crash. joining me on the phone, pennsylvania turnpike spokesman carl defebo. carl, is it true, 86 miles of this turnpike on a very busy day have been shut down to investigate? >> absolutely, closed right now because of this horrific crash. yeah, we expect that's going to be closed most of the day today as state police conduct a thorough investigation of what happened here. >> okay. i said point pleasant, it is mt. pleasant. >> mt. pleasant, that's correct. >> so what happened, to the best of your knowledge at this point? >> what you said is exactly what we know. the number of vehicles, two tractor trailers, a tour bus that slipped on its side, and a passenger vehicle. what events led to the crash, we just don't know. that will be certainly looked into, that will be part of the

investigation. but it's premature to speculate on the occurrence here. >> carl, what about the weather, what's it like there? >> it may have been a factor. it's pennsylvania in wintertime. coming down out of the mountains on this particular stretch of the turnpike. so it could have been. we haven't ruled it out, let's just say that, alex. >> okay. what do we know about injuries? and again, the statistics i read, horrifying, five people dead and dozens injured, do you know how many have been taken to hospitals? >> there were 60 patients transported by ground to various local hospitals. and as you mentioned, the fatalities are with theco o cor. >> were those fatalities a part of the tour bus, the cars, the tractor-trailer, do you have any details on that? >> at this point, no. it's a probably a safe assumption that some of them occurred on the tour bus, the tour bus would certainly be the location of most of those 60

injuries that were transported as well. we are expecting the state police to make an announcement around 12:30 today. >> okay. carl, i know you've goat a lot to figure out, to clean up, investigate, all of that. but 86 miles, especially for people coming back from new year's, how long do you anticipate this stretch of highway being closed? >> at least westbound, where the accident occurred, much of the day. hopefully we'll be able to lift the closure on the eastbound lane once the investigation is complete and debris removed from the eastbound side. a bit of a blessing here is the fact that it is not a very heavy travel day right now. sunday morning, even after a holiday, is typically slow volumes. there are backups at the interchanges right now. >> anything you can suggest for

motorists anticipating going through that area? i'm sure you have pretty well-marked detours. >> absolutely. you know, look online at paturnpike.com, for the detour, we post it on social media as well. check conditions before you leave, would be the smart thing to do. >> carl, thank you for joining us, i know there's a lot going on in your office and i appreciate you updating your viewers on msnbc. best of luck getting through this day. on the world stage, tensions between the u.s. and iran intensify. secretary of state mike pompeo doing the full ginsburg, going on all the sunday talk shows to defend the decision to kill a top iranian general. >> was the justification this imminent threat? >> chuck, it's never one thing. you've been at this a long time. the american people are smart too. it's a collective, a full

situational awareness of risk and analysis. and i am confident and the intelligence community presented us a set of facts that made clear that the risk from doing nothing exceeded the risk of taking the action we took and we made the right decision. >> meanwhile, new reaction from democrats in the senate with skepticism on the administration's reasons behind the attack and concerns over the consequences. >> i think we learned the hard way, chris, in iraq, in the iraq war, that administrations sometimes manipulate and cherry pick intelligence to further their political goals. they have an obligation to present the evidence. they did not notify the gang of eight. the one opportunity they had just two days ago to brief senior staff at the top secret level, they provided no evidence to support their claim of an imminent threat. >> taking out soleimani, it may have some short term benefit. but the smartness in terms of in the region, with our allies, and

bringing along the american people, i think the jury is really out on that. >> let's get some more reaction from the trump administration. nbc's hans nichols is following the president in florida for us, a good sunday to you, hans. secretary pompeo was on every single sunday show, as you know. what was the overarching message from the administration today? >> reporter: it was identical to the message of president trump donald trump last night, that is, one of deterrence. they say they're putting iran on notice. the tone is different from pompeo. the rhetoric is different. but when you look at the underlying facts it's very similar to what president trump is saying. that is, if iran takes any action against american interests or property, there will be deterrence, there will be a response. have a listen. >> the president will take every action necessary to respond should iran decide to escalate. we hope that they don't. we've communicated clearly and crisply to them with respect to what we have as an expectation and we have communicated clearly and crisply what we will do in

response if they choose another path. >> reporter: now, it's been silence from the president this morning. nothing new on his twitter feed. last night when he got back from his golf club, he did fire off those tweets and put the world on notice, put the world on edge. what's interesting about pompeo's answer, at least when chuck pressed him on this is that they are making this dual argument for why they felt they had legal cause to go after soleimani. and it's not just the idea of an imminent threat but it's also this idea of what he had done in the past. those are two separate and distinct legal arguments. now, the second one, the one of self-defense, preemptive self-defense, that one has allocata little bit more holding in international law. we'll see if the administration continues this dual justification. as you mentioned, there is skepticism on capitol hill, senator warner on chuck's show seemed particularly skeptical on whether the evidence and intelligence merited the necessity of this response, alex. >> hans, you've done a beautiful

job setting up the dual arguments here. we'll take this into conversation throughout these next two hours. thank you. tensions and emotions running very high in the middle east today. hours ago in iraq the parliament there passed a nonbinding resolution to expel u.s. troops from the country. the iraqi foreign ministry says it's summoned u.s. ambassador matthew tuellor to explain what the iraqis call a flagrant violation of their sovereignty. elected officials in iran broke into chants of "death to america" at a special parliamentary session caused to discuss the u.s. air strike. iran's foreign ministry says an important meeting will be held in the next few hours to discuss yet another step to scale back iran's obligations under the nuclear agreement. officials said nuclear talks between the u.s. and iran could only resume after iran pays off the u.s. what that means is takes revenge

for soleimani's killing. joining us this hour, nbc's chris livsay, richard engel, and ali arouzi in iran for us. ali, welcome to you, tell us about the reaction to the president's tweets about attacking the cultural sites in the country, 52 in all, one as a representative for every american hostage that was taken back in the day. >> reporter: that's right, alex, that tweet by the president has sparked a lot of outrage here amongst ordinary iranians, about hitting cultural sites. it was a firestorm on iranian social media from this morning. people compared the president's comments to actions that the taliban or isis would have carried out in palmyra where they blew up those buddhas. people are saying it's one thing

to have strategic locations targeted in a military fight. but to target cultural sites is just unimaginable. so that did not go down well here amongst the iranian people. that didn't win any hearts and minds here in iran. but also, alex, we are seeing extraordinary scenes of qasem soleimani's funeral procession. his body is being taken through the holy city of mashad and it's been flooded with a tide of people, hundreds of thousands of people have shown up, wearing blacks, beating their chests, weeping, throwing items of their clothing or belongings. guards around soleimani's body wiped those clothings across the coffin so they have a memento.

weeks ago there were antigovernment protests. now it seems to have galvanized people around the flag. it really is an amazing scene here. and also what seems to have backfired from the u.s. strategy is that we're hearing what you just reported, that the iraqi government is trying to pass a bill to get u.s. troops out of iraq. that was qasem soleimani's main objective, to expel u.s. troops from iraq. now ironically in his death that process seems to have been sped up dramatically. also as you mentioned, the nuclear deal, they're meeting, senior government officials are meeting tonight to take another step away from the deal. they say it's going to be their biggest step yet. >> ali, to that last point there, this is a deal which remains intact for many european nations.

so how much, this they take a large, a major step away as you're indicating, what's left? >> reporter: not much, alex, frankly. i mean, even the europeans have been warning iran not to take another step, otherwise they can't abide by the deal anymore. so it's beyond being on life-support anymore. if this next step is a large one like enriching uranium at 20%, then we can pretty much say that that deal is done and we're again in uncharted territory with iran's nuclear program and relations with the west. interestingly enough, today the head of iran's national security council, who lester holt interviewed in tehran over the summer, came out and said that we are going to take revenge for soleimani's death. it's not just going to be military action. so that could involve, you know, cyber attacks, disrupting the flow of oil, and of course

coming out of the nuclear deal. >> all right, my friend, a lot of people will be discussing all of those potential options. thank you very much from tehran, ali arouzi. nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel joins us from irbil, iraq. richard, welcome to you. a nonbinding resolution telling the government to end the presence of foreign troops in iraq, tell us what that means, what does that look like? >> reporter: so there is a little bit of a legal explanation that is involved here. technically, u.s. troops, around 5,000, are in this country at the invitation of the iraqi government. there are no american bases here anymore. they are iraqi bases, controlled by iraqis, that host americans as trainers, advisers, providing support, sometimes lethal support, to the iraqis.

technically their mission is to fight isis, not to carry out assassinations against iranian generals, but to help the iraqi army fight isis. when isis arose a couple of years ago, parts of this country fell to isis, extra u.s. troops came in. so now, what the parliament has done is request the government to cancel that invitation. and you would think, okay, the parliament is asking it, the prime minister came out in support of that request. so in theory, you would think it's over, if the parliament is asking, the prime minister, who has to authorize the request, is in the chamber saying that he also supports it, it should be over. the problem is, it is not quite over, because, one, it's a nonbinding resolution, and two, because the current prime minister is in the middle of a political battle. he submitted his resignation in november, so this is technically only a caretaker government.

he, according to legal experts, does not have the authority to sign a binding resolution, only a new prime minister with full legal authority, not a caretaker government, would have that responsibility. but it certainly is an indication of the mood in this country among a certain sector. also you have to look at who was in the room, who was in the parliament right now. that vote passed unanimously, but primarily among shia lawmakers, a very big bloc in this country, the most powerful political bloc in this country, but not the only ones. others like sunnies, others including the kurds, want the u.s. to stay here because they fear a dominance by the shia presence. so it is an indication, it is certainly the strong sentiment of one particular segment of society. but it pushes this country a little bit deeper into a constitutional crisis but it doesn't mean that tomorrow the

american airlift are going to be coming in and taking out american troops and their equipment. >> an excellent discussion there and analysis of what's going on. i don't have any questions, you left us with everything answered for this point. >> reporter: there you go! >> okay, richard engel, we expect no less from you, my friend, thank you so much. joining me now, representative adam smith, chairman of the armed services committee. welcome back to the broadcast, sir, thank you for joining me. let's get right to it, you've expressed concerns about exactly what led to the trump administration's decision to take out qasem soleimani. secretary of state mike pompeo today addressing the intelligence, let's take a listen to what he said. >> the senior leaders who had access to all the intelligence, there was no skepticism. the general used the term we would have been cull pably negligent had we not taken this strike. taking no action, allowing soleimani to continue his plotting, his planning, his

terror campaign, created more risk than taking the action we took last week. >> does that answer all of your questions, and if not, what more do you need to hear from the trump administration, and is part of it their interpretation of the word "imminent"? >> it doesn't begin to answer the questions. as we've seen there is no doubt that taking this action has a number of very negative consequences for the u.s. interests, if we are booted out of iraq, we're in a far weaker position to confront isis. the iranian government was under an enormous amount of pressure from their own people. that pressure has now been taken off, as they've been able to focus their anger at the united states. and without question, iran is likely to respond in a way that places american lives at risk. those are all of the downsides. those are clear and not really debatable. the upside, supposedly, is this was an imminent attack. well, a, nobody in congress with the possible exception of

senator graham that i know of has actually seen the intelligence. and that's not normal, by the way. things have happened, when we killed osama bin laden, when these decisions were made, senior members of congress were briefed and shown the intelligence. to this date we have not seen the intelligence. and the other thing is, if these attacks were imminent, iran has other generals. the quds force has a chain of command. killing soleimani would not have stopped an imminent attack any more than i guess killing eisenhower would have stopped "d" day. what's the link here? how did killing soleimani stop this imminent attack and why wouldn't iran have carried it out? this was an extraordinarily escalatory step by the president. it's dragging us into a conflict in the middle east with iran that i don't think is in our best interests. you saw what happened when we didn't deal with isis, that was a direct threat to the u.s. iran is a different question. so i don't think the questions have been answered.

i think this was an incredibly dangerous step by the administration. >> so it's my interpretation by all this that you believe that the actions bit trump administration belie the words from the president himself who says that he does not want to start a war. is there something the president could either do or say right now to alleviate your concerns about escalations? >> not really. i mean, soleimani was killed. killing what was arguably the second most powerful member of the iranian government and a general is going to lead to a greater conflict. that's just straightforward logic. so, you know, i guess the hope is that iran will react to this by saying, okay, you got us, we give up. i don't think that's a very realistic way of looking at it, given iran's history. and yes, we know all the terrible things that soleimani and the iranian government have done. but if you don't want a war with iran, the one doesn't really follow the other.

i think this was a very complicated situation that we took a very extreme step without fully appreciating the consequences. >> congressman, your fellow democrat, that being senator chris murphy, tweeted this late last night. i want to read it for everyone. the moment we all feared is likely upon us. an unstable president, in way over his head, panicking, with all his experienced advisers having quit and only the sick owe fan particular amateurs remaining. assassinating foreign leaders, announcing plans to bomb civilians, a nightmare. sir, in moments like these how important are the advisers surrounding the president, and are you also concerned that the president's current advisers do not have the depth to properly handle this? >> yes, i am very concerned about that. i had worked closely with general kelly. i certainly didn't agree with everything he did as chief of staff. but he was an experienced, seasoned person who was not going to be afraid to stand up to the president. that's the big concern here, all the people willing to say no so

the president, they're gone. a lot of people there, i know general milley, secretary esper, i know the people. but are they strong enough to say, this is wrong and i disagree? secretary mattis had that strength. i don't even know that secretary esper does. he's a very smart and capable person but my interactions with him, at this point, he is carrying out the white house policy, that's the way he sees his job. that's not the way secretary mattis saw his job past a certain point, he saw it as, i need to advise and also in some cases contradict the president. ultimately secretary mattis just like secretary esper felt when the president makes a decision, i do one of two things, either i carry it out or i quit. he does understand the chain of command in that regard. but secretary mattis was pushing the president during the decisionmaking process. i don't think there are any people in the national security part of the white house now who

really do that. they offer suggestions, the president makes his decision, and they go with it. and i think that is a huge problem. and this decision, killing this guy, is going to have major, major impacts on our interests in the region. and the basic question i have is, if we were supposedly doing this to protect americans, there was an imminent attack, do we really think that killing general soleimani makes america more safe? do we think it's less likely now that iran will strike us than it was before? i have a hard time saying that that's the case. i'm very worried about where we're at and where we're going forward. >> i should make the point, according to "the new york times," among the options presented to the president was indeed to take out general soleimani which of course he optioned. congressman adam smith, thank you very much, i appreciate your time. why one of the president's tweets got attention on the sunday talk shows today. with new creations to choose from;

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as world leaders are bracing for dramatic escalation between the u.s. and iran, the president today tweeting a new warning saying if iran strikes any americans or american assets it will face attacks on 52 cultural targets. here is what secretary of state mike pompeo said about this. >> president trump's threat on iranian cultural centers or centers of interest to the iranian culture would not be in accordance with international law. so which is it? >> jake, they're not two different things. the american people should know we will not waver, we will be bold in protecting american interests and will do so in a way that's consistent with the rule of law, we've always done that, jake, and president trump's tweet doesn't deviate from that one iota. >> so cultural centers are theoretically fair targets in your view? >> jake, we're going to do the things that are right and consistent with american lives. >> joining me now, philippe

reince, and susan del percio, msnbc political analyst and republican strategist. welcome, all. susan, you're first. your reaction to the president's tweets and what you heard there from mike pompeo. >> mike pompeo was trying to walk back president trump's tweet which was completely inappropriate and i can't help but think it's something he does from his gut, he says oh, that sounds good, let's come up with 52 targets to match the 52 hostages 40 years ago. of course he has no understanding what have he's actually saying and the consequences of his actions. and we saw that time and time again. and this time we saw it by him not notifying the gang of eight, the top levels of our government, of a military action that is typically done because president trump wants to make this about him and that his

party is the one doing the right thing, and that is disgraceful, just as disgraceful as far as attacking any sites that would be deemed criminal in warfare. >> something which, by the way, the u.s. department of defense, its own law of war manual says that is illegal, one does not do that. that said, philippe, do you interpret this as these actions are deterrence or escalation? >> i think they're just acting out. he's doing what he does best, which is being a jerk. to echo what you both said, i think what you said, alex, is most important, it is against the u.s. military code of conduct. of all the things that trump threatens, this one bothers me the least because he would get nowhere with it, there's no one in the chain of command who would do it. not only would they ignore it, they are honor-bound and duty-bound to ignore it. >> but then philippe, if that's the case, how much are you

concerned about misinterpretation? i mean, this is the president of the united states saying this. >> oh, my new year's resolution was not to defend donald trump. what's concerning me here is the ineptitude and the fact that this person is wholly unprepared to defend the united states for what comes next, and that is the real problem. and he's going to have to face -- you know, unless at an important level, he'll have to face the political reality which could backfire on them. >> it violates the department of defense, the geneva convention, and a u.n. resolution. let's play more of what mike pompeo said on abc this morning. >> the intelligence assessment made clear that no action, allowing soleimani to continue his plotting and his planning, his terror campaign, created more risk than taking the action that we took last week.

>> danielle, is there any sense of irony for you in the fact that the president constantly criticized this very same intelligence community when it came to the russia investigation? >> the entire administration, alex, is a walking contradiction. on one hand we shouldn't trust our intelligence community because they've always been gunning for him and on the other hand now they're providing exactly the kind of information that he needs in order to create a strategic or what he believes to be a strategic attack on iran. the problem here is that as the funeral procession is going on right now, is happening right now in iran, we are seeing tens of thousands of people that have lined up the streets. when donald trump said on the campaign trail that he was going to unite the people, he just wasn't specific enough, because what he has done now with the killing of soleimani is unite the iranian people, who right now were having grievances with the iranian government, they were out in the streets. >> because of the raised gas prices, it was hectic. >> right. and now look at the images we're seeing coming out of iran.

that's what the trump administration did. when pompeo goes on all of the news shows this morning to say that he has made americans safe, how? how has he made america safe? the world is on edge right now and by donald trump saying that he's going to target 52 sites, 52 cultural and religious sites, that's something that the taliban does, not the president of the united states. >> do you, susan, have confidence that there is an end game strategy here, that they know what they're doing to get from point a, where we are now, to an end game? >> i think our military leaders are trying to do whatever they can to get from here to there. obviously they thought that this was an extreme position for the president to take. but lawful. so they went out and pursued it, they killed him, no tears are to be cried for this man who has killed hundreds of thousands of people. but that being said, my concern is that the president of the united states has not taken everything into consideration. we know he doesn't believe in

looking at consequences. he has no core values. so what was this? it was a reaction from his gut. he did not like seeing the comparisons to benghazi when there were protesters outside our embassy in iraq and he needed to do something extreme. so no, i do not have confidence that he has the ability to think beyond what would immediately look good, what he thinks would look good in front of his voters. >> okay, but danielle, i'm going to have you react to reporting from "the new york times," among all those options presented to the president in the wake of the attack last weekend, that, danielle, the president looked at the options and chose the most severe one by those who were giving him what he could do, and that there was stunning reaction to that, they were shocked that he would pick that one. so susan believes that the military advisers and those around the president are trying to get him to a proper end game. do you think they're being effective in trying to do so?

>> no. donald trump is being ruled by his ego, which is what is at stake here. we as a country are being led by a man who is completely and totally egotistical. he decided to take this action because he wanted to. not because he received the kind of information that was necessary. there were two other presidents before him that had an opportunity to do just this and chose not to because they understood that the ramifications would be great. right now, donald trump does not care about the ramifications. he cares about making action right now, looking big and bold in the face of the world. and he's making us look like fools. what he has done has made america unsafe. i am very concerned. people should be concerned about his actions and where we go from here because this is something that can't be undone. >> danielle moodie-mills, susan del percio, philippe reince, thank you very much. hezbollah says the killing of qasem soleimani was a clear,

blatant crime and that u.s. targets in the middle east are fair targets. chris, i know you talked to a few lebanese there, you've been there in lebanon. what did they tell you about their thoughts on the attack on the general? >> reporter: that's right, alex, the local press is calling the situation in the middle east right now a powder keg. there's one man who many believe holds that match. his name is hassan ezrola, the head of hezbollah, often acting as a proxy army for iran, sometimes violently. today he was giving a memorial service that was one part screed, one part eulogy for his good friend soleimani. he said trump had blood on his hands, chastised trump for this crime, and said the u.s. military would pay a heavy price. to get some reactions from people in beirut we went to the

streets and spoke to one cafe owner. here is what he has to say. so what's next? >> what we do, he start the war. we are ready for the war. >> reporter: so you're certain there is going to be war? >> yeah, yeah. what you can do? >> reporter: so he's blaming donald trump for starting a war and says that people in the middle east here now have no hope but to respond. now, we also heard today from the daughter of soleimani, she spoke to hezbollah tv, and she said that she was certain that the leader of hezbollah was going to avenge the blood of her father, she referred to him as her uncle. she is not his niece but it shows how intimately close she is and how close her father was. with all this rhetoric, the question is, is it going to instigate more violence in the

middle east? >> that is the question, you set us up for this yesterday, saying this would exactly be the reaction as it has proven to be there in beirut, lebanon. thank you very much, chris livejay. joining me now, nicholas rasmussen, an msnbc national security and intelligence analyst. nicholas, welcome to you. does today's threat from the hezbollah leader complicate matters? to what extent do you think the u.s. agencies are capable of coping with this avalanche of threats on so many fronts? >> thanks, alex. lebanon of course is one of those front line states in the immediate neighborhood where americans would be most at risk in the aftermath of the soleimani strike. the iranians have many different ways in which they could choose to retaliate but it is in iraq and in lebanon that i would be most concerned about the safety of americans right now. our official americans working at the embassy and other government installations, but also americans traveling there

privately. and i think that's why you've seen the state department put out the kind of travel warnings that they have. to your other question, you're right, our intelligence community is certainly going to be dealing with an avalanche of information about potential threats to americans in the aftermath of this action against soleimani. the challenge will be to try to figure out what's real and what's not and where can we take steps to harden and protect our personnel overseas and how to prioritize those efforts. >> you've said this could be the first real crisis of the trump administration. how do you explain that? >> some of your other guests have talked about the fact that there have been changes in senior positions around the president and he has a relatively new set of national security advisers with the exception of course of secretary pompeo. this is the first real crisis in which this administration has found itself. and it's when you're in a crisis situation that you actually put to the test the processes you

put into place for national security issues. are you willing to, in a sense, carry out the kind of structured decisionmaking that leads to good decisionmaking, or instead do you end up making impulsive, emotional, rash decisions that could take us in places we don't want to go? >> absolutely. nicholas, stay with us as i bring into the conversation a resident scholar at the carnegie endowment and the author of "black wave." that book is coming out later on this month for all of you interested. kim, welcome to you. we have secretary pompeo saying today iran has been at war with the u.s. for 40 years. then you have the president tweeting, saying he has 52 targets in iran for those 52 american hostages that iran took those 40 years ago. revisiting the past, will that get us any closer to resolving the present situation today?

>> no. but it does certainly seem as though the past is on a continuous loop in the relationship between the united states and iran over the last 40 years. it's been an ebb and flow of enemity enmity, violence, efforts at day tonight, secret negotiations, back channel negotiations. we've gone from the hostage crisis in iran in 1979 to the u.s. marine barracks bombing in beirut in 1983. we've seen the downing of an iranian civilian airplane in 1988. we've seen the negotiations between iran and the united states over the nuclear deal. and now this latest development with the killing of qasem soleimani by a u.s. strike. it does feel like we're in a continuous loop of back and forth. this at the moment is i would say a turning point, a game changer in the relationship

between the two and in the region as well. i would, however, like to say there is a lot of fearmongering, a lot of warmongering, a lot of posturing but there's also a lot of speculation. in reality, i would say that no one really knows what's going to happen next. there is a lot of speculation. if i were to add to that speculation, i would say there is not going to be an all-out war, because iran knows the consequences of trying to attack the u.s. head-on. so i think what we're going to see is something asymmetrical. we've heard today from the secretary general of hezbollah in beirut, a key ally of iran, a proxy militia but also a local political party. he said they were going to try to drive the u.s. out of the region. we heard from an iranian commander saying the retaliation would target israel. but again, i would say whatever happens i do believe it's going to be asymmetrical. but even more important than all of this is because, yes, it is a 40-year-long, a difficult

relationship between iran and the united states. but there are other parties in this dynamic, other players, and that's local actors like saudi arabia. i thought it was really noteworthy to hear today the saudis say that they don't want to see further escalation. >> and to that point, you bring up the saudi/iran rivalry, kim, the u.s. government has historically sided with saudi arabia but yesterday vice president pence appeared to connect iran to the september 11th attacks when u.s. intelligence connected the hijackers to saudi arabia. what's that about? >> vice president mike pence was corrected profusely over social media, on twitter. the hijackers were -- there were 19 hijackers on 9/11. 15 of them were saudis. there were no iranians in the group whatsoever. the reason why people keep

bringing in iran and 9/11 into the same sentence is because at some point iran did give shelter to some high profile al qaeda members. but there is really no connection between iran and the events of september 11th. in reality actually what did happen at the time was that iran condemned the attacks on 9/11 and it was a brief moment of detente and diplomacy between the united states and iran when iran offered help to the united states in its efforts to bring down the taliban in afghanistan. >> nicholas rasmussen, kim gattah, thank you. trust and verify. how the president's credibility gap is hurting his justification for his attack on iranian's top general. n's top general. to reconnect and be together.

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any reasonable person who saw the intelligence that the senior american leaders had in their possession would have come to the same conclusion that president trump and our leadership team did about the fact that there would have been more risk to america, more risk through inaction than the action we took. the strategy is working. we're going to stay the course. >> secretary of state mike pompeo there doubling down on the administration's decision to take out the second most powerful figure in iran. joining me now, abigail tracy, writer at "vanity fair." charlie savage, legal reporter at "the new york times."

scott wong, senior staff writer at "the hill." welcome, all. to you, charlie, do pompeo's comments ring hollow unless the administration provides evidence, or was this effective messaging? >> well, i think for close observers to this, just asse asserting that there was serious intelligence suggesting there was some imminent strike attack coming is not going to be good enough to really answer the mail here. this is based on intelligence we haven't seen, and that as earlier on your program, the chairman of the house intelligence committee himself said that he hasn't seen, maybe no one except lindsey graham has seen. to just be direct about it, this is not an administration that carries with it a large amount of trust in the credibility of what they say on a daily basis. and so i think everyone is going to want to know a lot more about what was behind this decision so that we can assess whether it's really true that it was a necessary step at this time.

>> and look, abigail, pompeo says the administration's strategy against iran is working. but does taking this very dramatic military action suggest that it is not? is it prompting the administration now to up the ante? >> yeah, i think what we see right here, as charlie said, there is this credibility issue ongoing, but it's also colliding with this problem that the trump administration has in terms of, you know, this president doesn't really have a lucid foreign policy. donald trump has domestic policies that then present themselves intentionally as american posturing. certainly there is the "america first" tag line. but the real issue is this administration hasn't really shown so much that they think through the next steps. i've spoken with a number of diplomats in the region or who have previously or currently serve in the middle east who have expressed that to me, the ongoing concern that this administration didn't think through the next steps or what this killing would prompt. just this morning, the vote in

the parliament of iraq, i think that was unexpected. even mike pompeo this morning seemed to administratidismiss t possibility and then the vote didn't come down in the u.s.'s favor. we're in this unknown territory where we don't know what the administration will do next and maybe they don't either. >> scott, on one of the talk shows today, mike pompeo said, make no mistake, our position is to reduce our footprint overseas. how does that square with president trump's decision to send 3,500 more soldiers to the middle east? >> it's head-scratching to me. you've seen over the last three years of the trump administration this battle playing out between the defense hawks and noninterventionists. president trump, until really this moment, has sided with the noninterventionists. he's wanted to pull troops out of afghanistan, out of iraq. now with this latest killing of soleimani, we're seeing more

troops being sent into that region in the middle east. and so i think, you know, there's a lot of questions that the trump administration will have to answer for. we understand they probably will be holding all-member briefings on capitol hill in this coming week. and so lawmakers will be having a lot of questions for the top officials including the defense secretary who is leading this -- you know, this effort. and so we will have hopefully more answers in the coming days. >> charlie, something i brought up earlier in the show, your paper, "the new york times," citing defense and administrations officials, reporting the president opted for the most extreme measure in response to recent iranian-led violence in iraq. the top pentagon officials were reportedly stunned even though the option of killing the top general was presented to him. it was as if it was at the bottom of the list, something that was almost a last resort, presenting a number of other

options to him. but why present that option, if the military officials believed that was extreme? >> right. well, so i wasn't part of that story but i was hearing the same thing from my own sources on friday, that there had been four options delivered, killing soleimani being the most extreme, hitting ships or missiles sites or militia leaders being three other ways of responding. often it's the case that military planners, intelligence planners come up with a range of options basically from do nothing to, you know, nuke the universe, and they hope the middle of them is sort of the reasonable choice that the policy-maker sees. but their role is to present a menu of options. it doesn't mean that they necessarily think it's a good idea to go all wait to one end that have extreme. but that seems to be what president trump, surprising everyone, did here. and now, the whirlwind. >> guys, speaking of whirlwind, this show is a whirlwind as well, i'll have to let all three

of you go with my thanks. we'll go to a commercial break and on the other side of that talk about what happens if iran engages in cyber warfare against the united states, what and where is the danger. that's ahead.

developing today, the u.s. is preparing for possible retaliation from iran after the death of general soleimani. a military threat is not the only way the country could strike back. cybersecurity experts tell nbc that online attacks pose just as much of a risk. joining me now, general barry mccaffrey, nbc military analyst. welcome to you. let's get to what happened this morning, which was the federal depository library program's website, that's down after being hacked. authorities have not said who is responsible. there's one group claiming at least at this point to be iranian hackers. we have not confirmed that. general, how seriously do you take this kind of threat? >> well, there's no question

iranians have a considerable capacity to conduct cyberattacks. they have done it before. they crippled the saudi oaudi o industry for a period of time. look, the response to killing general soleimani, who was a legitimate target -- this guy is responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people throughout the middle east to include hundreds of u.s. soldiers. but the notion of a provocative public act embraced by the president of the united states as his personal decision certainly put us in a situation where the iranians are likely to feel forced to respond. if they make a dramatically successful hit on us, whether through cyberattack or stopping the oil industry from exiting the persian gulf or direct attacks on our scattered u.s. military forces throughout the

middle east, it's likely it will provoke a huge strategic response by the united states with air and naval power. this was an ill thought out short-term action by the president. >> general, may i ask you -- i'm going to have you speculate on the potential here. but we know that general assume soleimani was a huge threat. what is it in your mind that could have risen to being an imminent threat that would warrant the president to take this kind of action? we don't know. we do not have the reasons yet offered. we don't have the intelligence assessments that the trump administration is basing their actions on. is there something in your mind that he would have been capable of setting up, general soleimani i'm talking about, that would

have been an imminent threat to the united states? >> look, what we can't lose sight of, the iranians had a strategic plan to get us out of the middle east, to get us out of iraq in particular, which is on their flank. now that isis is largely defeated, we no longer are a value to them. so they gradually over the last two months in particular turned to maximizing direct combat pressure on u.s. troops, isolating the embassy. that's where they are going. soleimani, killing him in no way affects that strategic response, nor their capacity to do violence. it's completely silly. you can kill any general any day and the organization will immediately regenerate, move on with their original plans. so i think it tended to be an impulsive action that if done co-ververtly might have been a

signal to the iranians, i suppose. but when embraced by the president of the united states, they simply didn't think through what the likely response would be from the iranians. >> general, as you know, this week the president has ordered 3,500 or so troops be deployed from the 82nd airborne to iraq and kuwait, joining the 600 there in the -- 6,000, rather, in the region. today the iraqi parliament passed a resolution saying it must work to end the presence of any foreign troops on iraqi soil and prohibit them from using its lan land, airspace and water for any reason. what happened next? we heard from richard engel who suggested temporarily the united states can maintain a presence because of internal diplomatic reasons within iraq. is that your assessment as well? >> look, iraq is a fractured country. the kurdish elements, sunni elements s in no way will supp

shia militia. the politics of this are moving in the wrong direction. we're stuck on these isolated bases, 100, 200 troops, 165,000 iraqi armed forces, we're dependent upon them for our security. there's no government in iraq. so that's iraqi generals and police generals are trying to sort out what is in their best interest. will they isolate our troops? are we going to see hostage situations? deployment of the 82nd airborne, who are always happy to go to a fight, along with the marines, is a drop in the bucket to deal with what in the short run tactically is an untenable position. by the way, we are a huge threat to iran with strategic air and naval power. he hope they think through this cautiously. >> general mccaffrey, we agree with you on that.

thank you so much, sir. coming up, we will see whether there's concern in washington about dealing with both iran and a pending impeachment trial at the same time. ♪

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