commitment to discussing it more in 2020 because it is going to be the issue that people are going to make some of their voting decisions on and certainly the decisions about their life. it is great to see you again. he is the chief economic adviser at allianz. that wraps up this show for me. i'll so you at 10:00 p.m. eastern. "deadline: white house" with nicolle wallace begins right now. ♪ hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in washington, d.c. where the nation's capitol has overnight been placed on a warfooting. donald trump last night ordering an attack on the second most powerful person in the iranian government, general qasem soleimani. soleimani who headed iran's global militia known as the quds force had the blood of hundreds of american soldiers on his hands. soleimani response for the iranian-backed militia ins iraq and their use of deadly ieds that killed and injured hundreds of american soldiers. it's a day to hold two seemingly

contradictory but equally important facts in our heads at the same time. soleimani was a u.s. adversary responsible for the deaths of american soldiers and his killing puts americans here and around the world in grave danger as iran vows revenge and harsh retaliation. and with news breaking today that more than 3,000 troops will be deployed to the region, there will be more u.s. troops potentially in danger. today donald trump speaking out just in the last hour hinting at what might have predicated the attack and trying to send a message of de-escalation. >> we caught him in the act and terminated him. under my leadership america's policy is unambiguous to terrorists who harm or intend to harm any american. we will find you, we will eliminate you, we will always prektd our diplomats, servicemembers, all americans and our allies. we took action last night to

stop a war. we did not take action to start a war. we did not seek regime change. however, the iranian regime's aggression in the region including the use of proxy fighters to destabilize its neighbors must stand and it must end now. >> trump there defending last night's actions as questions swirl about the specific intel that led to this rare assassination of iran's second in command, questions about whether the intelligence leading up to yesterday's strike was dramatically different from the intel surrounding soleimani to the last ten years, questions about the legal standing for a strike such as the one that killed soleimani and questions about the administration's preparations for the high stakes and dangerous consequences of an attack that trump's two predecessors reportedly passed on. "new york times" today reporting this. quote, mr. trump's decision to kill general soleimani was one

that presidents george w. bush and barack obama had rejected fearing it would lead to war. trump going where other ideologies refused to go is where we start today with some of our reporters and friends. former cia director john brennan. all three, lucky for us nbc news and msnbc analysts. plus, nbc news correspondent cara lee. and we are joined by courtney kube. she is with us from the pentagon. courtney, i have been following your reporting since this was breaking on the air. i have been riveted by everything you've had to report. what is the latest? >> thank you. it's been a whirl wind in the past 18 hours or so. so, we know now -- we don't know a whole lot more detail about the actual strike. what we do know is just in the last hour or two, a small group

of reporters here had an opportunity to speak to general mark milley on the record but off camera. and he spoke a little bit more about why the u.s. took this action right now. he would not speak about any of the intelligence behind it. but he did insist over and over that in fact qasem soleimani was actively planning behind the planning of an attack that was imminent. he said that they have just recently, very recently, gotten this intelligence that these attacks were imminent and that it was numerous attacks, it was not solely against any one target. he didn't want to talk specifically. but throughout the course of our reporting both carol and i have been talking to people who have said that in fact there were numerous locations where these attacks were being planned. so, we still don't know specifics about exactly what this was. we know that the d.o.d. and some u.s. intelligence officials are going to brief congress on some of those specifics. but i don't know that we'll

actually ever get those kinds of details. qasem soleimani, general milley was very specific in talking about his past, decades of being involved in attacks that killed americans. over and over ali khameini has has on his hands from series of attacks. but just in the last 90 days or so this uptick in attacks against americans and iraqis inside of iraq, he said that soleimani was directly, was actually directing many of those attacks and that they had the intent to kill. and very crucially general milley said that in fact despite the fact that soleimani is now dead, it's still possible that these attacks may still play out. it's just not clear, nicole. >> courtney, you know this, and actually everyone i have introduced knows this even better than i do, and at a more granular level. but soleimani's attacks against americans, american soldiers, have always been imintent, have

always been dire and deadly. so my question is from that off-camera brief, was there indication that they were larger in scale? was there indication that -- i mean, an imminent attack from soleimani has been a constant in terms of the threats our troops faced in iraq since we've been there. >> and not even just the troops in iraq, but there is the threat against u.s. troops in syria, throughout the whole region. these are these proxy forces, these militias that exist. soleimani has had control over many of them for some time. and many of them would act at his direction. when they were given the green light to go ahead, they would attack americans and iraqis. we can't discount that. it's not solely americans that they have been going after. many iraqis have lost their lives at the hands of the explosive projectiles that came from soleimani and the quds force. that technology was imported into iraq 15 years or so ago, and it killed scores and scores

of people there of civilians and servicemembers. soleimani, the threat from him has been very active. we have heard very only since well before this even happened this week since these tensions have reignited with iran, the u.s. military has spoken only about the fact that they believe these shia militia groups, the ones that were directed by soleimani that there are hundreds, upwards of 600 americans who were killed at the hands of these groups between 2003 and 2011. so you're absolutely right, nicole. this threat is not new. what we've all been trying to sort of figure out here is what was so imminent and was there some other trigger besides just the fact that this planning was apparently in the later stages? >> brett, let me bring you into this conversation. the threat represented by iran-backed militias is one that you know very well. take me through your thinking on

on whatever calculation had to have been made and what the intel picture had to have looked like for donald trump to make a decision that his two predecessors passed on? >> thanks, nicole. if you go back to the 2007-2008 time frame, that was the height of the surge. we had 160,000 troops in iraq. we were fighting these shia militia groups tooth and nail. we inflicted several casualties on them. we never really were able to stop those roadside bombs or those rocket attacks. they didn't really stop until a political decision was made in 2011. and since then, we really had not had any attacks in our facility against our people so almost a period of seven years. these started again, it appears according to general milley about six months ago. the first thing i used to do was the threat assessment and whether there was any indication that soleimani was reconsidering

his prohibition against his attacks against us. if there was, we would act immediately. clearly he made a decision about four months or so to greenlight attacks against us in iraq. but that was part of this action/reaction cycle we've been in really since may of last year. so we pulled out of the jcpoa in may of 201. a year goes by, nothing really happens. and iran made a strategic decision from at the hahn to begin a number of provocative acts, targeting a couple tankers in the gulf, the very serious attack in the aramco facilities in saudi arabia, so we've been on this escalatory cycle. and that shows a policy that may not have been fully gamed out. and i think the trump administration hopes that by this decapitation strike, we have achieved now what we call escalation dominance and that the iranians are really no longer going to test us, but i

think they will test us. it's clear that they will react to this in some way. it probably won't be immediate. but even if these imminent attacks were planned, it's just odd because if that was the case, that means there are cells ready to attack. so soleimani wasn't going to carry out those attacks himself, those cells are still in place. and then the onus will be back upon the united states for what we do. so this escalatory ladder can keep going higher. >> you piqued my ears went up when you said it's odd. what's odd about it? because a former intelligence official said to me this is not the kind of snake where you cut off the head and the snake dies. what's odd to you the fact that an imminent attack would be carried out whether soleimani is alive or dead, is that your point? >> the capabilities are there. they have been there for a long time. groups like hezbollah have not attacked us since 2011. they started launching rockets in october of last year again.

they still have the same capabilities. they still have the same weaponry. so, removing soleimani does not necessarily remove that threat at all. in fact, it could make those groups act with even less discipline. so our people are still at serious risk. we ask all americans to leave iraq today. we are extending the whole brigade into the middle east. that shows the internal intelligence in terms of blinking red lights. just one final point. it's always been soleimani's strategic game. why have these attacks happened over the last decade or so? it's been a strategic game to get us out of the middle east. he wants to see us leave syria. he wants to see us leave iraq. we are in iraq with a coalition of almost 20 countries that are with us there, mainly for the campaign against isis. soleimani wants us to leave. and the iraqi parliament now, as early as tomorrow, are organizing to vote, perhaps to ask us to leave the country. i think if we leave iraq after this, that would just be a real disastrous outcome. that would give soleimani what he wanted. it would give free reign to the

iranians even more than they have now. and then isis would fill the vacuum as well. so we'd kind of be right back to where we are. so i hope the administration is thinking clear that we have no intention of leaving iraq and doing quiet diplomacy with the iraqis to try to buy us some time. >> general mccaffrey, if you take brett's analysis that if there were attacks planned by soleimani, alive or dead, those attacks represent potentially an even graver threat without their leader there and with the passions of trying to avenge his death it. >> would sound like the additional troops heading to the region could be in more danger today than 24 hours ago. >> well, look. the tactical outcome on the ground in iraq favors the iranians. we've got a few thousand troops, 5,000 troops spread around the country. we have a vulnerable embassy. there is no iraqi government to te

deal with. the generals and the police and the iraqi army are trying to figure out what they should do. there's 165,000 of them. so we're a drop in the bucket. the iranians have the upper hand to escalate this on the ground in the middle east. our advantage is strategic air and naval power. if they miscalculate now and go after successfully a bunch of americans, abductions, kidnapping, murder, bombings, then i would anticipate we would run an air campaign against iran. it would be devastating to him. they shouldn't want that to happen, and there's no support among the american people for that kind of enhancement. so i think poor mr. trump, i applaud taking out soleimani, congratulations to the intelligence. if it had been a covert action, maybe you could have said it's worth it as a signal, the iranians were getting sick of

this. but when trump wanted to take credit, he put down a marker where there's bound to be serious trouble in the coming weeks. >> general, i want to ask you about something in the "new york times" reporting, "the times" story that i read from the beginning reports and recounts that when given the opportunity to take out soleimani, both president bush and president obama passed on it. applauding the targeting and the killing of soleimani, but also saying that in i believe it was 2007 when he had the opportunity to take him out, they passed on it because it would've led to wider conflict in the region. what you're describing certainly sounds like a war in the region, an air campaign against iran. what do you think of those comments and assessments made by trump's two predecessors. >> well, i think they had it right. any general can be replaced,

even brilliant courageous ones like soleimani. he was a national hero. of course, he was also despised by many iranians because he was part of the oppressive regionom. but his deputy is immediately put in charge. i'm sure he's a capable guy, the capacity to do mischief in iranians has been unmitigated. stonewall jackson got killed, it didn't end the civil war. patton gets relieved in sicily. it didn't stop the invasion of normandy. taking out a general as a signal might be a good thing to do, but in this case it was clearly an impulsive ill-thought out no strategy behind it, probably no good's going to come of it in the longer run. what we have seen since this administration is no longer a national security council where the elements of american powers sit down to consider options and analyze them and make a decision

and communicate and get our allies aboard, and, holy crow, this thing is really amateur hour, and no good will come of it. >> a haunting assessment, director, from general mccaffrey, from brent mcgurks frankly from courtney's reporting on multiple fronts. we've had lots of conversations about trump's interactions and dealings with his adversaries. it was your assessment that he had been duped by kim jong-un on new year's eve he was talking about peace with iran. what is your assessment of trump's understanding of what he was putting in motion by taking out soleimani? >> well, i think, as has been said, trump has an impulsive character to him. and while the strike against soleimani is, i think, tactically successful and it's cathartic, i think, again as general mccaffrey said, the threat has been unmitigated. my concern is that the decision to strike was done without due

consideration for the second and third and fourth order effects. clearly qasem soleimani has been responsible for a lot of iran's activities throughout the region for many, many years including the deaths of americans. but he was seen as the face of opposition to american interference in the area. and so his death and his removal is not going to change i think iran's calculus. in fact i think it's going to strengthen the determination of a lot of his accolites both within the quds organization as well as beyond to strike back at the united states. so my concern now is that i don't think mr. trump has really thought through just what tehran's reaction is going to be, but i think there will be a lot of reprisals to carry out attacks by hezbollah, not just hezbollah in iraq but hezbollah in lebanon. qasem soleimani was involved in syria, lebanon, bahrain, you

name it. so whether or not the strike was done in a calculated way, to really address what i think is the concern that we have which is iran's continuing troublemaking throughout the region and the violent attacks that is against u.s. targets. >> can you just take us through how this happens? i was told that when someone like soleimani leaves iran, we always know where they are. so i think that report in the "new york times" that obama and bush both had opportunities to kill him and they passed on them, would be in line with that, that when he was in iraq he wasn't in hiding. what would have flipped the switch from knowing where he was, as courtney has reported, he's always been a threat to american soldiers. he put those ieds. what would have flipped the switch to make this administration or the intelligence community say kill him this time? >> well, that direction obviously came from mr. trump. >> do you think they recommended

it? >> i think that this was something that came out of the white house. i don't think there was a recommendation made by the intelligence community. that's not their role. qasem soleimani was careful because he had a lot of enmeepz in the region. obviously he slipped up here. but his increased activity inside of iraq i think maybe allowed intelligence capabilities to focus in on him. and he was traveling with the iranian surrogate group. maybe it was the people he was traveling with that had slipped up that allowed u.s. intelligence, maybe with the assistance of other intelligence services to pinpoint his location at that particular time. >> carol, there is always a sort of fog of the crisis when this happens, layer on top of that the confusion created by trump himself who on new year's eve standing next to melania talked about peace with iran. obviously the attack had to have been in preparation, at a minimum, if not greenlit and underway at the moment he said that. what's your sense from your body

of reporting about the effect of trump's erratic public statements and tweets? and then today clearly trying to de-escalate a situation he put in motion? >> well, look. it definitely sends mixed signals to particularly america's allies who don't know where he stands. it's confusing at times to people who work for president trump. courtney and i have tried to do is report out what was this imminent threat. and in the process of doing that we were told there was a threat of attacks in lebanon on diplomatic people as well as financial institutions and in syria, which would have been u.s. military. the problem now or the concern now that people have is that you remove soleimani, but what is still in place, as you've been talking about, can those sorts of attacks still be taken out? and then on top of that, the concern is that iranians are going to -- or their proximateies are going to go after some sort of high-level very visible diplomat or some

sort of very expensive cyber attack. and so you have those mixed -- all of those two things happening at the same time. and with president trump, if you look at his two themes of his foreign policy, you can say they're rhetorical, maybe not played out in practice. they are, you know, we're going to end all these wars and bring all our troops home and we are going to project strength mostly through military, projecting u.s. military capabilities. and every time he leans into one, he undermines the other. so he is in this box. and i don't know how he gets out of it, and here we are politically speaking at the start of an election year where this is someone, a president who wants to do what he said he was going to do, and he is potentially escalating towards a new military confrontation. >> courtney, i want to give you the last word. i want to ask you about something that the defense secretary said yesterday, it posted around 3:30. he talked about preemptive action. it's a term that hasn't been thrown out in the context of war

since the bush era where it was very controversial. is there more talk -- also with the uptick of threats potentially from soleimani, is there an uptick in talks on preemptive attacks or is this about the soleimani killing? >> it was all in relation to what was going on in baghdad. we almost forget about, you know, 24 hours ago we were all talking about how the u.s. embassy was under siege for 48 hours and how the u.s. had taken these five strikes against hezbollah in iraq and syria, and certainly to be some sort of continued response between the u.s. and these iranian proxy groups. esper came yesterday morning and one of the things he said is that there is a continuing threat against this iranian-backed militia group and that the u.s., if they saw there was evidence or indications that

they were going to conduct any kind of attacks like these rocket attacks that the u.s. had the right of preemptive strike to stop them, essentially a right of self-defense to stop them from carrying out the attacks. >> it's an unbelievable time to cover what you guys cover. thanks for spending some time with us. no one else is going anywhere. after the break, political fallout of a strike that's killed iran's number two and has brought a promise of retaliation against americans from iran raising new questions today about who knew what and when and whether the intel was truly so fast-moving that notifying congress would've jeopardized the operation. also ahead the latest impeachment developments including new documents and data from one of rudy giuliani's men in ukraine that will be made available to house investigators. all those stories coming up.

i don't think that would be a good idea for iran. it wouldn't last very long. do i want to? no. i want to have peace, i like peace. and iran should want peace more than anybody. so i don't see that happening. no, i don't think iran would want that to happen. it would go very quickly. >> that was the president. i'm embarrassed to say i saw it when it happened. that was new year's eve, days before his attack on general qasem soleimani which put this country potentially on the brink of war. listen, john bolton was fired

for a whole bunch of reasons, carol, or left depending on which version you accept. one of them was that trump around the white house and around members of congress and around bolton in front of his face would say i don't want your war with iran. donald trump is on the record as being against the kind of confrontation he's put in motion. >> once you took away their agreement on the iran nuclear deal that the u.s. should get out of that, they really weren't aligned in the sense that you had bolton who trump would even joke to his aides, oh, has he started world war three yet? and that became a real point of friction. if you remember, when bolton was on his way out right before he left, trump was really leaning into potentially meeting with the president of iran. he wanted diplomacy. >> that's right. >> and -- >> at the u.n., right? he said i'm game if you are. >> it started at the g7 in france with president macron bringing in zarif, the foreign

minister of iran, and it caught them off guard, and it was all part of this effort to do something diplomatically. and if you talked to people around bolton at that time, the only thing they believed was keeping them from that was the iranians. so fast forward to where we are now and it's a totally different ball game. that shows that this is a president who can shift on a dime. >> this is also a president who gets a lot of his information and changes course based on what he sees on his favorite news channel, fox news. i watch the 8:00 and 9:00 hours on fox news last night and it's two totally different takes. tucker loathes john bolton and sort of nuture's donald trump's, i don't know what you want to call it, the nonaggressive side. the other later hours were enthusiastic about the killings of qasem soleimani, his direction of terrorist activity all over the globe.

what is your confidence that donald trump will pick a course and stick to it? >> well, i don't, because, as carol pointed out, i think we see a lot of unconnected statements and actions that, together, confuse people, confuse i think the people around him as well as our adversaries. when he's listening to the latest talking head, whatever, he may come up with an idea and want to pursue it. but strategic thinking really requires the ability to absorb different information, and then determine how best to pursue the u.s.'s strategic objectives. and i think whether you are talking about iran or north korea or some other issues, there has not been at least the demonstration that mr. trump is able to put this together into a strategic framework that he can then pursue in a very measured and consistent manner. >> and that doesn't happen in a vacuum. when you've dispatched 3,500 troops to the region that inability to stay the course, i mean, we have one defense

secretary who resigned over a policy disagreement with donald trump over syria and the precipitous withdrawal with troops. you have a real outcry in washington over the president throwing the kurds under the bus. what are your concerns on behalf of the military, things that you can say that perhaps people still in the military can't say today? >> well, look, the armed forces are going to follow the legal direction of the commander in chief, period. and i have certained in the 82 aernd airborne, any time you tell them there is a possibility of an operation, they are actually happy to deploy. so this is not a problem for the u.s. armed forces. nicole, i think one of the key indicators to me though of mr. trump's miscalculation on what's going on in the middle east was when he responded to that shootdown of a multimillion dollars u.s. drone, probably in international air, and he said that he learned he might kill a

couple hundred iranians. they lost a million dead. gore god's sakes, they could care less if we conduct calculated pinpoint air strikes inside iran or kill one general. these people will not respond to the use of force unless it's overwhelming. they are responding to economically being strangled. so we've got to talk to them and we've got to threaten him. he is not doing any talking. >> brett, just, again, as someone who has a ground truth from spending time in iraq what, do the president's seemingly contradictory public statements, how do they land in the region? >> well, i've been in touch with a lot of folks in the region. there's a lot of open questions. a good example i mentioned already, but if the iraqis vote in parliament that all u.s. forces should leave iraq, that seems to be something that president trump, based on his past statements, might welcome.

and that would be exactly what qasem soleimani wants. so, it's just very unclear. there is kind of like a largest strategic incoherence because this document signed by trump which governs resources and deployments around the world is actually premised upon reducing our commitments in the middle east and repositioning and reprioritizing this great power competition primarily against china. but yet since may we have now deployed, it's going up now to almost 20,000 u.s. forces to the region because of this escalating situation with iran. what general mccaffrey said, strategy is about you have to prioritize sometimes, and we are being kind of duckwalked into a potential escalatory situation in the middle east, which i don't think trump has thought through. i doubt when he pulled out of the jcpoa, someone said to him this might result two years from now that we have 20,000

additional u.s. forces in iraq. if iran response here, as they all assume they will over the coming weeks or months, the onus will be back on president trump to respond. what general mccaffrey said about opening a diplomatic channel, putting a credible offer on the table, i think that's really critical right now. but i tend to doubt that's going on. >> let me give you the last word, director brennan. just tell me what you're most worried about today in digesting this news. >> i am worried about americans in different parts of the world or throughout the region who may in fact be the target for some type of attack to take revenge for the death of qasem soleimani. but even more fundamentally i am concerned about where our government is going with iran and with the region as a whole. we need to have a much more coherent as well as strategic plan in terms of how we are going to try to bring those tensions. it's a very, very complex regionop. there is no simple solution at

all. if we look back over the past two years, we can trace this to the trump administration's decision to tear up our adherence to the jcpoa. i think the good analysts at that time would've been able to forecast exactly this escalatory spiral. we are now at a point where it's very much unknown what iran is going to do next and how then we are going to respond to it. so we have to think about ways to de-escalate it, having some type of channel to iran is important. but after killing soleimani, i think there is going to be some pain before we get on a better track. >> do you think donald trump is temperally suited for this? >> not at all. that he doesn't appreciate the complexities of the international scene. and so he has, you know, found his way into these cul-de-sacs where there is not a good way out. so i'm hoping the calmer heads

around him will get restraint. thank you all for spending some time with us. at almost the same moment that iraqi tv confirmed the killing of iran's number two, congress made clear they were kept in the dark. and with questions emerging about the intelligence leading up to the attack, we will look at whether congress has a right to know what the president knew when he ordered the killing of soleimani. that's next. >> question moving forward is whether the administration has given any thought as to how to manage the fallout that comes from such a drastic action. i do not believe the administration has gamed out how very badly this could go for the u.s. and our interests. erests i want nutrition made just for me. but i also want great taste. so i drink boost for women. new boost women with key nutrients to help support thyroid, bone, hair and skin health. all with great taste.

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the operation against soleimani in iraq was conducted, however, without specific

authorization and any advance notification or consultation with congress. the lack of advanced consultation and transparency with congress can lead to hasty and ill-considered decisions. when the security of the nation is at stake, decisions must not be made in a vacuum. the framers of the constitution gave war powers to the legislature and made the executive the commander in chief for the precise reason of forcing the two branches of government to consult with one another when it came to matters of war and peace. >> senate democratic leader, member of the gang of eight, stressing the role of congress in the ones like the trump administration took last night. nancy pelosi is calling for an immediate briefing for the full congress. joining our conversation david

jolly. with us at the table alexi mccammond and politics editor at the root, jason johnson. let me start with you. because you've been tweeting about this about an appropriate role for congress. there is some legal analysis that over the last 10, 15 years congress has sort of gladly sort of thrown the hot potato over to the executive branch and said these are all so unpopular, so lacking in public support. is that legit or is that also a legitimate claim that congress should have a say in this? >> this is a great undecided question, nicole. i think it's one where you stand depends on where you sit. the questions are was it justifiable, was it strategic in nature, and was it constitutional? it clearly was justifiable in the big picture, given soleimani's reign of terror, if you will, against u.s. national interests. it was, we will find out if it was strategic, i suppose in some global trumpian way.

but the question of stude constitutionality, and frankly the party's flip-flop on this depending on who's in power. the national framework we look to is the war powers resolution of 1973. no president has ever considered it constitutional. every president, republican, and democrat has considered it a restraint on their commander in chief authority. but congress has said this is also our role, the founders gave us the role in whether or not to declare war. and the basic premise is a president can respond to an immediate threat, which is why when pompeo said there was an imminent threat, that brings it within the war powers resolution. but the war power resolution further says but you can't commit troops, mr. president, for more than 60 days without an authorization to use military force. and in that area congress has, frankly, always failed to really step up to the game but for what we saw after 9/11. the one example, barack obama,

when he had the red line in syria and it was crossed because of assad's use of chemical weapons, he famously did not act. he said, okay, congress, give me authorization and i will act. and congress failed to act because they did not want to wade into this area either. >> jason? >> yes. so, the biggest concern that i have about this is, one, we have an impeached president who is making commander in chief decisions. it's still within his power, but it's kind of like someone -- we've already determined that if you're not responsible, why do you still have the keys to the car? so that concerns me about what the motivation is. the second reason is even if he's considered a threat, it's not like he's hidden, right? it's not like he's osama bin laden where it's like this guy might disappear for ten years if we don't get him. there are many ways that the president could've actually interacted with congress or even certain committees and said i think we need permission to do this. those are the questions we have now. yes, he was a bad guy.

but when you engage in this kind of behavior that could have long-term consequences not just for america but for our allies around the world, i don't trust that this president is the most responsible person to make these kinds of decisions. >> and the congressional democrats, just in the last hour, have sort of shifted their bucket of concerns and we showed chris murphy articulating this pretty succinctly to the assassination is done, he's dead, responsible for the death of hundreds of american soldiers. so it's a good thing. what is the plan now? that seems to be -- and, i don't know, maybe i'll sound like i read too many christmas fairytales. you would think there would be a bipartisan interest in what the plan is now. >> there would be if president trump consulted anyone on the other side of the aisle before he made this unilateral decision that is throwing the country into a crisis of his own making. i mean, truly democrats want to be involved in that decisionmaking process and it should be bipartisan. we don't have to think too far back to the 2018 midterms and

poll over poll shows they were willing to -- this is the fear that voters have, that congressional democrats have when the president acts in this isolationist way that goes back to the way he ran his 2016 campaign which was making america great again, introducing these america-first policies that were all about, yes, america first, but it was really about trump having as much control as he could possibly have if afforded the presidency. now we see the lengths that he can go when he is afforded that power. >> carol, there is a badly kept secret that a lot of the national security advisers view their role as sort of looking out for u.s. national security trying to protect it from trump's impulses. i wonder if you've picked up in your reporting any sense that pompeo with knowing that jared would be sympathetic and maybe at family dinner would defend this. is there any sense that trump has led to this?

>> it's a good question. i think that if you go back and look at when things really started to heat up with iran last year, it started around i believe may. john bolton was still in the white house at that time, and there was a series of things that iran was doing, escalating, escalating and president trump didn't respond. and around that time there were a number of conversations and things put out on the table. there were a lot of -- so when it got leaked bolton was asking for troop levels. and so the idea of -- and so that's when they designated the irgc, a foreign terrorist organization. and one of the questions at that time was are you going to go after that terrorist organization? and they wouldn't answer that question but in that mix, our reporting shows that there was a discussion about soleimani at that time. so i don't think that president trump is, you know, someone who said, go get me soleimani.

it's not a name that's on his regular -- rolls off his tongue. but it would've been in the mix and brought in as a bunch of potential options. >> i want to put an uncomfortable question to you, david jolly, because i think you can handle it. there is video floating around social media of hew hewitt asking.about soleimani and the quds forces. he clearly at that point doesn't know who he is. and i think candidates often aren't briefed on foreign policy and even presidents sometimes aren't as steeped in the facts until they've had to deal with the crisis. the point i'm making is that donald trump is famously disinterested in his pdb. he is famously not a reader. he is famously disdainful of his intelligence chief saying they should go back to school because they disagreed with him on north korea, iran, and russia. what should sort of a person not driven by partisan politics, is the anxiety that people feel

about donald trump being our commander in chief at this hour justified? >> yeah, it is, nicole, and i'm glad you used the word anxiety because i think that's what we're also seeing from members of congress. look, the debate over whether it was justified because of imminent threat, whether it was constitutional, whether it was strategic, honestly all of that's going to fall within the margin of error, at least through a partisan lens, if you will. but the anxiety is that we have a president of the united states that the american people don't fully trust. and that's true of even his own supporters at times. they know he lies. they don't trust his word, and they don't trust his competence. look, this is a president who has lied about his taxes, about mexico paying for the wall, about his own health care. he's lied about the tax policy, about the health policy. he's lied about the denuclearization with north korea, about the phone call with ukraine, about his relationship with vladimir putin. including a catastrophic hurricane approaching the united states, in times of great

consequence he lies. his word can't be trusted and neither can that of his deputies like mike pompeo. and then beyond his word his competence simply can't be trusted. and that's, to your point, of his conversation with hugh hewitt. this is not a president who cares about the finer details of foreign policy, nor will he understand it. and so the anxiety from democrats on the hill, i think, is that they don't believe this president, and, frankly, neither do a number of republicans. >> i'm going to go out on a limb and say the anxiety is shared if not higher on our old side of the aisle. don't you think? >> that's right. i would agree with that fully. >> because they've enabled him. they have put him in motion. and speaking of enabling him, there is impeachment news today. a judge ruling that rudy giuliani's man in ukraine, lev parnas, can turn over the contents of his cell phone to impeachment investigators. what might they find? that's next. where's the truck? what? parked it right there.

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of course i'd love to take an informal poll. i used to be a little cranky.

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connective dots in the impeachment question. >> and it's been building and it's something giuliani and we all have been watching. and i'm sure giuliani is feeling not super happy about. but the one thing that lev could provide is more information. americans on both sides of the aisle. democrats and republicans, significant majorities of these folks want new witnesses and they want more evidence and documents and information so they can make a more informed decision. if there's nothing to hide, then turn over the documents. >> you know, i don't buy this idea that everything with impeachment is a foregone conclusion. and i think the fact that 71% of americans, that includes 64% of republicans, want to hear from witnesses. means that lev parnas opening up his phone. i mean, imagine opening up your phone to congress. >> tom brady didn't want to open his phone. so you know he doesn't want to do this. this is the thing. we are increasingly moving and i agree with you, nicolle. i've changed my mind. between "the new york times" reporting that you have this whole meeting, an intervention basically to tell the president

give the money back to ukraine. the ruling for bolton's assistant. now, this. it is harder and harder for mitch mcconnell to play hard ball and try and get a very quick trial. this is going to be an elaborate senate trial with witnesses, with evidence. it's going to be a terrible experience for the republican party. and i think increasingly some of those sort of waffling people who i usually don't trust like susan collins and they may really change their minds about this. and i think also with this news, we've gone beyond the question of whether or not evidence is going to be required. it's going to be there. evidence and witnesses already a done deal. i don't think mitch mcconnell even has that anymore. >> david jolly. >> yeah. look. i mean, what rudy giuliani and lev parnas hold is very important to come out. and i think nancy pelosi is right to indefinitely hold back the articles of impeachment. the case only gets stronger, not weaker, by doing so. and unless we see a change of position of mitch mcconnell, there's no reason for nancy pelosi to transmit the articles. i think mitch mcconnell's done irreparable harm to the

integrity of the senate by saying he won't be impartial. and the foolishness of what he did, nicolle, is it would be so easy to side with the 71% of americans that you suggested and say we are going to hold a fair trial. and at the end of the day, we probably will be taking votes based on some type of political or partisan influence because our founders knew that when they designed the impeachment process. but we want the process to at least be fair. instead, i think mitch mcconnell has committed a fatal error. and there is no reason for nancy pelosi to send these articles over in any near future. i think you just withhold them and you shine a light on the misconduct of mitch mcconnell and let the information from parnas and others continue to come out. >> carol, just to remind our viewers what kind of evidence it is. lev parnas has been indicted by the southern district of new york for campaign finance crime. he basically ran a crime syndicate. and he worked for rudy. and the idea that there is -- known unknowns on his phone. >> and he's hinted that he has

information to share. there are things -- his lawyer has -- that there are things congress and others would find interesting that they don't already know. what's going to be very interesting to see is exactly what is in those messages. how far the tentacles go. it's not just rudy giuliani, it could be more. >> the last guy that says that, michael cohen. we know how that ended. don't go anywhere. we'll be right back. ended don't go anywhere. we'll be right back.

that's it for the first friday of 2020. how was that first week of 2020? buckle up, folks. my thanks to david jolly, alexia, jason, most of all to you for watching. "mtp daily" with the fabulous katy tur in for chuck starts now. welcome to friday. it is "meet the press daily." i'm katy tur in new york for