long time. that offers a new democratic coalition an opportunity that they have not had since fdr left the scene in 1945. still ahead, just days after claiming that he wanted peace with iran president trump makes

a provocative move that actually could lead america to war. the very latest on those airstrikes that killed iran's top military commander and what it means for the security of the united states and america's allies. more "morning joe" in a moment. now at t-mobile you get free smartphones.

so you can stream like this. because we give you that. judy: "i love you guys." we also give you that. so you can stargaze like this. all because of that. i learned about myuse grandfather's life. on ancestry and it was a remarkable twentieth-century transformation. he did a lot of living before i knew him. bring your family history to life like never before. get started for free at ancestry.com

you likei sure do!ith us? my friends are getting healthier thanks to the breakthrough treatments discovered at st. jude. and we freely share our research to help save kids with cancer everywhere. s'more? s'more? i haven't had one yet! give thanks for the healthy kids in your life, donate now at stjude.org or shop wherever you see the st. jude logo. you ate them all! i did not. who, me? good morning and welcome to "morning joe" on this friday, january 3rd. let's get right to the significant escalation of

already-heightened tensions with iran. now, just days after insisting he doesn't want war with iran, american officials say president donald trump authorized a drone strike at baghdad international airport last night that, of course, killed iran's top general. a deputy was also killed. the strike puts the united states on a war footing with tehran. the government of iraq released these photos in the aftermath. general soleimani was the head of the iranian military's elite quds force who led iran's military forces throughout the middle east and was considered by many including dexter filkins who profiled the man and knows the middle east as well as anyone else, he said he was the single most significant military figure in the middle east over the past generation. the pentagon says, quote, general soleimani was actively developing plans to attack

american diplomats and service members in iraq and throughout the region. adding, quote, this strike was aimed at deterring future iranian attack plans. the united states will continue to take all necessary actions to protect our people and our interests wherever they are around the world. by most accounts soleimani and his quds force were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of americans and coalition service members. he is accused of orchestrating the attack last friday that killed an american contractor. the pentagon also says he approved attacks on the u.s. embassy in baghdad this week. iran's supreme leader vowed, quote, harsh retaliation and severe revenge. ir iran president hasan rouhani said iran and, quote, other free nations of the region will take revenge. iran usa foreign minister zarif said, quote, the u.s. bears

responsibility for all consequences. he called soleimani the most effective force fighting isis, al nusrah and al qaeda and said the killing is, quote, extremely dangerous and a foolish escalation. secretary of state mike pompeo tweeted this video posting, quote, iraqis, iraqis dancing in the street for freedom. thankful that general soleimani is no more. with us this morning we have washington anchor for bbc world news america katty kay, pull its your prize winning column nest and associate editor of "the washington post" and msnbc political analyst eugene robinson. columnist for "the daily beast" and coauthor of the best-selling book "isis inside the army of terror" michael weiss. nbc correspondent in orlando. retired four star navy admiral

james stavridis, analyst for nbc news and msnbc. u.s. national editor at "the financial times" edward lose. admiral, let's begin with you. the common reaction among policy officials, opinion leaders in the united states and across the west last night was that soleimani is a bad man with the blood of americans and other allies all over him, and yet many, many concerns about an escalating conflict with iran that could lead to a war, about the ramifications of an administration not thinking through this policy and, of course, for those who are concerned about the united states constitution, the fact

that the united states of america last night had a president who approved the killing of the second ranking public official in another country that we were not at war at. we will let you unsort that. tell us your chief concerns this morning. >> well, let's start where you did, joe, which is soleimani is an evil person many . he is a villain. we are better off tactically for his piece being taken off the chess board. he was smart. he constructed very clever attacks on us, so tactically this is a positive. strategically -- >> also, admiral, just off the top, he considered himself to be a sworn enemy of the united states of america, and i suppose that you would agree with dexter filkins that he may have been the most significant military force in the middle east over the past generation. >> absolutely no question. when i commanded the mission in

afghanistan we saw his fingerprints all over attacks in western afghanistan on u.s. troops, blood on his hands doesn't begin to get at soleimani. tactically i'm glad he is gone. strategically, however, we are pouring gasoline on a smoldering fire with no structure or strategy for where we're going to take this thing next. i'll tell you, the pentagon today is going to be on all hands on deck, doing the defensive measures all over the world to make sure that we're prepared for the response because there will be a significant response. killing soleimani would be roughly -- it is hard to kind of categorize this, but it would be roughly like killing the current chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, general mark millie. by the way, taking out the second most active political actor in the united states in the government. so this will demand a response

from iran. so we have to up our defensive game in the persian gulf for our ships, in afghanistan for our troops there, in iraq, in syria, in europe, our u.s. troops in europe will be targeted. our ally, israel, will be targeted. so defensive measures up. and then, joe, we are to start to construct a real strategy here that lays out a case for how are we going to control this ladder of escalation which has jumped from iran killing a contractor to us killing their chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. big escalation. we better be prepared for the wave that is going to hit right now. >> ed lose, it may be more in line with if nancy pelosi were the speaker of the house and the chairman of the joint chiefs combined, that would be where soleimani is or was in iran's

government. again, a government that we don't have an official -- we haven't officially declared war against. let's talk about the consequences. is the world a safer place with soleimani gone? the same question we could have asked after the death of saddam hussein and after the death of moammar gadhafi. >> i guess we will find out. soleimani was widely tipped by many as the next president of iran. clearly assassinating foreign leaders is not something states normally do with each other. there's been i think very misleading comparisons made between the assassination of soleimani last night and osama bin laden. there's very little in common between these two. bin laden did not command a state. he was in hiding for several years. soleimani whereas the all-powerful figure in iran. so the consequences of this are

unknowable. there will be retaliation. i don't think iran is a suicidal country. i think the retaliation is not going to be overt, direct warfare. i'm sure it will be via proxies. i'm sure there will be cyberattacks. i'm sure there will be terrorist actions through proxies in the region. there's all kinds of ways in which iran could react, which will escalate it but not -- but not mark overt war. the question i'm all of us are asking and should be asking is whether president trump knows what he is doing and who is advising him. he made this decision from mar-a-lago. he clearly felt humiliated by the occupation of the u.s. embassy in baghdad. he clearly felt a need to respond. the question is does he know what the massive escalatory

implications are, and if not who is providing counsel to him at this time. >> and that has been, hans, of course concern for those covering the white house and donald trump for the past several years. you have a president who, again, escalated this from the killing of a u.s. contractor -- as tragic as that was -- to the killing of perhaps, well, the second most powerful man in iran, a country with the ability to strike back at will across the region and across the world. what can you tell us about the lead-up to this decision by donald trump? >> well, in terms of the briefings he is receiving, late last night he spoke with his secretary of defense mark esper as well as robert o'brien, the new national security adviser. he is in mar-a-lago. those conversations took place around 9:00 p.m. last night. the president is obviously being briefed, but is question is who is he going to brief. will he bring in foreign allies?

will he speak with house speaker nancy pelosi who passed articles of impeachment but hasn't transmitted them? these are the sort of questions the president is waking up to. then there's the rhetoric which i would put in two categories. one, what does the president say. so far it is only tweeting a picture of the american flag, but you remember to what extent he celebrated the death of al-baghdadi almost immediately afterwards and talked about at his rallies. he has a scheduled rally this evening at an evangelical group. the other message the white house and pentagon could send is what sort of assets do they publicly acknowledge they are sending to the region. you know, in some ways, i was talking to an official last night, this was telegraphed by what esper was saying yesterday on the idea of a preemptive defense, preemptive action, but also sending in elements of the 82nd airborne. it was a clear signal that something was going on in addition to those 100 marines. now, there is an aircraft carrier in the north arabian sea, i believe it is the truman. they have a marine expeditionary

unit steaming to the region. to the extent they announce it will be interesting. everyone in the middle east at least in the centcom area of responsibility understands that u.s. troops have vulnerabilities there. they sent patriots out in the last couple of months at least in saudi arabia so they have some defenses, but no one is under the impression that there are vulnerabilities. there are also a lot of assets. yesterday the combined joint task force put out a list of civilian casualties from 2014 to 2019, and the civilian casualties aspect was interesting. what struck my eye about that is in the last five years there have been 35,000 strikes against isis, and that's when you look at a precision strike that happened in baghdad, one of the reasons they're so good at this is that the military and the pentagon has been going after terrorists for five years and they have a lot of assets and

can bring a lot of fire power should it escalate, guys. >> still ahead on "morning joe," the strike last night follows months of tensions with iran. we will run through the timetable and what it means for what comes next. you are watching "morning joe". we will be right back. we will b. if your gums bleed when you brush, you may have gingivitis. we will b. and the clock could be ticking towards bad breath, receding gums, and possibly... tooth loss. help turn back the clock on gingivitis with parodontax. leave bleeding gums behind. parodontax.

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. >> the u.s. drone strike in baghdad that killed the commander of iran's islamic revolutionary guard corps is viewed as part of a broader campaign that stretches back to president trump's decision to withdraw in 2018 from the iran nuclear deal. while the u.s. has since imposed massive sanctions on iran in efforts to force tehran to renegotiate a new agreement to curb nuclear ambitions, end the missile program and stop funding terrorist forces in the region, it only led to a string of increased provocations that brought us to this point day. in may the u.s. pointed a finger at tehran for a wave of attacks on two saudi arabian oil tankers

and two other vessels near the straig strait of hormuz. days later, drone attacks that struck a major pipeline. a key u.s. ally blamed iran for the attack. on may 19th a rocket landed near the u.s. embassy in baghdad. while no one was harmed and the culprit responsible for the attack was unclear, president trump tweeted a response saying, quote, if iran wants to fight that will be the official end of iran. never threaten the united states again. a new shipping incident occurred the following month as the u.s. blamed iran for the june 12th attacks on two oil tankers in the golf of owe man. then on june 20th, iranian forces shot down a u.s. military drone over the strait of hormuz, bringing the countries to the brink of war at that point. before trump called off a retaliatory military strike on iran the night before it was set to take place, that move reported led ayatollah khamenei

to believe that he was a twitter tiger. the first signs of iran were marked of withdrawing from the attack. another shipping incident on july 19th as iran seized a british oil tanker in the strait of hormuz. on july 22nd iran announced it had captured 17 alleged u.s. spice working for the cia and sentenced some of them to death. the white house denied that claim. in august iran's president announced a new long-range surface-to-air missile defense system. in september, the u.s. blamed iran after yemen's rebels claimed responsibility for drone attacks on two major saudi facilities. last weekend the u.s. carried out military strikes against an iranian-backed militia group in response to the killing of an

american civilian contractor in iraq which led us to this week's storming of the u.s. embassy in baghdad by pro-iranian protesters and militia men and, joe, of course to the attack last night on soleimani. >> the killing of soleimani and, michael weiss, i remember back in may i believe it was of 2011 after the killing of osama bin laden americans stormed the white house with american flags, chanted "usa." of course, nothing like that last night. certainly no one would expect that to happen considering that very few people knew who soleimani was in the united states before last night, but at the same time is it not fair to say that the killing of soleimani will have a far greater impact on the shaping of events moving forward in the world, middle east and the world, than even the killing of osama bin laden? >> i think it is fair to say it is the most seismic event in the

middle east in the 21st century. dexter filkins, qasem soleimani was perhaps the most machiavellian military commander we have seen not just in one generation but several, single handedly overseeing iran's proxy wars in -- i lost count in the number of countries, at least half a dozen. in 2007 to david petraes he said that he hoped he enjoyed the brief respite, i have been busy in beirut. he is singular. i would argue that his replacement has just been announced by the quds force. the iraq veteran very charismatic. in recent days, particularly during the u.s.-led campaign against isis, soleimani has risen in the culture personality

style of a figure that led to speculation he was plotting a political career in iran perhaps as president, perhaps something bigger. he was doing a lot of selfies on the battlefield, essentially taunting the united states. it is important to remember, joe, when the u.s. waged its occupation of iraq, we forget this. we think we fought a campaign against sunni jihadists and insurgent that's the tip of the spear being, of course, al qaeda in iraq, the organization which became isis. the joint operations command had two task forces in place under general mccrystal and mcraven. one was called task force 16 which went after al qaeda. the other was called task force 17, which was dedicated to, quote, countering iranian influence. by that they meant countering qasem soleimani. by the u.s. government's own estimate, iran, again with soleimani orchestrating all of this, was responsible for 603 u.s. soldier fatalities in iraq. at one point, i believe it was june 2007, shia militias under

soleimani's command or at least overseen by him, were responsible for two-thirds of the u.s. fatalities in iraq. if you look at the history of the u.s. occupation of iraq, that i think is going to give you a foretaste of what is to come. this is the kind of thing that iran and, again, soleimani especially were past masters at, waging plausibly deniable attacks against american targets, loads of american blood on their hands and then saying, well, it wasn't us, it was somebody else. that's the kind of thing i would anticipate going forward. again, this is such a sort of unprecedented event, i can't emphasize that enough, it is almost impossible to say what the next steps are going to be. is it conventional war or is it, as i mentioned, proxy war and, you know, cyber warfare by iran, more attacks, tanker warfare in the gulf and so on and so forth. i actually think that the supreme leader of iran himself doesn't know what to do at this moment. remember, on july -- on january 1st, two days ago, khamenei was

taunting donald trump on twitter saying the u.s. can do nothing, basically calling the president a paper tiger. if you know anything about donald trump, this is a man who doesn't like to be taunted, who doesn't like to be sort of bullied back by somebody else. i would actually wager that one of the precipitating factors for this operation was, indeed, the supreme leader of iran basically saying, "bring it on." >> coming up, a look at how other powerful players in the region are reacting to the strike. that's next on "morning joe." g . i have moderate to severe pnow, there's skyrizi. ♪ things are getting clearer, yeah i feel free ♪ ♪ to bare my skin ♪ yeah that's all me. ♪ nothing and me go hand in hand ♪ ♪ nothing on my skin ♪ that's my new plan. ♪ nothing is everything.

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let's bring in right now the co-hosts of "morning joe's" "first look" ayman and yasmin. let's begin with you, yasmin. what can you tell us? >> it has been shocking news overnight to say the least, joe, as i am talking to sources overseas. any separation -- i mean any ideological separation we saw between the power structures we saw in iran we thought existed, especially because of the jcpoa, they have been unified. as you were talking earlier, you had the president and supreme leader vowing revenge. he had the new chief of the irgc already in place. iran has a contingency plan for attacks like this one, hence the

reason you see so many americans in the middle east and especially israel on high alert as we speak. as you heard from michael weiss, you can't help but think people are on high alert in europe and the united states as well. i actually read a piece from general stanley mccrystal who talked about a time in 2007 when he actually had the opportunity to take out soleimani. he talked about the scope of soleimani's power throughout the middle east, and he basically said the reason why he didn't take out soleimani at that time was because he knew of the political repercussions and ramifications that would have taken place. the big question here is why, i've been trying to figure out why would the trump administration choose to take out soleimani at this point. the only thing you can hope for and think of is that the united states actually had some actionable intelligence in place to suggest that soleimani was planning an attack on american assets somewhere in the middle east. we have no confirmation of that whatsoever, but it is the only thing that you can expect in a situation like this when you are

taking out someone at such a high level. as you mentioned, the number two in iran. >> which, of course, ayman, we don't know and we won't know for some time if ever if that is, in fact, true, that he had plans, any specific plans that would be a step above what he has been doing for years. but, ayman, i wonder if you have been struck as i have since this shocking news broke last night that even iran's fier fiercest enemies in the region, the sunni, the sunni leaders across the middle east all quietly were deeply concerned, shaken in fact by this killing. i mean you might expect some of them to offer words of support, but they are not.

several leaders i spoke to last night openly concerned about what this is going to bring, not only to the united states but to their countries. >> yes, absolutely joe. in fact, i have been kind of talking to a few different sources across the region from lebanon to the gulf countries to get a sense of what the sentiment is this morning. in fact, i think one of the most poignant quotes summed up to me by an officially spoke to was that american is playing checkers, iran is playing chess. what you have in the region is american is bouncing around from point to point, cancelling the jcpoa, deciding to ratchet up pressure, killing an iranian commander, violating iraqi sovereigty with all kinds of other legal questions around this airstrike. but the iranian government is playing a long-term game here. you have so many proxies in place across the region, and

their assessment was they're not likely to respond in the short term. they're expecting iran to regroup, go through the mourning period and play the long game as they have for the past 40 years in the region, whether it is in iraq, syria, yemen, lebanon. all of those are possibilities. the question becomes whether or not the united states thought this through over various stages. the day of the decision to carry out the strike, certainly not likely to see a response. the day after, what will happen in the immediate term. we have seen the iranian government announce the replacement of the quds force commander and that suggests something very important here, that the iranian government, the paramilitary forces, the quds forces, although they are definitely dependent on soleimani for his strategy and his charisma, they're able to remen mi replenish. they relish martyr dom in a way that allows them to recruit more. it is not a government that's been weakened in iran as a response of the airstrike. expect them over the course of the long term, over the next

decade or so to still maintain their posture across the middle east, if not much more aggressively. a lot of the countries waking up this morning may be expressing some relief soleimani is dead, but by far much more concerned about what iran is going to do in the months and years ahead in terms of destabilizing the region even more. >> all right. thank you so much, yasmin and ayman. greatly appreciated it. coming up, we turn to the president's impeachment and a new column that says democrats are the ones who stand to suffer from delaying the senate trial. "the washington post" explaining that argument next on "morning joe." at argument next on "mornig joe. searching for a way to help stop your cold sore?

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what is your message to americans who might have concerns about your ability to be an impartial juror given your comments coordinating with the white house? >> i'm not an impartial juror. this is a political process. there's nothing judicial about it. >> i have tried to give a pretty clear signal i have made up my

mind. i'm not trying to pretend to be a fair juror here. >> there wasn't any doubt here. >> that's a little preview of how the senate majority leader and the chairman of the senate judiciary committee plan to act as jurors in the senate impeachment trial of donald trump. i wonder if they still feel that way after the concerns by not only an awful lot of people in the press, and not just liberals in the press, but a lot of people in the press as well as some republicans in the senate who are now voicing concerns about them basically saying -- not basically. they're saying that they support a rigged process that ignores what the majority of americans want. anyway, time for some must-read op-eds for you. we picked one from "newsweek" entitled why democrats should drop the senate impeachment and play -- by tom rogers and one from "the washington post" entitled "democrats are the ones who

stand to suffer by delaying the senate impeachment trial." with us now the authors of those two pieces, senior contributing columnist for "newsweek" and cnbc founder and contributor tom rogers, also is former senior counsel to a congressional committee. also with "the washington post", karen tumulty. why don't we start with you, karen. explain what you think the democrats are doing wrong. >> well, it is not that i think they are doing wrong. i think they have the potential to do wrong at this point. i think until now the impeachment process in the presidential race has been able to operate on two separate spheres. as of today the senate comes back into session, and we are now exactly one month away from the iowa caucuses. this is a time when i think the presidential race, we are seeing, is very, very unsettled. we saw that in the sudden rise

of bernie sanders. so the question for democrats here, and i suspect it is a calculation that is very much on nancy pelosi's mind, is do they want to continue sort of tilting against what is an impregnable wall in the senate or do they, you know, as the case has been made, do they want to focus more on making the best case they possibly can to the real jurors who could throw donald trump out of office, who are the american voters. just take a look. right now the next debate is january 14th. five democratic candidates have qualified for it. if there is a trial under way at that point, three of them are going to be sitting in that senate chamber silently and really unable to be talking to people about what at this point people say are the issues that are really on their mind, much more so than impeachment.

>> yes, and we've heard that time and again. even democrats were saying inside the house of representatives during the mueller investigation that when they go home americans aren't talking about that and they're not talking about impeachment now. they're talking about kitchen table issues starting with can they afford health care, can they afford health care for their children, can they afford college for their children. do they believe they're going to be able to have an american dream that looks anything like their parents' american dreams, which leads us, tom, to your "newsweek" article where you suggest to democrats, just skip the trial. take it straight to the american people. they are the real jury. explain. >> well, i agree it is an impregnable wall. we know what the outcome is going to be in the senate, and what is going to come from that is a donald trump victory tour. why throw him a victory tour? two, it is not just about the

presidential race. we have a senate at stake, and in swing states we have some very vulnerable republicans. my view is hold back impeachment. let the pressure on them build. get this over for them quickly. mcconnell is smart. he knows he needs to protect them in some ways. he will craft some procedural votes that allow them to vote with the democrats and show that they were not full lap dogs of the white house. but at the end of the day getting that behind them is not as effective, i think, as this continuing to play out, pressure building as more and more things come out over the course of the year and calls for them to support impeachment, which i think will become increasingly popular in their states. three, i think the democrats do have to change the narrative here. ultimately, this is going to be up to the american voter. i think they're much stronger saying, hey, if we're going to leave this to the american voter -- which is what the

republicans in the senate have been saying all the time -- hey, we're too close to an election, it is up to the voters, how do you then say, we're not going to give the voters everything that need by way of information to make an informed decision? >> tom, are you -- are you saying here that you don't mind the impeachment vote, you want the impeachment vote, you just want to delay the impeachment vote until you get more information later in the year because that will put maximum pressure on cory gardner, susan collins, martha mcsally, tom tillis, who is sitting at 31% in north carolina, to do the right thing? >> well, you certainly don't want the impeachment vote now. we thought there might have been enough pressure on independents in the swing states that somehow those vulnerable republicans would be forced to vote for impeachment and then they would be primaried and you would end up with weaker general election senate candidates. that is clearly not happening.

so it is somewhere between let's not have a senate vote at all and not hand donald trump a victory lap and holding off for a considerable period so that pressure does build. we're not just playing here for the white house. the candidates on the democratic side are having no problem out there talking about health care, talking about all of the issues that matter. i agree completely that's where their focus ought to be, but we have a senate to think about also. i think this vote as it relates to senate incumbents will be a critical one as to whether or not they are tied totally to trump or able to craft the path of independents which will help in the general election. i think the longer the vote is held out the better it will be in terms of increasing their vulnerability. >> karen, picking up on what tom was just saying there, the idea that delaying the senate trial process until closer to the election so that it is more in people's minds when it comes to the november vote, interestingly there is a poll that shows 57%

of americans would like a trial that actually produces new witnesses, do you think if there were a trial, say, in the summer that had new witnesses, whether they were witnesses that democrats wanted or the republicans wanted, it could have a quantifiable impact both on the senate race and the presidential race at that point? >> well, i am still skeptical of that, but i think the two scenarios we are talking about here have in common is that really what democrats i don't think want to see happen is to see the end of january, february and march being consumed by a senate impeachment trial. this is a time that will be very important for these democratic candidates. you have the first contest in iowa on february 3rd. by a month later on super tuesday you have states that represent a third of the u.s. population voting. by the end of march you probably

know who the nominee is going to be or you know that you are headed for some kind of contested convention. i mean i think that these are such critical weeks that to have the -- you know, sort of split screen of an impeachment trial, will really hamper the democrat's ability to put forward the best candidate to potentially defeat donald trump. >> going into the iowa caucus, senator bernie sanders is turning his attention to former vice president joe biden. in a recent interview with "the washington post", sanders attacked biden's record and electability saying, woet, just a lot of baggage that joe takes into a campaign, which isn't going to create energy and excitement. he brings into this campaign a record which is so weak that it just cannot create the kind of excitement and energy that's going to be needed to defeat donald trump. sanders also hit biden over his ties to the political establishment and wall street

adding, quote, people are tired of the traditional types of campaigns in which candidates like joe are running to wealthy people's homes and raising large super of money. yesterday joe biden was asked about sanders' comments during a campaign stop in iowa saying, good luck, bernie, lots of luck in your senior year, bernie. that's what they used to say in the yearbooks, you know, lots of luck in your senior year. not exactly sure, karen, what that means, but this is -- this is not surprising. this is not shocking. i mean, you know, the attacks between democrats are so mild this year compared to attacks between republicans in 2016 or i got to say in just about any presidential campaign that you or i have covered. this has been fairly mild stuff. >> it is. it is. you know, it is sort of one man's baggage is another man's

electability. so that really is what we see when we talk to voters out on the trail, when you look at the polls, what democrats are just laser focused on, much more so than the candidates, the differences on the issues. much more so than the differences in their record, is essentially who is the strongest person that they can put up against donald trump. >> and i think the litmus test issue here is really wisconsin, who can win wisconsin. if the democrats flip michigan and pennsylvania, which it looks like they got a good chance of doing given where white suburban women are now trending, it all comes down to wisconsin. if everything else is the same, even though michigan and pennsylvania flip, if trump holds wisconsin, he wins by one electoral vote. if we are talking about throwing this to the american voters, the jury, beyond giving them all of the information they need to

make that decision, ultimately the witnesses and the documents so we can have an informed electorate here, what we also need is to protect the fairness of that decision, free from russian interference. this is all about foreign interference in elections. you got 18 counties in wisconsin with i.t. people of three to a county which are no match for russian military intelligence. if the russians really want to throw this election and we want to talk about something unfair, not a partial house process or an unfair senate trial, fairness to the american voter means protecting those vulnerable places where the election is really going to come down to. that's where the democrats really ought to turn the focus in terms of the discussion. >> speaking about that, if donald trump wins all of the states he won last time other than pennsylvania and michigan,

if those go to joe biden -- >> yes. >> -- a wisconsin win i think makes it 270 to 268, donald trump would win by two electoral votes. so it really does, as tim russert said in 2000, that it came down to florida, florida, florida. 2020 may be the year of wisconsin, wisconsin, wisconsin. >> yes. i was listening to that too from tom, and that number of one or two electoral college votes. if you are democrats, you know, you almost want to move 10,000, 20,000 voters into wisconsin, to suddenly register there because you know it will be that close, right? if they win it, the republicans or democrats, it will be razor thin, that margin in wisconsin. it will be fought in the suburbs around milwaukee and the counties. maybe the democrats holding in milwaukee will tip the balance, but they're clearly focused on it, too. >> it wasn't just donald trump's

23,000 slim vote victory in wisconsin last time. kerry won the vote by about 5,000 votes or won the state by 11,000 votes. wisconsin sure that the integrity of wisconsin elections are protected. >> i love how he says 20,000 people need to move to wisconsin. i actually moved there, it's not like winston churchill will get in the car and pick a new area he'll represent. >> you know there are democratic strategists who are thinking the same thing, joe. they could have just moved a bunch of people there. >> trust me, republican strategists have thought about it, as well, and are probably doing it. fair warning for all of us, karen, you just pointed out, iowa, a month from today, we can no longer say these polls are meaningless. thin of course, this is a beauty

contest this election is six month, five months away. it is on us. so let's buckle up. karen, thank you so much for being with us. tom rogers, thank you, as well. we greatly appreciate it and we'll be reading your pieces in "the washington post" and "news week." our next guest has been warning of intervention in the middle east who was warning me about what america was doing quietly in syria years before that civil war erupted. columbia professor dr. jeffrey sacks joins me to talk about the assassination of iran's top general. we are back in 90 seconds. l. we are back in 90 seconds.

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there was an imminent attack that orchestrated, the primary motivator was qasem seoul s suleimani. wafs sitting before us was his travels throughout the reamon and his efforts to kill iraqis and people in other countries, as well. it was a strike that was aimed at both disrupting that plot, deterring further aggression. we hope setting the conditions for de-escalation as well. >> that was secretary of state mark pompeo on the decision to take out top iranian military command command

commander suleimani in baghdad. professor for sustainable development in columbia university economist dr. jeffrey sacks. jeffrey, thanks so much for being with us. >> happy new year. quite a new year it is. i remember for quite some time you've been warning me off and on the air about what the united states was doing in syria what the obama administration was doing in syria and it could lead to the civil war and we saw the consequences of that. now we have another american president killing a guy that most would consider to be a malignant force throughout the middle east, but at the same time the united states of america now assassinating a leader of a sovereign nation without congressional authorization. where does that put america in 2020. >> >> i think it's important to understand that the trump administration for several years has been trying to destabilize iran and it has done so by unilaterally withdrawing from an

agreement that was unanimously agreed by the u.n. security council, by the community of nations in the world and then imposing unilateral sanctions to crush the iranian economy. so our policy is one of destabilization. when destabilization comes, you have unrest which is definitely seen throughout the region, and you have the chance of escalation to war which is definitely on us today. since trump came into office the policy is regime change and destabilization of iran. it's very dangerous. it makes no sense. it is reducing our security, and what we've seen in the last 24 hours, but indeed 24 days and 24 months is that we continue to be on a very dangerous, downward

slope. >> i'm sorry to say it, but -- this is u.s. policy because an agreement had been reached worldwide that the u.s. unilaterally broke and shockingly, the u.s. is crushing the iranian economy deliberately and expecting something good is going to come out of that. >> the iranians obviously have long considered themselves enemies of the united states and have acted that way. do you consider iran an enemy of the united states? >> i do not. not intrinsically. i do not think there are permanent enemies and permanent friends and it depends on how one behaves in foreign policy. our war on iran goes back a long time. it goes back more than 60 years. the u.s., cia and the british overthrew a democratically elected government in 1953,

installed a police state where perhaps a little bit surprised when the iranian people were not thrilled. after the iranian revolution in 1979 the u.s. armed iraq to attack iran in an absolutely brutal war. we have imposed sanctions for decades on iran and now after a global agreement was reached we try to crush the iranian economy and destabilize the regime through absolutely deliberate policies in our face and then say they're our enemy? well, we have been at war with iran for decades, actually. it's weird -- it's absolutely weird because there's nothing intrinsic that makes iran an enemy of the united states in any way. >> yeah. that's clearly the iranian position. they do feel that they have been at war, as well for a long time. yesterday you had the defense

secretary, mr. esper saying that it was not helpful to make this about iran versus the united states. this was iran versus the rest of the world and you look at the reaction from europeans today and this is clearly an american issue and this is not something that even the brits are saying can we please just de-escalate this. >> to what extent does it matter today as we wait to see what kind of retaliation mounts and can mount against this attack that america is so isolated when it comes to iran. >> thank you. the u.s. is the one that left the international consensus. europe has been saying don't do this. china, russia, others, well that is actually pragmatic advice. don't stir the pot. this is the most unstable, dangerous region of the world and the united states is deliberately, deliberately destabilizing it. >> all right.

jeffr jeffrey sachs, thank you. we wanted to get to china, so much to talk about there. hopefully you can come back early next week. >> if you're not traveling -- >> i am traveling for the next couple of week abroad, but i hope to be back with you. >> when you come back report back for us. >> that does it for us this morning on "morning joe," stephanie rule picks up the coverage of a very busy news day right now. >> thanks so much, joe. good morning. i'm stephanie rule, it is friday, january 3rd and we start with breaking news. one of the most influential and dangerous figures in the middle east is dead taken out by a u.s. airstrike in baghdad. qasem suleimani was an iranian general and part of the revolutionary guard. he was a massive deal in the middle east. one of the most powerful figures and his death could mark a

dramatic escalation in the standoff between the united states and iran. suleimani was directing forces and working alongside militia groups in iraq, syria, lebanon and yemen. he worked hand in hand with ayatollah khamanei and orchestrated the vast majority of iran's foreign policy operations. in a statement the state department said he had approved this week's attacks on the u.s. embassy and was actively plotting more attacks when he was killed. secretary mark esper also blamed suleimani for deaths of hundreds of americans and coalition service members. suleimani was not just a military leader. he was hugely popular in iran and around the region. the general was described as, quote, a cult figure in his own country, someone who had been a natural front-runner for president if he had decided to