issues will continue. haven't found anybody yet. >> nicholas johnson, from new york, thanks. >> thanks, nick. >> thank you. and reading axios in a bit. sign up for the newsletter. that does it for us on this tuesday morning. i'm yasmin vossoughian alongside ayman mohyeldin. "morning joe" starts right now. 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 that we took. >> mike pompeo says americans should put their full trust and complete confidence in the intel community's assessment of iran. >> yes. preach, brother. >> why does that seem slightly out of place in this administration? >> hmm. >> i think it was disgraceful, disgraceful, that the intelligence agencies allowed any information that turned out to be so false and fake out.

i think it's a disgrace, and i say that, and i say that, and that's something that nazi germany would have done and did do. >> all right. >> hmm. >> good morning. that's a big difference. welcome to "morning joe." it is tuesday, january 7th. along with joe, willie and me, we have washington anchor for bbc world news america katty kay and msnbc chair of the republican national committee michael steele. good to have you all onboard. a few things to watch this morning. president trump said he would order them, honestly, and he'd order the military to strike iran's cultural sites. the pentagon says, nope. it's not going to happen. what that public rebuke says about the commander in chief. in iran, meanwhile, dozens are dead in a stampede this morning as huge crowds continue to vent their anger at america for killing the nation's top general, and now there are more

threats about how tehran may hit back. and then there is this -- stunning misfire. the department of defense had to scramble together a news conference yesterday to contradict its own commanding general in iraq. military officials now say, no. we're not planning a withdrawal, despite a letter to baghdad that suggested the opposite. >> wow. >> kind of unbelievable at this point, but we begin -- >> no, no. actually it is, it's quite believable's you believe the media, until you don't. >> right. >> willie, you screen fake news inside the white house, until there's a news report in politico or the "new york times" or the "washington post" that you like, and then suddenly, it's not fake news. and donald trump spins the past three years saying you can't trust anything the intel community says, that you can trust vladimir putin more than

the intel community, until the intel community confirms information that he wants confirmed to justify his air strike. >> yeah. a central problem at the core of this iran story for the president and the white house, which is that we've been told now for three, four, five years that the intel agencies are the deep state working against this white house, and now we're being asked to trust the intel agencies blindly so far, anyway, to say that there was an imminent threat posed and that soleimani had to be killed. that doesn't shake out for most americans and as you say, criticisms of the press anda noo trust the administration saying we're get of our iraq as well. a lot of problems as we head into this day. >> you know, mika, the funny things that has happened over the past couple of days. they justify the attack, at first, by saying, there's an

imminent threat. why do that? well, if the threat's imminent you've got to move immediately on soleimani. you don't have time to talk to congress. you don't have time to talk to anybody. you don't have time to plot it out. we've got him. we've got to kill him. that's been their justification. starting sunday the rollback of this imminent threat, the lie, i suspect it's a lie, that he had plans to immediately go out and kill other americans, and now, i mean, if it is the case, okay. let's see the evidence. but the only thing the secretary of state and all of trump apologists have said, people inside the trump administration has said, editorial pages that slavishly bow down to donald trump, they've all said, well, no. it doesn't matter. those democrats, why are they taking donald trump at his own word? why are they asking f ining him was an imminent threat. it doesn't matter.

this man was a danger. yes, yes. soleimani was a danger to american troops everywhere. kim jong-un is also a threat to america. is he next on donald trump's kill list? what about assad? assad's killed more arabs than other leader in history other than saddam hussein. is he next on the kill list? i mean, saddam hussein was on our kill list, wasn't he? and killing him, how much peace has that brought to the middle east? they can't have it both ways, mika. can't on one hand say we had to do this right away without conferring with congress, other than a presidential tweet. the threat was imminent. we had to kill him right away and now doing nothing but roll back, one after another saying, doesn't matter whether it was imminent or not. come on. this guy was a bad guy. he should have killed him when we had the chance. doesn't make any sense. >> no, it doesn't. we'll dig further into this but we want to get into the

significant issue involving former administration official john bolton. in a statement posted yesterday, bolton says he is now willing to testify in the senate impeachment trial, if subpoenaed. he wrote in part, this -- since my testimony is once again at issue, i have had to resolve the serious competing issues as best i could based on careful consideration and study. i have concluded that if the senate issues a subpoena for my testimony, i am prepared to testify. senate democrats took the surprise announcement as a win for their push to call witnesses at the upcoming impeachment trial. senate republicans, meanwhile, appear divided on the idea. when asked if bolton should testify, joanie ernts told nbc news, yet to be determined. we don't have the articles yet. until we see some progress really doesn't make a bit of

difference. >> oh, dear god. is that really who iowa voted for? do they really want to re-elect this person who said i'm going to take you to the pigs? >> let me go to marco rubio who said i think our inquiry should be based on the testimony and evidence they used to reach those articles now. we're under no obligation to extend beyond the record that they created. >> under no obligation. voters in florida understand this. we're under no obligation to hear the truth. we're under no obligation to really -- willie, think about that. i'm under no obligation, ginnetti elected member of senate to find out what the truth to find out what the national xusecurity secretary sd was a drug deal. where's willie? i can't see willie. there's willie. hi, willie.

i was talking to you but i sass seeing mika so i was so confused. so what do you think of marco rubio saying, we're under no obligation -- yes, he was a national security adviser. yes, john bolton was the one who called this giuliani's drug deal. yes, this is the same white house official who will pond this meeting taking place, immediately adjourned it and told everybody, go talk to the lawyers now. this is illegal. and marco rubio's really saying, under no obligation, dude. i don't -- la, la, la -- i don't want to hear from him, because i might hear the truth that i already know in my heart about donald trump. that's marco rubio's position this morning. i don't want everybody else to hear what i know about donald trump, says marco rubio. is that rye why he was elected? why joni ernst was elected?

>> remember, if you were serious about finding out about this case what happened in ukraine you couldn't have a better witness than former national security adviser john bolton who was a firsthand witness. previously we heard from fiona hill who served really as a proxy for john bolton. a direct report to him, and she was the one who communicated john bolton's concerns. now you have john bolton saying, okay, you've heard from the people around me, now i myself, am willing to step forward and tell you exactly what happened. how as a juror in a trial could you say, no, we don't want to hear from that person? it's outrageous but not vising, joe. lindsey graham, remember, says i don't want to the hear anything or see the transcripts i'm knoll interested. the whole thing is a sham. >> la, la, la, la, hear no evil. >> this is a pattern from republicans so it's wrong but it's not surprising. >> willie, the most outrageous thing and i'd love for you, if you have lindsay's quotes, you

go around with a little book from lindsey graham. that would be awesome. what's so outrageous about all of this, these senators are doing, i don't want to hear anything. the house has not done their job. we don't have -- they say they don't have the evidence in front of them. why don't they have the evidence in front of them? because donald trump said from the beginning you because he knew he was guilty, i'm not cooperating. my people aren't allowed to cooperate. you want my people to tell you the truth about what i did? >> how dare you! >> i'm going to make you drag them and their lawyers through court for months and months and months, because we don't want you to know the truth. so now, because donald trump did everything he could to obstruct the house, now republican senators like marco rubio and joni ernst and lindsey graham are saying, we don't want to hear it. we shouldn't hear it, because the house didn't do their job. why didn't the house do their job? the house didn't do their job. why? because donald trump had a

concerted campaign to bury the truth. >> concerted and explicit. remember, white house counsel wrote a letter put out to the public and sent it to the house of representatives saying we will not cooperate. you're not getting witnesses, you're not getting testimony from us, and beginning of the trial in the senate before it even started, the majority leader said, we will not vote to convict the president of the united states. so we're starting from a place of the president is innocent, and now they'll use anything they can get to do make sure that happens including saying they don't want to hear from a central witness, perhaps "the" central witness. the quote you asked for as promised. lindsey graham said yesterday, nope. i'm ready to go. if they want to call bolton they should have called bolton in the house. worth recalling back during the impeachment of former president clinton back in 1999, congressman lindsey said, in every trial witnesses were called. when you have a witness telling you about what they were doing and why it's the difference between the truth, the whole

truth and nothing but the truth. that's 21 years ago from lindsey graham. let's bring in "new york times" reporter and msnbc national security analyst michael schmidt. the million dollar question, michael, will john bolton testify in this trial? >> well, that's a really, a mitch mcconnell question, and i think the, what will determine that is that group of republican senators who during the kavanaugh hearings asked mcconnell to go back and have the fbi do a week-long investigation to give them sort of the cover politically to vote for kavanaugh. will the susan collins', the murkowskis' say to their voters, for their folks back home, they need to be able to say that they heard all of the evidence, and as we've seen with mcconnell, he can, you know, endure great pain in order to get his political end. so i don't think it's a forgone conclusion that bolton will testify.

>> so the threshold is, michael, correct me if i'm wrong. 51 votes. right? this will come to a vote ultimately to decide whether or not this witness can be introduced. so that's a hurdle that democrats feel like they can clear with the help of some republicans, like mitt romney of utah who came out yesterday and said it would be "a good thing" for john bolton to testify. >> yeah. i mean, that's the thing. it's how much can the democrats pick off a republican or two to get to that point. to get them to put the pressure on mcconnell. to allow that to happen. now, there had been talk whether democrat wos have to allow someone like hunter biden to testify, would there be some type of deal like that. i mean, the thing is, we don't really know everything that bolton has. we don't know what he's going to say. we know that it's not good for the president. we know that it could, you know, people around bolton believe it will be damning for him, but at the same time, without having a peek into that, i think that the

republicans can sort of shrug it off. the question will be in the coming days and weeks, can we figure out what it is that bolton has? what it is that he's willing to say, and that he has about the president that is so important? >> i wonder if michael steele, if some of these republicans who are running in purple states, that the democratic nominee will likely win in 2020. if they can get away with the marco rubio strategy, i don't want to hear anything. i don't want my voters to hear the truth. i'm going to keep my ears covered. donald trump, you know, he did everything he could to stop everybody from testifying in the house so now i don't want to hear it in the senate. can cory gardner really go to the voters of colorado? can susan collins really go to the voters of maine, and can they -- can they go and -- and, really, i'd even say martha mcsally in arizona.

she's in the fight for her life. >> yep. >> because i would love -- can they go and say, we know that bolton was at the center of this. we know that bolton, a conservative icon for decades, was a guy who called this a drug deal? we know bolton was a guy so disturbed by it that he broke up the meeting and immediately ordered everybody to go talk to white house lawyers because it was so illegal? can they go to their voters and say, yeah, yeah. we know all that, but we don't want to hear about it. i'm going to try to blame nancy pelosi. >> especially on the record. >> even though i have the power to learn the truth? will they be able to say that to voters? i can tell you this, michael, you run for office once or twice. i've run for office once or twice. man, running against a democrat that did something like that, i would tear their political bones to pieces. it would be easy. and i'd just pick them off every single day of the campaign trail. >> well, joe, you just laid out

the exposure that cory gardner and others have, and that's why you see a little bit -- mitt romney, who has nothing in terms of political skin in this fight, has been the most aggressive, if you will, if you want to consider that aggression, the comments he's made. the others held back. the reason is, they're getting assurances from mcconnell and from the trump campaign that they're going to be there for them in the fight. that you hold the line with the president on this particular front to keep the witnesses from coming in. we'll be there for you. here's the rub. that makes assumptions about how voters are going to see this and how voters are going to take all of this in and with 71% of voters across the country, and that means, with that number, joe, there are a lot of republicans who want to see witnesses called by the senate. so i don't know how long they can hold that front. i don't know how long they're going to be able to, you know, maintain it. now it may be a 3posture to get

through the primary and then we'll hear and see a different tone once the primaries are over. now they're the impugntive nominee for their party for re-election to the senate, it takes on a whole different measure for them. so they may be trying to play this game where they, you know, a little bit with trump. a little bit we want more information, but how they measure that on the front end is what you're seeing right now and what they're saying is, we need to hear more. a particular out for the bolton testimony. the house can call him back and say, all right. you're ready to testify? here's a subpoena, show up. because, remember, while all of this is going on and nancy pelosi is still holding those articles of impeachment in the her pocket, the house committees are still investigating. we've seen some results of that over the last couple of weeks during the holidays with additional information. so he could potentially get called back to come testify, which would really put a huge

squeeze on those senate republicans if that happens. >> so let's go to the white house now and nbc news correspondent hans nichols. hans, how is the white house reacting to the bolton news? >> reporter: they have mixed reactions. in part because no one knows, what's so fascinating about this bolton comment, no one knows what bolton's going to say. and that puts a great deal of uncertainty inside the white house. now, they're saying that, you know, you can't go back and relitigate the house's job. the house gathered all the evidence. the senate's job is to weigh that evidence. fascinating thing about john bolton we could have a debate whether or not someone left the administration way worse breakup than john bolton did with the president. mattis ugly, tillis ugly. different is bolton continued to sort of needle the president. a back and forth about his twitter account. he's got a book coming out. and so there's this notion inside the white house that they

don't quite know where bolton is. is he on the trump team or is he off it? and that's a you know, uncomfortable place to be for the white house. now, they'll make their case that, you know, we think bolton is going to view the facts and this is just a blip, but in reality, with the exception of mick mulvaney, there's no one else we probably need to hear from to understand at least one-half of the potential quid pro quo equation, and that is, what was the president withholding? so you know, the white house doesn't have a firm answer, because they don't really know what bolton's going to potentially say. >> yeah. i mean, to know where he is, the one thing we do know, katty kay, that he is out. out of the white house and he's on a long list of casualties of the trump administration, people who just couldn't make it through, got kicked out or didn't take the oath. >> yeah. mr. bolton has clearly decided for whatever reason, and it's not clear what in his mind has changed over the last couple of

weeks, he now feeling he has something to say. maybe it's what has changed the move from the house to the senate. does he feel he has some protection because he thinks the senate is less likely to call him? for nancy pelosi, this is why it's worth delaying. right? delaying to get news like this out there that then puts pressure on those wavering republicans and gets somebody like mitt romney in a position now, former governor, former presidential candidate, perhaps now in his most important role as senator to say, okay i do want to hear from john bolton. that's what this delaying strategy is producing for democrats, and why they felt it was worth doing, because evidence may surface, or news of some potential evidence might surface, but michael schmidt, do you think something has changed for john bolton beyond the fact that this has moved from the house to the senate? what is it that suddenly made him come forward and say, guys, hands up, i actually do have something to say? i actually think the biggest factor forebolt bolton, the

resolution or lack of a resolution from a little known lawsuit filed end of last year by his lawyer chuck cooper. this lawyer cooper also represented bolton's deputy kupperman who had can't subpoenaed to testify up on the hill. cooper had gone to court to the ask the court to decide whether kupperman would have to speak and the court essentially ruled that the issue was moot. that it wasn't going to make a decision on that. that was almost right before new year's, and here we are one of the first business days of 2020, and bolton basically coming forward and saying that he is willing to testify. so by this court decision not making a decision, it gave bolton sort of the political and legal cover on his own to go forward and make this decision and sort of raise his hand. >> all right. michael schmidt, thank you very

much for your reporting this morning, and still ahead on "morning joe," the senate's top democrat on foreign relations, bob menendez is our guest. plus the cia's former director nbc analyst john brennan joins the conversation. also several big developments in the presidential race. we'll read from joe's new column in the "washington post," but first -- here's bill karins with a check on the forecast. bill? >> good morning, mika. get to that snow forecast in the mid-atlantic in a second. first update on breaking news occurred in the last two hours. a very strong earthquake on the south coast of puerto rico. reports of half the island without power. a power plant sustained significant damage and off-line on the southern coast. telemundo reported a possibility of a wall collapse and one fatalitien o'the south coast here. you see where the epicenter was located. magnitude 6.4 earthquake and pictures from san juan showing dark neighborhoods in the background. hospitals that are running on

generators and there have been reports of some minor injuries and, of course, just got that report from our telemundo friends of a fatality and i've seen numerous pictures of homes collapsed and a beautiful church completely collapsed and in rubble. as we get the daylight pictures in we'll bring you more from the scenes out of puerto rico but our thoughts and prayers are with the people of the island right now still dealing with numerous aftershocks. get to the forecast to help those in the mid-atlantic and through the appalachians. snow in virginia and west virginia, a band of light snow could affect washington, philly, baltimore and new york. if it snows hard enough, could give you slick conditions. for washington were d.c., key time is around 3:00 p.m. as we go further up the map, philadelphia, appears to be around the evening rush hour, 5:00 to 6:00. new york city right around 8:00 p.m. or so when everyone could deal with a quick shot of snow. not a lot of heavy snow. out there driving on the roads you could possibly deal with

problems out there and, again, airport delays likely in the mid-atlantic region going throughout the afternoon hours. so washington, d.c., winter weather advisory. not a lot of white stuff this winter. maybe just a coating on the grass in the beltway inside the beltway later on this afternoon. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. on healthcare hurt the patients i care for. i've been a nurse in new york for thirty years. i know the difference leadership can make because i saw what mike bloomberg did as mayor. vo: mayor bloomberg helped lower the number of uninsured by 40%, covering 700,000 more new yorkers, life expectancy increased. he helped expand health coverage to 200,000 more kids and upgraded pediatric care--- infant mortality rates dropped to record lows. and as mayor, mike bloomberg always championed reproductive health for women. so when you hear

mike bloomberg on health care... mrb: this is america. we can certainly afford to make sure that everybody that needs to see a doctor can see a doctor, everybody that needs medicines to stay healthy can get those medicines. nurse: you should know, he did it as mayor, he'll get it done as president. mrb: i'm mike bloomberg and i approve this message. (honk!) i hear you sister. that's why i'm partnering with cigna to remind you to go in for your annual check-up, and be open with your doctor about anything you feel - physically and emotionally. but now cigna has a plan that can help everyone see stress differently. just find a period of time to unwind. a location to de-stress. an activity to enjoy. or the name of someone to talk to. to create a plan that works for you, visit cigna.com/mystressplan. cigna. together, all the way.

this melting pot of impacted species. everywhere is going to get touched by climate change. americans come to lendingtree.com to compare and save on loans, credit cards and more! but with the new lending tree app you can see your full financial health, monitor your credit score, see your cash flow and find out how you can cut

your monthly bills. download it now to see how much you can save. looking to get your business off to a fast start in the new year? it's go time! switch to comcast business and get fast internet on the nation's largest gig-speed network. plus, complete reliability with 4g lte backup.

and, cloud-based security to help protect the devices on your network. greenlight your business in 2020 with fast internet and voice for $99.99 per month. act now, and get 1 year free of wifi pro. call today. comcast business. beyond fast. now to the muddled message over the status of u.s. troops in iraq. one day after iraq's parliament passed a resolution to expel u.s. troops following the killing of iranian general qassem soleimani in baghdad, top military officials had to scramble together a news conference yesterday to contradict its own commanding general in iraq. in a letter to iraqi officials, general william sealy of the u.s. command in baghdad said

troops were being repositioned in preparation to leave the country. then came the walk back from the defense secretary that, "there has been no decision whatsoever to leave." the chairman of the joint chiefs said the letter was a mistake. he called it an unsigned, poorly worded draft. >> wow. >> and said it was sent to the iraqis to coordinate about u.s. troops moving around baghdad. former nsc spokesman for president obama observed on twitter, "i realize that letters go out with typos sometimes, and people make mistakes, but how do you mistakenly send a message to a foreign government that says we're pulling 5,200 troops out of your country? this is not believable." it's unbelievable. >> willie, it's one thing if you misspell "there," "their" or forget the apostrophe for it's.

>> that's bad, joe. >> it drives me crazy. happen it's all the time. maybe you don't put the oxford comma in and i'm like, i'm not even reading that letter unless it's an editorial. >> rip it up. >> man, taking all of our troops out of your country. i mean, that's an error that takes it really to the in ex-level of clerical errors. >> it is stunning and this administration, let's be honest, has not built up a great reservoir of goodwill, people trusting these are honest mistakes because they've not told the truth all the time. when something like this happens it gives people like tommy veeger and others cause to say, what's really going on here? and hans nichols is still with us at the white house. what's the white house and the president saying about this, this is not an insignificant development to have out in public as we saw breaking news alerts, hans, when this letter came 0 out. the united states of america after 17 years is getting out of

iraq, pulling all of its troops, 5,200, for then the secretary to say, nope. sorry. we hit send mistakenly on that letter. >> and what we call a bullpen at the pentagon a lot of questions about the cultural sites and what the president meant and then there wasn't a lot of clarity on this letter from the general. was it a draft? things in the letter we first saw it online that didn't quite make sense. seemed to suggest a withdrawal but didn't quite say it and then officials, milley came back down, chairman of the joint staff banging on doors trying to clarify further and when they really owned the ins take. obviously, a difficult morning at the pentagon. a clerical mistake, bureaucratic mistake, gives an indication wa they're planning for at the pentagon. always plans is going on at the pentagon. the bigger challenge i think for esper and milley as women, thel

have a jim mattis problem. on a different page than his commander in chief on this issue of cultural sites. an exceedingly uncomfortable place for anyone to be in any administration, all the more so with this president. milley was pretty clear yesterday that the united states will follow the rules of the laws of war and that prevents targeting culture sites and the president himself clearly wants the signal that cultural sites are on the table, and that puts, that makes esper's warning very differen difficult when it seems in obvious contradiction of the commander in chief. esper who a different morning on two fronts. the bureaucratical and the larger issue what do they do on cultural sites. >> hans nichols from the white house. thanks. the president send doubled down he would look at cultural sites as targets from the united states inside iran, and as hans said, the defense secretary jumped up quickly and said, no.

that is not within the bounds of war and others, including united states senators that would be a war crime if the president carried out such an attack. >> just look at the backdrop of this. president trump has had four national security advisers, two secretary of states, two homeland security, three chiefs of staff. three defense secretarying. i've got a list here, like 30 people who have left the administration. amid this backdrop of chaos it's fair to call that chaos, going to read from joe's piece in the "washington post" entitled "trump the ignorance created and international crisis." in which he compares president trump's order to kill iran's top military commander with u.s. general douglas macarthur and the 1950 assault in south korea. and joe writes in part this -- president trump's decision last week to assassinate the most powerful military figure in the

middle east was, likewise, audacious, but unlike macarthur, trump likely did not grasp the gravity of his decision. how could he? the former reality tv star has long been ignorant of world history and current events. during a 2015 interview, then candidate trump did not even know who major general qassem soleimani was after prompting trump, mistakenly denld phied the iranian general as a kurdish general. and the crisis was created by trump's own irrad simple. his performance as commander in chief has been shaped by scattered grievances, emotional impulses and ransom tweets, as the financial times phillip

stephens has said of his foreign policy, looking for a framework is like searching for symmetrical patterns in a bowl of spaghetti. again, i remindy this is with an add min installation has seen so much chaos and turmoil it's not like anyone else in there is able to guide him in any way. most of the bright minds, joe, have left. >> most have, and, again, we don't know what framework donald trump used to make his decision. i suspect none. i suspect it could have just been the tweet from ka manhamen mocking him saying there's nothing you can do. something most of americans know in the united states about trump, chances are good he reacted more to that tweet than anything else. but, you know, it seems to me, katty kay that trump supporters are leading with the weakest

argument which they talk about, soleimani was a bad man, and he was. he considered america to be his enemy, but kim jong-un considers america to be his enemy. assad considers america to be his enemy. do we kill him like we killed saddam hussein and moammar gadhafi? gadhafi blew up americans on passenger airliners. evil, terrible men, and yet their killings didn't stabilize the middle east. in fact, we see clearly in 2020 with hindsight it did just the opposite. so here we go again. >> yes. so this is why you had mike pompeo go on the sunday shows and said it would have been nic negligent not to take out soleimani because of a big attack imminent so they had to

act immediately. the problem with that no one else has seen that intelligence and this administration doesn't really have much of a history of always being candid when it comes to facts like this, and so there's not a lot of goodwill around the world to believe that intelligence actually exists, that this threat was imminent. if there wasn't an imminent threat and george bush and barack obama both had opportunity had the opportunity to take out soleimani and thought the risk was too great, why take him out now if the strategic risk is still the same? there's a moral case, a legal case, perhapses, for taking out this guy. the question is strategically whether it makes sense. right? whether the risk of doing so is actually going to cause america more problems and america's allies more problems around the world than it solves. talking to a friend in argentina yesterday who told me that security has been stepped up overnight at jewish sites in

argentina as far away buenos air aires. around the world, impacted already by this decision, let alone the fact now we've had to call off effectively the war on isis, already resurgent in the north of iraq before this. so it's very hard to make the case that this was a risk worth taking right now, if there wasn't an imminent attack. >> certainly isis has been a big winner not only with this killing also with donald trump retreating from syria and trying to turn the entire country over to assad and vladimir putin. you know, willie, katty brought up barack obama. i'm sure somewhere out there, there is a confused trump supporter going, yeah, yeah. donald trump is tough unlike barack obama. he's taking it to the iranians. when donald trump's entire argument, his entire foreign policy has been to disentangle

america from the middle east. to end the forever wars in afghanistan and iraq and across the world. especially the middle east. so where do trump supporters go? where does donald trump go now that he has done perhaps the most provocative thing any american president could do short of invading another country? >> the central theme of his campaign. build the wall, a domestic theme. america first the international theme, which is to say, let's pull back from the world. let's focus on our problems at home. we have a lot to work on here. get out of this military adventurism of the bush years the wars that continued through the obama years and now what you have is an enflaming of tensions obviously in the middle east with the death of soleimani, and michael steele, i think this is a president it's fair to say who watches a lot of tv and responds

sort of gutterly to what he sees. thinking a couple years ago of the images he saw in syria of children choking on chemical weapons, he decided to launch attacks there. last week by most reports watched what happens in the u.s. embassy in baghdad and responded in part with this death of soleimani. so president trump operates on what he sees in the moment, and the idea that he perhaps had some grand strategy or that he consulted with everybody and said, okay. we're going to take this shot at soleimani, but here's what follows the day after, and here's what comes the week after and the month after, i think is giving perhaps the president a little too much credit, if you believe there was a plan here. >> well, that's the nub of it, and i think joe's op-ed in the "washington post" this morning really put the finger on a very central reality, and truth, that's reflected not just in the cia, nsa and all the other

acronyms in washington but certainly in the episode at the pentagon with respect to troop withdrawals in iraq. there is no policy. there is no grand scheme. there is no design for a middle east strategy. largely because you have a president who doesn't read, who doesn't take in the information, doesn't rely on the counsel of individuals who don't confirm what he's already thought the outcome should be. so reactionary policies, if you want to call them policies, certainly come into play. the soleimani attack has as much, it's as much as what took place on the ground in iraq as it is sort of the tail wagging the dog with respect to impeachment. it took that subject off the front pages as more evidence and revelations were coming out over the holidays, and shifted the goal lines with respect to that subject, because it gave the republicans another talking point. well, you know, the president's

engaged in military conflict potentially overseas. you can't impeach the president at this point. so you have a conflagration, these fires, around these big substantive issues that as katty pointed out reaches across the globe. it's not just u.s. interests, per se, it's a whole bunch of other interests out there relying on a policymaker in the form of a presidential strategy with respect to the middle east that doesn't really exist. >> all right. still ahead, new polling shows bernie sanders in a strong position in iowa and new hampshire. what would it mean if he were to sweep the first three contests? steve par knack ipar kn parknac >> man: what's my safelite story?

i spend a lot of time in my truck. it's my livelihood. ♪ rock music >> man: so i'm not taking any chances when something happens to it. so when my windshield cracked... my friend recommended safelite autoglass. >> tech: hi, i'm adrian. >> man: thanks for coming. >> tech: oh, no problem. >> tech: check it out. >> man: yeah. they came right to me, with expert service where i needed it. that's service i can trust...

no matter what i'm hauling. right, girl? >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪ wean air force veteran made of doing what's right,. not what's easy. so when a hailstorm hit, usaa reached out before he could even inspect the damage. that's how you do it right. usaa insurance is made just the way martin's family needs it - with hassle-free claims, he got paid before his neighbor even got started. because doing right by our members, that's what's right. usaa. what you're made of, we're made for. usaa

apps except work.rywhere... why is that? is it because people love filling out forms? maybe they like checking with their supervisor to see how much vacation time they have. or sending corporate their expense reports. i'll let you in on a little secret. they don't. by empowering employees to manage their own tasks, paycom frees you to focus on the business of business. to learn more, visit paycom.com

welcome back to "morning joe." joining us now national political correspondent for nbc news and msnbc and author of "the red and the blue" steve kornacki. good to see you. >> you, too, willie. happy new year. >> to you too. we've officially turned the

corner, it's 2020, in an election year we can say that. look at polls we have first. first new polls for 2020, cbs ugov, new hampshire and iowa to look at. what is the state of play right now? iowa obviously, a cluster of four people effectively tied at the top. three literally tied with elizabeth warren not far behind. where do you see this race right now, a few weeks no you, before voting senators iowa? >> there you go. first, thank goodness we have some polls. a month without knowing what was actually happening in iowa or new hampshire. plenty of national polls. here you go. as you say, three-way tie there. sanders, biden, buttigieg. i think, look, obviously talked about buttigieg's early strength in iowa. i think the two things that jump out there, a resilience for joe biden. that was a story of 2019 for him. i think his campaign came with a lot of sort of expectation of collapse. his early debate performances certainly fed that. you're not seeing it.

sanders obviously two months after the heart attack tied for the lead and look into new hampshire. remember, bernie sanders in 2016 didn't just win new hampshire. it was a blowout for him. next door neighbor vermont 60% in 2016. he leads tenuously over biden. again, resilience for biden, warren another next door neighbor. buttigieg, what you see in the first two states, four in double digits. buttigieg there in new hampshire a little off pace. warren a little off pace in iowa and a lot of scenarios that that suggests. >> who do you give the edge to in iowa? three-way tie. a coin toss? you need three sides of the coin at this point. who do you give the edge to as you look at the race? >> tough sto say. >> you've seen buttigieg establishing himself early. biden, interesting, biden runned on this electability message. two things going his way lately. one, national polling show him doing better against trump than any other democrat. bottom line democratic voters

who just want to beat trump, the best advertisement biden can have. polling that keep coming out looking like that. biden's shaky performance early in the debates. the thing not everybody saw coming in june, july, august. he got better. turned in his strongest performance in that debate just before christmas. i wasn't sure he could get better, frankly. he did. keeps it up, that bodes well for him as well. then sanders. we say resilient after his heart attacks. what we see now, sanders is start tock ing to go after bide. when will somebody make a full-on attack oned by jn seeing sanders do it. the question how that will play. the famous story in iowa back in 2004 at this point a couple weeks before the caucuses, howard dean, dick ephart. >> and going directly at vice president biden. you asked on twitter how you feel about biden's chances of

winning the nomination if he loses both iowa and new hampshire which could easily happen. depends how you think about the clinton/sanders race in '16. what do you mean by that? >> we've been saying, this is true in the modern era, no one has lost contested races in both iowa and new hampshire and gone on to win the democratic nomination. there's not a ton of examples there but no one's lost the first two when contested and done that. a question for biden slips in iowa not able to bounce back in new hampshire, curtains for him. hillary clinton why closest in history of iowa caucuses closest to lose while actually winning caucuses. nearly lost iowa. lost new hampshire by 22 points to bernie sanders. won nevada by only 6 points. i remember thinking sanders would pull that out. look at hillary clinton in 2016, do you think if she'd actually

lost iowa and actually lost nevada the bottom would have fallen out? would have been in a fight in south carolina. lost a bunch of big states and locht the nomination? or think, ah, still wins south carolina by 50, gets 80% of the black vote. everything holds for her. look back at 2016 and ask yourself how you feel about that, that goes a long way to getting towards what you might think about biden if he slips in the first two. >> joe? >> there's always the firewall of south carolina i always have to talk about not just because of joe biden because of the entire democratic field. nobody has yet connected with black voters, with rank and file voters in south carolina and across the deep south, and the industrial states like illinois where a lot of chicago votes there. so that's why i've always thought if biden does extremely well in iowa, if he shocks people, wins iowa, he's off to the races. he's in great shape. he finishes third or fourth obviously, that's another scenario we've been talking

about. let's play out the bernie scenario. bernie wins iowa. bernie wins new hampshire. bernie wins nevada. three thing thats that could all happen and then on top of that, bernie sanders actually has the money to advertise on super tuesday. you'll see bernie ads on super tuesday and you'll see michael bloomberg ads on super tuesday, and that is that. if biden then wins in south carolina, and the other southern states that we expect him to win in, then, boy, what a mess that's going to be, and one reason i say biden wins south carolina even if bernie sweeps the first three, i mean, steve, i haven't seen any evidence that bernie anymore than buttigieg is going to win votes in black churches in south carolina or other southern states. >> what i'd say about sanders when you look at the numbers anoanumbers

among black voters, getting blown out. 0% or 1% better there with black voters and we've seen with sanders does particularly well with latino voters. out of california a big super tuesday states has sanders doing well powered by particularly younger latino voters. another number to keep in mind with bernie sanders is this. think of a self-described socialist, runs with an independent mind. think of somebody like that as a factional candidate, maybe a core of diehard supporters but a lot of suspicion from the rest of the party. you do not see that in the polling. i specifically say this, when you ask the favorable, unfav unfavorable question of democrats nationally, a favorable, unfavorable view of candidates. new poll out. putting numbers up. sanders is the most popular democratic candidate nationally. 75% favorable. 16% unfavorable.

slightly more popular than biden right now. so, again, that scenario of iowa, new hampshire, if he adds nevada, go 3-0, it raises a legitimate question under that scenario if a bandwagon effect takes hold and he builds strength he doesn't right now have. >> bernie's looking pretty gi right n good right now. you're right. the one candidate that has a good possibility of winning the first three states and, again, he's got the most money. he's got the most contributor es. his campaign like his heart, very healthy right now. much healthier than many people in washington thought. let's talk about that morning consult, put it up, if we can do that, alex. look at the morning consult poll and, of course, biden's way ahead. there you have michael bloomberg sitting at 7%. 7% after a month or so of running ads and having, you know, staring at ribs in diners.

pete buttigieg for all of the work all the -- the positive press, only 1 percentage point higher, and, of course, there are just a fleet of candidates below bloomberg that aren't even on that list right now who have been working their tails off for a year and some of them running really great campaigns, that aren't close to registers. what does that tell you? >> it's interesting. look at biden and have that scenario we just talked about. if sanders gets hot early. if that happens, and if part of that scenario is that biden is seen as just, not just losing, losing by significant margins in some states that is to the extent one exists, that's the dream scenario for michael bloomberg because he's not contesting iowa, new hampshire, nevada, south carolina. he's trying to jump-start his campaign on super tuesday. the scenario he's looking for is a party suddenly facing a real prospect of nominating bre inin

sanders or elizabeth warren for that matter and doesn't have joe biden to lean on anymore might turn to him in those super tuesday states. we haven't seen somebody pull that off before but seeing a lot of firsts in politics these days. >> so much going on. steve, stay with us. coming up, john bolton says that he's willing to testify in the senate impeachment trial. but it is clear that the president's defenders don't want to hear anything bolton has to say. plus, we'll talk to the top democrat on the senate foreign relations committee, bob menendez about the answers he's demanding on the president's decision to kill iran's top general. "morning joe" is coming right back. >> coming back with the rage. more rage. >> and more rage. rage. >> and more rage. any comments doug?

yeah. only pay for what you need with liberty mutual. only pay for what you need with liberty mutual. con liberty mutual solo pagas lo que necesitas. only pay for what you need... only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ you always want to be able to for your patients.f get them out of pain, get them out of pain fast. we have a new product out there: sensodyne rapid relief. if you use it on monday, by thursday, you'll be enjoying that chocolate ice cream again. they can start it, and 3 days later, i know that they're going to have the results they were looking for.

welcome back to "morning joe." it is tuesday, january 7th, still with joe, willie and me, we have washington anchor for bbc world news america, katty

kay. former chair of the republican national committee michael steele. national political correspondent for nbc news and msnbc steve kornacki, and joining the conversation political writer for the "new york times" and msnbc political analyst nick convasory and associate editor for the "washington post" and msnbc political analyst eugene robinson and -- she's back! nbc news capitol hill correspondent and host of k.asi d.c. -- >> do you have a lightning bolt? >> no. this is a mother -- no. i'm not doing lightning bolts anymore. she's out from them. >> ah, yeah! >> she's back. >> i don't agree. >> laser rock! >> kasie, just been, like, off a few months just kicking back. hanging out. >> doing nothing. >> smoking a cigarette. what's going on? >> i have been home with,

there's mars. our newborn, four months old now and as you know, yeah, i traded one job for another job along with my husband. there he is with his grandparents, which was really fun. >> he's dhunky. >> he is. 9.5 pounds at birth. 4 months, 18 pounds now. up know, no. he's doing really, really well. you know, you can't ask for anything more than a super healthy baby, and, you know, it's a learning curve. a huge learning curve now. logistics of getting out the door to come see you this morning is a learning curve but we're figuring it ought out like so many people have. >> well, you know, mika, we have noticed over the past, and willy andwilly -- willie and i talked about it a good bit. talk, seen it over the past six months about declining birth rates across the world. especially in countries like the united states. >> yes. >> across western europe. and a lot of people are very concerned about that, and the impact it's going to have on the

economy, on -- well, the future, vitality of these countries. we at "morning joe." >> yes. >> are doing something about that, and we're launching a new initiative called "morning joe baby boom." mika, who else is pregnant? >> julia had her baby. look at mary welles knight inslee. came into the world two days ago. sunday. weighing in at 7.11, what my amelia was. look how beautiful the baby is? named after her maternal great-grandmother one of the first women to win the pulitzer prize for biography. my gosh, congratulations, julia. absolutely beautiful, and kasie, so glad to have you back. so -- >> i'm thrilled to be back. >> i don't know what it takes to get out the door, but make it happen. >> one more note. mars was baby yoda before baby yoda was a thing. i think you showed that photo a second ago. his costume for halloween.

i really enjoyed only have to be tweet about baby yoda for four months. let me tell you. twitter is a much nicer place when talking about babies than it is talking about politics. >> sure is. hope you got a little bit of a break, but so glad to have you back. we've missed "kasie d.c." >> you said it. i missed you. >> i see lightning bolts every time we see kasie dc. >> so steve kornacki, follow-up on a conversation quickly about michael bloomberg at 7%. "new york times" article last week suggested that bloomberg's ads, digital ads, in swing states where primary candidates don't usually advertise, could have an impact. i've got to believe that, too. i mean, donald trump has been obsessed, his team's been obsessed about how much money they're raising. you talk to them, they're always talking about digital ads, how

much digital ads they're putting out there. bloomberg is matching them. i mean, whatever they raise, that's a rounding arrow for michael bloomberg. go back to what obama did no romney in the 2012 campaign. he spent the spring of 2012 disqualifying mitt romney and romney never recovered. it's pretty remarkable that democrats have a candidate right now whether you want to vote for him or not, that can in effect do the same thing to an incumbent president himself. >> yeah. he can certainly spend the money. can certainly spend it in places other candidates can't, and aren't spending it right now. certainly do it even if he isn't the nominee or doesn't come close to the nomination, he could find a way to keep spending 24that kind of money against president trump all the way to the election. the question inamerican politics does it get you what it did in the past. a cautionary tale how trump got

elected, money wasn't necessarily his strong suit, his side strong suit both in the republican primary race and in the general election. it was much more sort of the polarization that ensued from all things being built around trump. werther you likliked him or hat him, able to polarize the country. talked about it a million time. find that narrow path through the electoral college. i wonder if his presence sort of, dominant presence in american politics whatever you make of it is almost bigger than money at this point. >> fascinating, if donald trump does ultimately lose in 2020, going to be a lot of people writing the day after about how in 2016 donald trump ran as an outsider. he ran as somebody who was shaking up the system. in 2020, he had to face a barrage of ads from people bili michael bloomberg and defend that record. a little harder to do, kasie

hunt. you've had time to look at the democratic field in between your obviously pressing duties at home. i'm curious what your thoughts are about, we spoke at the end of last hour about bernie sanders and really in a strong, much stronger position than anybody expected six months ago, and steve talked about the possibility he's the only candidate who could possibly win iowa, new hampshire and nevada and have a ton of money to spend on super tuesday. >> i'll be honest, joe. i traveled with bernie sanders through the primary last time around, and i frankly was expecting him to be in this kind of a position going in here, because he does have a core of supporters. he's got a floor protecting thi that a lot of other democrats don't necessarily have and a donor base that's renewable because of where his money is coming from and how people are investing in him, and you know, he's proven his critics wrong

time and time again. he will, you know, criticize the media for ignoring him or acting as though he doesn't matter and the reality is, he really has proven that he has a resilience that many other candidates in the field haven't prove ton hn have. when i left in september the field looked remarkably different than it does today but bernie sanders has been a steady part of that. if you think how this nominating process will play out, you do need a floor of 15% to qualify for delegates in a given spot, but i think what you saw him doing in 2016 with hillary clinton was stay in until the very end and demand that he get his due. and you know, i think that the biden campaign right now is pretty quick to dismiss the impact that mike bloomberg may have on this race for a lot of reasons that steve laid out here, you know, they say we're looking at districts, gathering delegates. not many bloomberg-biden

districts out there. 's if bernie sanders is hanging around consistently, who else is competing with biden? a lot of challenges there, you could end up with a contest quite thorny for him and i don't see a bernie sanders stepping out of the way saying, hey, let me roll out the carpet for you, joe biden, i will step aside. i don't see it happening that way. >> no. ask hillary clinton. that ain't going to happen. you know, charlie peairs recovers from trying to tackle a car some? boston. sort of like trying to stop a beast as he's going into the end zone for seattle, but gene robinson, he tweeted about, i think about a week ago, charlie tweeted he wanted to bang his head against the wall, because cable news pundits were already talking about a brokered convention. because we care about charlie's health and we are praying for his speedy recovery and want to get him back as soon as

possible, we're not going to talk about that here. i think it is safe to say, though, it's one of the most fluid democratic races i can recall. you get a lot of strong candidates in mayor pete. bernie sanders, my gosh. the guy's coming on so strong right now. raised a ton of money in 2019. of course, joe biden, winning every national poll, it seems these days. you can't take your eyes off of elizabeth warren. i know a lot of people want to right now, but she has got a strong ground game in iowa. a better than expected performance there. leads to a much better expected performance in new hampshire. basically her home media market. and then you've got michael bloomberg, who's already out rating about 15 candidates who have been campaigning for a year. a lot of pieces moving on this puzzle board. we won't talk about brokered conventions, charlie. don't worry about that.

this is really fluid. nobody knows how this is going to end. >> we won't talk about brokered convention but we will talk about a primary race that could go pretty deep into the spring i think. i find it hard to figure out the scenario where this gets wrapped up as quickly as some people might suspect. i mean, biden is still in the driver's seat, such as it is. he's the front-runner. the clear front-runner, but a relatively weak front-runner. and, you know, i watched the nfl wild card playoff games this weekend. i know mika was sitting, glued to the television set watching those games as well, and -- >> that was me. uh-huh. >> yeah. i know you were really, really down with it, but i saw ads for two democratic presidential candidates, tom steyer, of course, but a lot of ads for michael bloomberg, who is, who is out there not just with

digital ads but with broadcast ads. >> by the way, gene, you know who that drives crazy more than anybody in the world is donald trump who after he put an advertisement on a high-profile college football game, as people went out scurried out and said donald trump is showing we're going to take the fight to democrats everywhere -- michael bloomberg sneezed and enough money came out where he could do that like every week. every big game. again, the trump people whistled past the political graveyard here, but they're not happy about it. >> huh-uh. >> they wouldn't be happy about it. and, look, you know, one ad in particular about health care i thought was a pretty effective ad making the case that bloomberg had actually done something about a lack of health insurance coverage in new york city when he was mayor. it began, of course, with an attack on trump and segued into

his record, and he's getting himself out there. i think that's reflected in the fact that he's at 7% already. so this is not saying he's going to win the nomination of a party much of which i think is still a bit skeptical about him, but the party is skeptical about everybody. and so this could -- this really could go a while. i'm really keeping a sharp eye on my home state of south carolina. i do think that's going to be a very important primary, but it might not solve everything and then we're talking about super tuesday. >> so, steve, talking a little in the commercial break about some hand wringing or projections at least from democrats who say, boy, this thing could go deep into the spring, could go into the summer, because if you have three different people win the first three races, then you jump ahead to super tuesday, mike bloomberg playing everywhere, could be up for grabs. you have a little different view the way this may play out?

>> yeah. one wild card to keep in mind. the psychology of the democratic electorate. when you look at polling, the one thing that democrats are nearly nan mass on that is how intent they are on beating donald trump. how focused they are on this idea of finding an electable candidate. define electability however you want, they want somebody who can beat donald trump. the bottom line answer when you ask democrats what thir loey're looking for. a parallel at this same point looked incredibly messy. 2004, howard dean democratic front-runner at this point with about 26% nationally. john kerry a blip at this point. joe lieberman there, dick gephardt and a million different scenarios in 2004. the psychology of the democratic party in 2004 was, what? republican president who they thought had been installed by the supreme court in 2000, they thought start add war he had no business starting with iraq in 2003 and who they badly wanted to defeat in 2004.

just win, baby. the psychology of the party, and all that had to happen to bring that incredibly messy race into something very neat and very simple and very straightforward was john kerry win iowa. the minute john kerry won iowa, numbers shot up 30 points in new hampshire. won new hampshire by double digits and on his way. fell like dominoes from that point forward. not saying it will go exactly like that. a lot of different scenarios and wild cards here. one to keep in mind, this is a party that doesn't seem like it's in the mood for a long, drawn out fight. it wants somebody to go toe to toe with trump. >> you covered politics a lot. michael bloomberg has most of the money in politics turns out. if you look at this scenario, if the race is basically calcified by the time you get to super tuesday, it's possible all of that money will have been spent for nought if your mike bloomberg? >> kind of returning a general election campaign in the primary. good for democrats. what has changed completely in american politics this year is the rise of the small donor.

it is powering a bunch of these candidates to stay in the race. so people like sanders and warren and mayor pete to some extent are on solar power that's renewable. pete is kind of, you know, a hybrid candidate, right? joe biden mostly running on gas. he has to fill the tank pretty soon after the first races. what's changed is, people can raise money for a very long time and stay in the race and not get forced out, and that is a different scenario than we have seen in past elections. >> joe, as nick points out, bernie in that fourth quarter, big haul he had, average contribution was $18. average contribution from nearly 2 million people who gave money to his campaign. >> boy that is, i mean -- that is -- the key to success. staying alive. those are the supply lines that every political candidate needs. and some candidates don't, when

they drop out of the race and michael steele, you and i, when we were involved in politics, it was all about, for presidential candidates at least, the big donors, the bundlers. i talked to a lot of bundlers beginning of this campaign last year and i said, okay. who do you like? where's your money going? and they said, where the money was likely going, which was biden, but said, but we're not the story so much anymore. it's the people who can do what bernie sanders does. how many -- because these bundlers saying, i can only write one check. my people can only write one check, but if you have a million contributors, well, they can just keep writing you checks week after week after week. what we're seeing with bernie sanders. so how does that, how -- how do you handycap the race, considering that, i think biden's still, i would guess, biden is still the odds-on

favorite to win but, but he doesn't have the fund-raising machine bernie has. how do you handicap it? >> a very good point. this began back in the 2004 race with howard dean who figured out a new way to sort of begin to galvanize two types of political activists. those who went out and, you know, hands-on. hey, going to volunteer for you. and those, i'm not so much into volunteering. here's a check. when you get to barack obama, he was able to merge that universe in such a way he convinced that donor who would only volunteer. just send me $5 a month. right? and the donor who was already in the game to write the big check realized, oh, i can still do that and i can also do a little volunteering. so the democrats had become very effective, it's now mastered by bernie sanders, andrew yang, and others, to be able to take that small donor and make them the preeminent player. so there are no longer relying

on the traditional system that you and i joe, were a part of building both as candidates and political operatives inside our party. you now have this x factor, this donor, who's like, i like andrew yang, i'm going to keep loving on him. here's $16 million for you, bro, and he's in the hunt. now, in any other universe, andrew yang is gone after six months, in a presidential campaign. because he may have some volunteers but doesn't have the money and the juice. or may have some guys who really like him, write a big check but the volunteers aren't there. now you've got a confluence that's rechshaping the race. here's the rub. what steve said how it may potentially play out. i'm not convinced you're going to see a long, drawn out battle for the democratic nomination, for a number of reasons but one in particular. it helps trump the longer this thing goes on, because that's

going to create the fractures we saw inside the democratic party between hillary clinton and bernie sanders, they become exacerbated because the longer those supporters think, my guy is the person, or my gal is the person, the more entrenched they become, the harder to undo that when it's time to focus on one person. so i see this thing, by the time we get to super tuesday, really kind of melding around one candidate who's going to be the standard bearer for the dnc against trump. that's the ideal scenario the leadership would like to see have happen, and how those small donors play into that, that's what i'm going to be watching over the next few weeks. >> it's fascinating. watching over the next few weeks, watching over the next month or so, for the first time, mika, it seems to me that this, this primary process for democrats is segregated. iowa and new hampshire. >> yeah. >> and then there's a wall. that wall is south carolina. >> yep. >> you have, you have candidates

that are going to do very well in iowa and new hampshire, and there's a firewall that will stop them from doing well in south carolina most likely. unless something dramatically changes. then after south carolina you have another firewall, and that firewall is super tuesday. 40% of the votes. that comes what? three, four days later? 40% of the delegates awarded on that single day. that is a firewall. it's made of money. so, you know, it used to be you catch lightning in a bottle before iowa. it carries you through new hampshire. pat buchanan always said you get $100 million of free earned media coming out of each one of those contests that can propel you to victory the rest of the way. not this year for democrats. because the importance of older black voters and the democratic primary and the fact that right now joe biden is the only

democratic candidate that can get through that firewall, and then after that, if he does, you then have the super tuesday firewall, which, again, good luck spending that much money on a single day, other than bernie sanders, and -- and mike bloomberg, there's just not a lot of candidates vying for this thing that can do that. >> a couple options and then trump's strength, which is it's clear and very real. steve kornacki, thank you so much for being on. still ahead on "morning joe," former national security advisers john bolton says he's willing to testify in the impeachment trial if he's subpoenaed. we're going to play the new game, that's all the rage in washington these days. lindsey graham of today, meet lindsey graham of 1999. >> hello! >> you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

americans come to lendingtree.com to compare and save on loans, credit cards and more! but with the new lending tree app you can see your full financial health, monitor your credit score, see your cash flow and find out how you can cut your monthly bills. download it now to see how much you can save. 25% of your mouth.

listerine® cleans virtually 100%. helping to prevent gum disease and bad breath. never settle for 25%. always go for 100. bring out the bold™

i'd love to hear what he has to say. he has firsthand information, and assuming that articles of impeachment do reach the senate, why i'd like to hear what he knows. >> hmm. >> that makes sense. somebody has information, a central player in a crisis, a foreign policy crisis. >> yeah. >> that 77% of americans want to hear more about. >> mitt romney wants to hear from him. >> majority of americans think donald trump should be removed for doing, majority of americans believe should get more testimony in. mitt romney goes, yeah. this guy's at the sent of it. called it a drug deal. told everybody in the middle of a meeting go to your lawyers right now. obviously this is illegal. yeah. i want to hear from him. good for mitt. i wonder where the other republicans are? do you think other republicans will do what's right? do what's best for america? do what their constituents want? i'm curious. >> not so much. national security adviser john bolton now willing to testify in

the senate impeachment trial. in a statement posted yesterday bolton wrote in part since my testimony is at issue i have had to resolve the serious competing issues as best i could based on careful consideration and study. i have concluded that if the senate issues a subpoena for my testimony, i am prepared to testify. >> well, good. >> to which senator marco rubio said -- i think our inquiries should be based on the testimony and evidence they used to reach those articles now. we're under no obligates to extend beyond the record that they created. and lindsey graham said, "no. i'm ready to go. if they want to call bolton they should have called bolton in the house". >> really? >> what does donald trump have on this guy? >> compare that to then congressman lindsey graham during the impeachment of former president clinton in 1999. >> why do you need a witness? the whole point that we're trying to make is that in every trial that there has ever been

in the senate regarding impeachment witnesses were called. the big problem i have if we don't get to call meaningful witnesses, direct witnesses to the point, is that you're basically changing impeachment. impeachment in the house is not the trial. you can have three days of lawyers talking to each other on both sides, 16 hours of questions, and basically bore everybody to death, talk everybody to death, but when you have a witness who was there, who was engaged in it, who was in the middle of it, telling you about what they were doing and why, that's a totally different case, and it's the difference between getting the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. >> hmm. >> wow. he's changed so much. i mean -- when you have witnesses who who were there -- >> what did he say? >> want to hear from them. >> he said direct witnesses to the point. you know, that was such a palate cleanser early in the morning, alex. >> i know. >> i'd like to hear it. >> please. >> why do you need a witness?

the whole point that we're trying to make is, that in every trial that there has ever been in the senate regarding impeachment witnesses were called. the big problem i have if we don't get to call meaningful witnesses, direct witnesses to the point, is that you're basically changing impeachment. impeachment in the house is not the trial. you can have three days of lawyers talking to each other on both sides, 16 hours of questions, and basically bore everybody to death, talk everybody to death, but when you have a witness who was there, who was engaged in it, who was in the middle of it, telling you about what they were doing and why, that's a totally different case, and it's the difference between getting the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. >> all right. >> gosh. that just seems so clear. >> 1999. katty kay, from the age of prince, i offer a directed verdict. for 1999. lindsey graham. what say you?

>> it is remarkable how many times we can play sound bite from lindsey graham a few years ago and lindsey graham today and house he's done 180 degrees on his former positions, with no shame. with no -- >> no shame. >> none at all! no sense of kind of, well, maybe, you know, i was wrong then but now i'm right now. no. i mean, look, this is total expediency. mitt romney is the only republican, the only crack so far in this trump-built wall of republicans, is mitt romney whose perhaps most important job so far in american politics is that senator of utah coming forward to say actually we do have to hear from witnesses. that's a good idea in the trial. otherwise what is the point of ever having a senate trial where there are witnesses? somebody like lindsey graham saying we never need witnesses. the system is built to have witness witnesses. is he effectively saying we never need witnesses in a trial

like this? certainly not he was saying back in 1999. >> he said every senate trial ever in impeachment has had witnesses. he said every one. i mean, come on. how does he weasel out of that, katty, and more importantly, how does he face his voters when he's being so hypocriticahypocr? how does marco rubio face his voters when he's saying we're under no responsibility to show you the truth? >> because what does lindsey graham do? looks at what poll ratings were like at a critic of donald trump and looks what his poll ratings are like now that he's a supporter of donald trump and sees that he is more likely to get re-elected now that he is fully in the president's pocket. it's as simple as that. >> kasie, as katty said, mitt romney went farther than any other republican says yeah, good idea to have john bolton come testify. the argument from other republicans, susan collins, lisa

murkowski, seems to be we don't even have the articles of impeachment yet. once transmitted and we hear opening statements then maybe appropriate to introduce new witnesses. sort of walking a line and not crossing it yet. but the bottom line is, you either want to get to the bottom of what happened with the president and ukraine or you don't. what mitch mcconnell said from the very beginning i'm not an impartial juror, in fact coordinating strategy with the white house. none of this is terrible surprising. it feels wrong obviously, but none of it is terribly surprising given the fact that mitch mcconnell and other republicans and lindsey graham has said i don't want to see the transcripts, i don't want to know anymore. they're now saying, we don't want to hear from a critical witness in this case. >> well, this is the thing, willie. back to all the old clips, you've got mitch mcconnell saying we just want to do this process the way we did it with bill clinton. what's fair is fair. lindsey graham underscores this

is all about politics for everybody end of the day. part of the struggle that americans are facing in trying to believe that their members of congress are acting in the best interests of the country and not necessarily their own political interests. you know, i think what we learned yesterday late in the day on capitol hill is that those moderate republicans, susan collins, lisa murkowski, they're willing to give mitch mcconnell more control over this process. you know, he wants to start it the way officially they did with clinton, which was to open these arguments and then have additional votes later on to call witnesses, and there were some witnesses called in the trial for clinton in the senate, but the reality is, mitch mcconnell then controls every vote. they can't take any step in this impeachment trial would the 51 votes. so mitt romney by himself isn't good enough. he also needs at least three other republicans to join and say, yes, we want to hear from john bolton. mcconnell's bet, those people end of the day aren't going to be there.

we could see, you know, some surprises here. i mean, the bolton news yesterday was a big surprise to everybody. and we'll see if democrats, one vote any other a time start to get more of this information, but right now it doesn't seem as though democrats have the leverage to get mcconnell to change course on this broader strategy. >> all right. still ahead -- >> really, kasie hunt, really delivers. it is like a lightning bolt. it flashes into our cereal, our oatmeal, sorry, cassie. >> he >>-of-kasie. i had a chill. >> why? >> like being on a third hill of a foghat concert in like '75. >> i'm convinced you only want the lightning bolt to make a foghat reference every time. what this is about. >> who would not make foghat

references? >> thank you, kasie, dc. >> busted. >> so glad to have you back. >> so busted. >> not glad for this. all right. still ahead, ian brenner joins us with the top global risks for 2020, i bet he's sorry. >> despite the events of the past week, it's not iran. for the first time ever u.s. domestic politics tops the list. we'll explain why, next on "morning joe." when you're confident in your gut, you feel confident to take on anything. with benefiber, you'll feel the power of gut health confidence every day. benefiber is a 100% natural prebiotic fiber. good morning mrs. johnson. benefiber. trust your gut.

wean air force veteran made of doing what's right,. not what's easy. so when a hailstorm hit, usaa reached out before he could even inspect the damage. that's how you do it right. usaa insurance is made just the way martin's family needs it - with hassle-free claims, he got paid before his neighbor even got started. because doing right by our members, that's what's right. usaa. what you're made of, we're made for. usaa i remember thinking about things i did and wondering if that was the last time i was going to do that thing. coming to the cancer treatment centers of america, they treat the whole person. everything is here. imaging, infusion... i don't have to go anywhere else. they care about me as a person beyond just being a cancer patient. they're my second family.

welcome back to "morning joe." 7:40 here on the east coast. with us now, president and founder of eurasia group and g zero media and foreign affairs columnist and eder it at large for "time" magazine. ian bremmer. the eurasia group is out with the top global list for 2020. good morning. good to see you. get to the list in order, but had to dig down a little to find the story of the day right now, which is iran. to number eight. question is, why isn't that up higher now? >> first of all, because it's

over there. when trump says, well, there are isis folks escaping from syria, they're going to hit europe not hit the united states. it's less of a global concern, but also because we really don't think world war iii or a regional war is likely. >> what gives you that confidence? >> talking about the fact trump didn't really come to this with a plan. it wasn't as if he said, oh, i'm hitting soleimani because i can't stand this regime. no. angry about hitting the embassy. them, and taking out an american beforehand and said i'm going to hit them back. show me stuff and took that action. very different from saying, trump wants war. in fact, what trump has shown consistently with iran over the last year they can take all sorts of steps and he actually doesn't want war. right? remember when the saudis were hit, he didn't react, israelis stunned and started negotiating. we're now in a better place with

saudi/iran relationships than a year ago. the only question is, are iranians suicidal? they have a much clearer view what trump's red lines are. they do need to respond, retaliate. it's highly unlikely, oh, we need to hit a major american political or military figure if they engage in hitting some u.s. assets in the region, probably not iraq. hit iraq also get iraqi citizens, and the iraqis won't like that, and iran feels like they're in a better position in iraq right now. so actually, i know there's a lot of drama we're about to get in a war with iran. i think it's highly unlikely. >> assuming a narrow, a targeted response from iran. the next step? president trump said on twitter again and again, if they hit us we will hit them back harder, hit cultural sites. have the 52 sites in our targets right now. assuming that after iran does whatever it's going to do, this sort of settles out. do you really believe that with donald trump given what he said?

>> my analysis is you iffy based on accuracy of what trump tweets about. so, no. i mean, i think trump's ability to say this is in my interests, isn't what i want to do today. i don't care what i said three days ago, ten years ago. the tweet, usually digging up from some trump said inconsistent from a year ago, five days ago. do it from three days ago, too, creates redemption, and trust, right? i don't believe the u.s. will engage in war crimes hitting cultural monuments of the iranian people or civilization. no. i think if there's an american direct response it's lookly to be proportioned. i wouldy enormously surprised three to six months sitting here and this is the beginning of a war between the united states and iran. i really don't see it and markets reflect that. small movements in manager prices. comparably small in gold and otherwise stocks where they were. that's i think an accurate assessment.

>> jump back into your list. number one on the eurasia group, risks for 2020, the 2020 u.s. presidential election will be an american brexit. what do you mean there? >> first of all, keep in mind the ranking of these risks on impact of how big it is, how likely it is and how imminent it is. the united states is the big kahuna. anything that's hases has out-sized rick. the u.s. has never been a top risk before. 23 years had the company, never a top risk. why is it now? because the 2020 election is going to be contested and delegitimized. irrespective whether trump or the democrat wins. half of the country will feel like it was rigged. the last time we've had an outcome like that was 1876. rutherford hayes. 20 delicates seen as one by both sides and you couldn't get an outcome until dems and republicans figured what to horse trade to allow for a president to actually win. in brexit, the issue not in they

voted for brexit. issue was after they voted, both sides were incredibly angry about the outcome. didn't think it was legitimate and spent three years beating on each other to the neglect of everything else that could possibly be done. that's where i think we're heading for 2020. going to have a president that's been acquitted by senate in an impeachment trial for trying to illegally move the elections in his favor and then he's going to run for office. i see no way where half of the country comes out of 2020 unless a landslide election from one side or the other we don't have an american brexit type of anger and angst that destroys the ability of americans to govern for a period of time. doesn't threaten american democracy, but really threatens the capacity of our government to govern for a bit. >> joe? >> so, yeah, let's talk about number two. you write that the number two challenge is coupling of u.s. and chinese tech sectors. something we've seen for quite some time. tit for tat, back and forth.

and i'm curious. how do you balance the concerns of the security concerns that a lot of people in congress a lot of people in the white house a lot of americans have, about china building our tech products. how do you balance those concerns with the concerns that you're speaking of, the decoupling, the impact of creating basically two different tech sectors? one in the united states, one in china? >> those concerns are very real and shared not just by the united states. look at france and president macron, no friend of trump's recently but saying the exact same things about why they don't want the chinese in airbus, wawa, for example, or having access to critical infrastructure in france and passed legislation to stop that. the problem is that america doesn't have a lot of allies that are willing to take that stand and most countries around the world, they see wawa as much cheaper, getting developed faster, and the chinese are willing to put other cash behind it. zimbabwe, a new part building, $100 million, the chinese are

gifting the government of zimbabwe. bet i know who's going to run their 5g system. not the united states or europe. so the problem here is that the chinese and the americans for perfectly understandable reasons are actively decoupling their technology systems from one another. think about the last several generations. almost every good news story bill gates offered, life expectancy expanding or sort of people have better education, or poverty's reduced. it's all come from borders being more porous. people in goods and services and data moving faster and faster around the world. now for the first time we have a dramatic move away from that. that is the world's two largest economies developing completely different data and i.t. ecosystems. no way that isn't a massive risk for the global economy and political going forward.

>> theme in india, china, u.s., populism, chauvinism and across the world. are we hitting a breaking point in that phenomenon around the world? >> growing for two reasons. first, because it had been growing over the last five years even when the global economy was actually growing pretty ro robustly. now the economy is softening. iran, $5 more on oil prices hurt it a little more. clearly, if governments don't have the ability to write the easy checks to respond to the populism they'll get angrier. also despite the populism in the united states, in europe, you don't have the response from the government that makes the individuals happy. you certainly don't see trump having won. he's not actually draining the swamp. in europe a lot of governments are trying to respond to populism, but the supra is

resisting it. the leaders of europe, ursula, some of the strongest forces seen at the head of eu in brussels in decades. doesn't make the skeptics process happy as all across the continent. they can't coordinate. nationalists of the world unite. what flag do they fly? doesn't really work. >> katty kay has a question for you. >> sure. >> i don't know if we can put up the list again. i don't know if you've got global debt on there. particularly thinking about the states and degree to which people are concerned by the amount of debt run up here by the government. it does not a concern? we don't need to worry about it? >> it's a concern, but not on the list, same way climate is only number seven. it's because it's a concern we can continue to affectively kick out to the future and let the kids pay for it. especially in a comparatively low interest environment right now. so so, i mean, i'd say easy money still fuels a lot of ability

to -- to live large while we can. >> all right. ian bremmer, thank you so much. and while on the topic of risk assessment, coming up, msnbc chief legal correspondent ari melber dives msnbc chief legal correspondent dives into the space by law enforcement officers and it's not just in the line of duty. "morning joe" is back in a moment ♪

♪ americans come to lendingtree.com to compare and save on loans, credit cards and more! but with the new lending tree app you can see your full financial health, monitor your credit score, see your cash flow and find out how you can cut your monthly bills. download it now to see how much you can save. trump: obamacare is a complete

and total disaster. let obamacare implode. nurse: these wild attacks on healthcare hurt the patients i care for. i've been a nurse in new york for thirty years. i know the difference leadership can make because i saw what mike bloomberg did as mayor. vo: mayor bloomberg helped lower the number of uninsured by 40%, covering 700,000 more new yorkers, life expectancy increased. he helped expand health coverage to 200,000 more kids and upgraded pediatric care---

infant mortality rates dropped to record lows. and as mayor, mike bloomberg always championed reproductive health for women. so when you hear mike bloomberg on health care... mrb: this is america. we can certainly afford to make sure that everybody that needs to see a doctor can see a doctor, everybody that needs medicines to stay healthy can get those medicines. nurse: you should know, he did it as mayor, he'll get it done as president. mrb: i'm mike bloomberg and i approve this message. some things are too important to do yourself. ♪ get customized security with 24/7 monitoring from xfinity home. awarded the best professionally installed system by cnet. simple. easy. awesome. call, click or visit a store today.

joe." jean robinson, tell us about your column welcome to trump's war. it sounds so inviting. >> i know, just where we want to be. well, here it is. i mean, i think ian was right that trump just decided pretty much on the spur of the moment

to lash out and kill qasem soleimani and we're left with the results. it was an act of war. and we're in the weird position where we now -- if we want to hope that this doesn't spiral completely out of control, we have to hope that the iranians are the rational actors at this point. because it's hard to have faith that the u.s. administration is going to act rationally as long as donald trump is president. we saw yesterday we're withdrawing from iraq, we're not withdrawing from iraq. you don't know from minute to minute what's going on and it's a very dangerous moment. >> michael steele today, joe biden is going to be delivering a speech on foreign policy. what does he need to say? >> i think he needs to draw a stark line between how he has

come and dealt with these issues in the past, both as a senator and as vice president. i think gene's piece is a potential opening or gateway to sort of lay out the narrative and the definition of this moment as trump's ownership, taking ownership of this. and then project how he would move forward, again, to what gene has talked about in his piece, where do we go from here? how does the middle east reshape itself and what kind of leadership will it take from america to bring and keep iran, for example, at the table? so he's got a real good opportunity here to strike a very -- i think different tone and narrative from the sort of petulant 10-year-old response in some quarters by this president to whatever sleights he perceived that caused him to do this in the first place. >> gene robinson, thank you very

much. still ahead, the new pressure on vulnerable senate republicans after john bolton said he's willing to testify at the impeachment trial. plus, amid escalating tensions with iran, we'll be joining by the ranking member of the senate committee, bob menendez and also former director john brennan. we're reporters from the new york times. this melting pot of impacted species.

everywhere is going to get touched by climate change. i need all the breaks as athat i can get.or, at liberty butchemel... cut. liberty mu... line? cut. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. cut. liberty m... am i allowed to riff? what if i come out of the water? liberty biberty... cut. we'll dub it. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ so w>>i'm searching for info on options trading, and look, it feels like i'm just wasting time. wasted time is wasted opportunity. >>exactly. that's why td ameritrade designed a first-of-its-kind, personalized education center. see, you just >>oh, this is easy. yeah, and that's >>oh, just what i need. courses on options trading, webcasts, tutorials.

yeah. their award-winning content is tailored to fit your investing goals and interests. and it learns with you, so as you become smarter, so do its recommendations. >>so it's like my streaming service. well exactly. well except now, you're binge learning. >>oh, i like that. thank you, i just came up with that. >>you're funny. learn fast with the td ameritrade education center. call 866-295-0917 or visit tdameritrade.com/learn. get started today, and for a limited time, get up to $800 when you open and fund an account. that's 866-295-0917, or tdameritrade.com/learn. ♪ this one's for you. the heroes who won't let your disease hold you back. you inspired us to make your humira experience even better with humira citrate-free. it has the same effectiveness you know and trust, but we removed the citrate buffers, there's less liquid, and a thinner needle, with less pain immediately following injection. if you haven't yet,

talk to your doctor about humira citrate-free. and you can use your co-pay card to pay as little as $5 a month. humira can lower your ability to fight infections. serious and sometimes fatal infections, including tuberculosis, and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. ask your doctor about humira citrate-free. the same humira you trust with less pain immediately following injection. pulling out the minerals from the enamel. a lot of healthy foods are very acidic and they're actually i like to recommend pronamel to my patients. pronamel will help push the minerals back into the enamel to keep the enamel strong. i know it works and i hear nothing but great things from my patients that have switched to it.

it's 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 that we took. >> mike pompeo says americans should put their full trust and complete confidence in the intel community's assessment of iran. >> preach, brother. >> why does that seem slightly out of place in this administration? >> i think it was disgraceful, disgraceful that the intelligence agencies allowed any information that turned out to be so false and fake out. i think it's a disgrace. and i say that and that's something that nazi, germany would have done and did do. >> good morning, that's a big difference. welcome to "morning joe." it is tuesday, january 7th. along with joe, willie and me, we have washington banker for

bbc world news america katty kay, and msnbc political analyst and former chair of the republican national committee, michael steele. here are just a few of the things to watch this morning. president trump says he would order the military to strike iran's cultural sites. the pentagon says nope, not going to happen. what that public rebuke says about the commander in chief. in iran, meanwhile, dozens are dead in a stampede this morning as huge crowds continue to vent their anger at america for killing the nation's top general. and now there are more threats about how tehran may hit back. and then there is this stunning misfire. the department of defense had to scramble together a news conference yesterday to contradict its own commanding general in iraq. military officials now say no, we're not planning a withdraw, despite a letter to baghdad that suggested the opposite.

kind of unbelievable at this point. >> no, no, actually it is quite believable. you believe the media until you don't. willie, you scream fake news inside the white house until there's a news report in politico or "the new york times" or the "washington post" that you like, and then suddenly it's not fake news. and donald trump spends the past three years saying you can't trust anything the intel community says, that you can trust vladimir putin more than the intel community, until the intel community confirms information that he wants confirmed to justify his air strike. >> there's a central problem at the core of this iran story for the president and the white house, which is that we've been told now for three, four, five years that the intel agencies are the deep state working against this white house. and now we're being asked to trust the intel agencies,

blindly so far, to say that there was an imminent threat posed and that soleimani had to be killed. that doesn't shake out for most americans, and as you say, criticisms of the press and everything else, and we're being asked to trust now a defense department that can't get its ducks in a row to send out a letter correctly that says we're getting out of iraq as well. a lot of problems right now as we head into this day. >> well, mika, the funny thing that's happened over the past couple of days, they justified the attack at first by saying there's an imminent threat. why did they do that? if the threat is imminent, you've got to move immediately on soleimani. you don't have time to talk to congress. you don't have time to talk to anybody. you don't have time to plot it out, we've got him, we've got to kill him. that's been their justification. but you saw starting on sunday the rollback of this imminent threat, this lie -- i suspect it's a lie that he had plans to

immediately go out and kill other americans. and now if it is the case, okay, let's see the evidence. but the only thing the secretary of state and all of trump apolojists have said, they've said it doesn't matter. the democrats, why are they taking donald trump at his own word? why are they asking him if it was an imminent threat? it doesn't matter, this man was a danger. yes, soleimani was an enemy of the united states and he was a danger to troops everywhere. kim jong-un is also a threat to america. is he next on donald trump's kill list? what about assad? he's killed more leaders other than saddam hussein. saddam hussein was on our kill list, and killing him, how much

peace has that brought to the middle east? they can't have it both ways. they can't on one hand say we had to do this right away without conferring with congress, other than a presidential tweet. the threat was imminent, we had to kill him right away. and now we're rolling back, saying it doesn't matter whether it was imminent or not. this guy was a bad guy. we should have killed him when we had the chance. it doesn't make any sense. >> it doesn't. and we're going to dig further into this. but we want to get into the significant development involving former national security adviser john bolton that could impact the plans impeachment strategy. in a statement posted yesterday, bolton says he is now willing to testify in the senate impeachment trial. he wrote in part this, since my testimony is once again at issue, i have had to resolve the serious competing issues as best i could, based on careful

consideration and study. i have concluded that, if the senate issues a subpoena for my testimony, i am prepared to testify. senate democrats took the surprise announcement as a win for their push to call witnesses at the upcoming impeachment trial. senate republicans, meanwhile, appear divided on the idea. when asked if bolton should testify, joni ernst told nbc news yet to be determined. we don't even have the articles yet, so until we start seeing some progress, it really doesn't make a bit of difference. >> oh, dear god. is that really who iowa voted for? do they really want to re-elect this person who said i'm going to take it to the pigs? >> let me go to marco rubio who said i think the inquiry should be based on the testimony and evidence they used to reach those articles now. we're under no obligation to extend beyond the record that they created. >> under no obligation if you don't want to know the truth.

you are under no obligation. voters in florida, understand this. marco rubio says we're under no obligation to hear the truth. we're under no obligation to -- think about that. i'm under no obligation, says an elected representative of the state of florida, to find out the truth behind what the national security adviser called a drug deal. i mean, willie, are they really talking like this? what do you think of marco rubio saying we're under no obl gag obligation. yes, john bolton was the one who called this giuliani's drug deal. yes, this is the same white house official who, upon this meeting taking place, immediately adjourned it and told everybody go talk to the lawyers now, this is illegal. and marco rubio is really saying under no obligation, dude? i don't want to hear from him

because i might hear the truth that i already know in my heart about donald trump. that's marco rubio's position this morning. i don't want everybody else to hear what i know about donald trump, says marco rubio. is that why he was elected? is that why joni ernst was elected? >> remember, if you were serious about finding out the truth about this case, about what happened in ukraine, you could not have a better witness than former national security adviser john bolton, who is a firsthand witness. in the previous, in the house hearings, we heard from fiona hill, for example, who served as a proxy for john bolton. she was a direct report to him. and she was the one who communicated john bolton's concerns. so now you have john bolton saying you've heard from the people around me, now i myself am willing to step forward and tell you exactly what happened. how as a juror in a trial could you say i don't want to hear

from that person? it's outrageous but not surprising. lindsay graham said i don't want to hear anything. i don't want to see the transcripts. the whole thing is a sham. this is part of a pattern from republicans, so it's wrong but not surprising. >> willie, this is the most outrageous thing. if you have lindsey's quote around. if you could read us lindsey graham's quote from yesterday about this, that would be awesome. but what was so outrageous, the senators are going i don't want to hear anything, the house has not done their job. they say they don't have evidence in front of them. why don't they have the evidence in front of them? because donald trump said from the beginning, because he knew he was guilty, i'm not cooperating. my people aren't allowed to cooperate. you want my people to tell you the truth about what i did? i'm going to make you drag them and their lawyers through court for months and months and

months, because we don't want you to know the truth. so now, because donald trump did everything he could to obstruct the house, now republican senators like marco rubio and joni ernst and lindsay graham are saying we don't want to hear it, we shouldn't hear it because the house didn't do their job. why? because donald trump had a concerted campaign to bury the truth. >> concerted and explicit. remember, white house counsel wrote a letter, put it out to the public and sent it to the house of representatives saying we will not cooperate. you're not getting witnesses, you're not getting testimony from us. and at the beginning of this trial in the senate before it even started, the majority leader said we will not vote to convict the president of the united states. so we're starting from a place of the president is innocent and now they'll use anything they can get to to make sure that happens, including saying that they don't want to hear from a central witness, john bolton.

lindsay graham said yesterday, nope, i'm ready to go. if they want to call bolton, they should have called bolton in the house. it's worth recalling that back during the impeachment of former president clinton in 1999, then congressman lindsay graham said in every trial there has ever been in the senate regarding impeachment, witnesses were called. when you have a witness telling you about what they were doing and why, it's the difference between the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. that's 21 years ago from lindsay graham. let's bring in "new york times" reporter and msnbc national security analyst michael schmidt. so the million dollar question, will john bolton testified in this trial? >> that's really a mitch mcconnell question and i think what will determine that is that group of republican senators who, during the kavanaugh hearings, asked mcconnell to go back and have the fbi do a week-long investigation to give them sort of the cover politically to vote for

kavanaugh. will susan collins and murkowskis say for their voters back home they need to be able to say that they heard all of the evidence? and as we've seen with mcconnell, he can endure great pain in order to get his political end. so i don't think it's a foregone conclusion that bolton will testify. >> so the threshold is, michael -- and you can correct me if i'm wrong, 51 votes, right? this will come to a vote ultimately to decide whether this witness can be introduced. so that's a hurdle that democrats feel like they can clear with the help of some republicans like mitt romney of utah who came out said and said, quote, it would be a good thing for john bolton to testify? >> yeah, that's the thing. how much, you know, can the democrats pick off a republican or two to get to that point, to get them to put the pressure on mcconnell to allow that to happen. now, there had been some talk

about whether the democrats would have to allow someone like hunter biden to testify, would there be a deal like that. the thing is that we don't really know everything that bolton has. we don't know what he's going to say. we know that it's not good for the president. we know that it people around bolton believe it will be damning for him, but at the same time, without having a peek into that, i think the republicans can sort of shrug it off. so the question will be in the coming days and weeks, can we figure out what it is that bolton has, what it is that he's willing to say, and that he has about the president that is so important. >> still ahead, we'll go to the white house for the latest reaction to john bolton flipping the script on impeachment. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. alexa tell me about neptune's sorrow.

it's a master stroke of heartache and redemption. the lexus nx. modern utility for modern obstacles. lease the 2020 nx 300 for $359 a month for 36 months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. i remember thinking about things i did and wondering if that was the last time i was going to do that thing. i thought...i'm not letting anything take me away from my family, that loves me and needs me, without a fight. when i came to cancer treatment centers of america, it felt... so different from any other hospital that we'd ever been to. whether it be spiritual, physical, emotional... they take it all into consideration, in healing you. infusion, imaging, everything is here. i don't have to go anywhere else. they create a treatment plan that's for you. they cared about my victories.

they care about me as a person beyond just being a cancer patient. they're my second family. the good news? our comfort lasts all day. the bad news? so does his energy. depend® fit-flex underwear offers your best comfort and protection guaranteed. because, perfect or not, life's better when you're in it. be there with depend®.

when a nasty cold won't let you sleep, try nyquil severe with vicks vapocool whoa! and vaporize it. ahhhhh! shhhhh! nyquil severe with vicks vapocool. the vaporizing nighttime, coughing, aching, stuffy head, best sleep with a cold, medicine.

hearing from ambassador bolton in stage 3? >> there are a number of witnesses that may well be appropriate for the stage 3, of which he would certainly be one. >> i don't know quite what to make of it. i don't know mr. bolton. what i know of him, i respect. he seems awfully anxious to testify. >> i would love to hear what he has to say. he has firsthand information, and assuming that articles of impeachment do reach the senate, why i'd like to hear what he knows. >> so let's go to the white house now and nbc news correspondent hans nichols. hans, how is the white house reacting to the bolton news? >> reporter: they have mixed reactions, in part because no one knows -- this is what's so

fascinating about the bolton comment. no one knows what bolton is going to say. and that puts a great deal of uncertainty inside the white house. they're saying that you can't go back to re-litigate the house's job. the senate's job is to weigh the evidence. but the fascinating thing about john bolton is that we could have a debate about whether or not there's someone that left the administration that had a worse breakup than john bolton did with the president. mattis was ugly, sessions was ugly. what's different about the bolton breakup with trump is that he's sort of continued to needle the president. there's a back and forth about his twitter account. he's got a book coming out. and so there's this notion inside the white house that they don't quite know where bolton is. is he on the trump team or off it? and that's an uncomfortable place to be for the white house. now, wheel make their case that we think this is just a blip. but with the exception of mick

mulvaney, there's no one else that we probably need to hear from to understand at least one-half of the potential quid pro quo equation, and that is what was the president withholding. so the white house doesn't have a firm answer because they don't really know what bolton is going to potentially say. >> i mean, to know where he is, the one thing we do know, katty kay, is that he is out of the white house and he's on a long list of casualties of the trump administration, people who just couldn't make it through, got kicked out, or didn't take the oath. >> yeah, mr. bolton has clearly decided that, for whatever reason and it's not clear what in his mind has changed over the last couple of weeks, he now feels he has something. maybe it's just that what's changed is this has moved from the house and in the senate does he feel like he has some protection because he thinks the senate is less likely to call him. this is why it's worth delaying. nancy pelosi is delaying in order to get news like this out there that then puts pressure on

those wavering republicans and get somebody like mitt romney in a position now, former governor, former presidential candidate, perhaps now in his most important role as senator, to say, okay, i do want to hear from john bolton. so that's what this delaying strategy is producing for democrats and why they felt that it was worth doing, because evidence may surface, or news of some potential evidence might surface. but michael schmidt, do you think something has changed for john bolton beyond the fact that this has moved from the house to the senate? what is it that suddenly made him come forward and say i do have something to say? >> i actually think the biggest factor for bolton was the resolution or lack of a resolution of a sort of little known lawsuit that was filed at the end of last year by his lawyer, chuck cooper. this lawyer cooper also represented bolton's deputy kupperman, and kupperman had been subpoenaed to testify up on

the hill. cooper had gone to court to ask the court to decide whether kupperman would have to speak. and the court essentially ruled that the issue was moot, that it wasn't going to make a decision on that. and that was almost right before new year's, and here we are one of the first business days of 2020, and bolton basically coming forward and saying that he's willing to testify. so by this court decision not making a decision, it gave bolton sort of the political and legal cover on his own to go forward and make this decision and sort of raise his hand. >> michael schmidt, thank you very much for your reporting this morning. coming up on "morning joe" as we all know from the north korea saga, president trump loves his letters to foreign leaders. but yesterday he brought that to a whole new level. how the pentagon is asking for a mulligan after a commanding

general penned a note to baghdad suggesting the u.s. was poised to withdraw from iraq. "morning joe" is back in a moment. do you have concerns about mild memory loss related to aging? prevagen is the number one pharmacist-recommended memory support brand. you can find it in the vitamin aisle in stores everywhere. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. trumpand total disaster.mplete let obamacare implode. nurse: these wild attacks on healthcare hurt the patients i care for. i've been a nurse in new york for thirty years. i know the difference leadership can make because i saw what

mike bloomberg did as mayor. vo: mayor bloomberg helped lower the number of uninsured by 40%, covering 700,000 more new yorkers, life expectancy increased. he helped expand health coverage to 200,000 more kids and upgraded pediatric care--- infant mortality rates dropped to record lows. and as mayor, mike bloomberg always championed reproductive health for women. so when you hear mike bloomberg on health care... mrb: this is america. we can certainly afford to make sure that everybody that needs to see a doctor can see a doctor, everybody that needs medicines to stay healthy can get those medicines. nurse: you should know, he did it as mayor, he'll get it done as president. mrb: i'm mike bloomberg and i approve this message.

when we see you enter through our doors. we don't see who you're against, or for. whether tomorrow will be light or dark. all we see in you, is a spark. we see your kindness and humanity. the strength of each community. the more we look the more we find the sparks that make america shine. ♪

in iraq. one day after iraq's parliament passed a resolution to expel u.s. troops following the killing of iranian general qassem soleimani in baghdad, top military officials had to scramble together a news conference yesterday to contradict its own commanding general in iraq. in a letter to iraqi officials, general william sealy of the u.s. command in baghdad said troops were being repositioned in preparation to leave the country. then came the walkback from the defense secretary that, quote, there has been no decision whatsoever to leave. the chairman of the joint chief said the letter was a mistake. he called it an unsigned, poorly worded draft, and said that it was sent to the iraqis to

coordinate about u.s. troops moving around baghdad. former spokesman for president obama, tommy vietor observed on twitter, quote, i realize that letters go out with typos sometimes and people make mistakes, but how do you mistakenly send a message to a foreign government that says we're pulling 5,200 troops out of your country? this is not believable. >> really, it's one thing if you miss spell there or if you forget the apostrophe for its. it drives me crazy. >> happens all the time. >> happens all the time. maybe you don't put the oxford comma in. and i'm not even reading that letter unless it's an editorial. but man, to say we're taking all of our troops out of your country, that's an error that takes it really to the next level of clerical errors.

>> it is stunning and this administration, let's be honest, has not built up a great reservoir of goodwill, people trusting that these are honest mistakes because they've not told the truth all the time. so this gives people pause to say, wait a minute, what is really going on here. and hans nichols is still with us at the white house. what's the white house saying, what's the president saying about this? this is not an insignificant development to have out in public as we saw breaking news alerts when this letter came out. the united states of america, after 17 years there, is getting out of iraq, pulling out all its troops, 5 coup200 of them and t defense secretary to say nope, sorry, we hit send by mistake on the letter. >> reporter: we talked to our colleagues over at the pentagon and they gathered around the bull pen in the pentagon and there were a lot of questions about sort of the cultural sites and what the president meant. and then there wasn't a lot of clarity on this letter, was it a

draft. there were things in the letter when we first saw it online that didn't quite make sense. it seemed to suggest there would be a withdraw but didn't quite say it. and then officials, milley came down and they were banging on doors trying to clarify further and that's when they really owned the mistake. and obviously they're going to have a difficult morning at the pentagon. this is a clerical mistake. it gives you an indication of what they're planning for at the pentagon. the bigger challenge i think for esper and milley as well, is esper is on a different page politically than his commander of chief in the cultural sites. and that is an uncomfortable place to be for anyone in any administration, all the more so with this president. esper was pretty clear yesterday that the united states will follow the rules of the laws of war and that prevents targeting

cultural sites. and the president himself clearly wants to signal that cultural sites are on the table. and that makes esper's warning very difficult, especially when the president is going to read what seems an obvious contradiction of the commander in chief. so esper was a difficult morning on two fronts. the larger issue is what are they going to do on cultural sites. >> hans nichols at the white house. thanks so much. the president has said and doubled down that he would look at cultural sites as targets for the united states inside iran, and as hans said, the defense secretary jumped up quickly and said no, that is not within the bounds of war. and others have said, including united states senators, that would be a war crime if the president carried out such an attack. coming up, two leading voices on national security. the senate's top democrat on foreign relations, bob menendez and former cia director john brennan join the discussion. "morning joe" is back in a moment.

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. keep your skin clearer with skyrizi. 3 out of 4 people achieved 90% clearer skin at 4 months. of those, nearly 9 out of 10 sustained it through 1 year.

and skyrizi is 4 doses a year, after 2 starter doses. ♪ i see nothing in a different way ♪ ♪ and it's my moment so i just gotta say ♪ ♪ nothing is everything skyrizi may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. before treatment your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms such as fevers, sweats, chills, muscle aches or coughs, or if you plan to or recently received a vaccine. ♪ nothing is everything ask your dermatologist about skyrizi. ♪

wean air force veteran made of doing what's right,. not what's easy. so when a hailstorm hit, usaa reached out before he could even inspect the damage. that's how you do it right. usaa insurance is made just the way martin's family needs it - with hassle-free claims, he got paid before his neighbor even got started. because doing right by our members, that's what's right. usaa. what you're made of, we're made for. usaa necessarily great for your teeth. a lot of healthy foods are very acidic and aren't the acid can actually wear away at the enamel which overtime can cause sensitivity and a lot of people start to see their teeth turn yellow. i like to recommend pronamel to my patients to

help them protect their teeth and keep the enamel strong. looking to get your business off to a fast start in the new year? it's go time! switch to comcast business and get fast internet on the nation's largest gig-speed network. plus, complete reliability with 4g lte backup. and, cloud-based security to help protect the devices on your network. greenlight your business in 2020 with fast internet and voice for $99.99 per month. act now, and get 1 year free of wifi pro. call today. comcast business. beyond fast.

this is terrorism, this is an act of aggression against iraq, and it amounts to an armed attack against iran and we will respond. but we will respond proportionately, not disproportionately because we are law-abiding people. we are not lawless like president trump. >> that was iranian foreign minister zarif speaking to cnn. joining us from capitol hill, ranking member of the senate foreign relations committee, democrat bob menendez of new jersey. plus former cia director, now a senior national security and intelligence analyst for nbc news, john brennan. the bbc's katty kay and along with joe, willie and me.

>> senator menendez, let's begin with you. is america safer, is the world safer with general soleimani off the battlefield? >> well, look, general soleimani was a terrorist, he muwas ultimately responsible for the loss of hundreds of american troops true his proxies and others so we're not going to mourn for his loss. but the answer is i have seen nothing that suggests that the decision the two previous presidents made, president bush and president obama, not to go after soleimani even though they had the opportunity to do so, because the consequences that flowed from that were greater than the value of eliminating soleimani. the dynamics of that has changed in this decision. and what i fear in the president's actions is that america is stumbling into a tragedy of president trump's making, which is why i asked for the declassification of the president's war powers notification. i think the american people

should have clear insights as to how this administration came to this decision. what we don't need is another weapons of mass destruction moment. >> director brennan, i'll ask the same question for you. understanding, obviously, that many people are very concerned about the risk/reward balance, and of course the way that donald trump moved towards making this decision. you obviously studied general soleimani, you understood his misdeeds. let me ask you the same. is america better off with general soleimani off the battlefield targeting americans? >> well, i think from a strategic standpoint we have just increased the impetus for iran to lash out at the united states. qassem soleimani advocated and orchestrated violence against u.s. presence in the region. but his removal does not mean that you've taken away that capability within the iranian

para military structure of the quds force. so he wasn't an operative that was going to put on explosives and go against an american target. so i'm concerned about the follow-up actions that iran is going to take. and not just that it's directed by tehran, but all the proxy forces that he had tutored over the years, they may decide to do things on their own, uncontrolled by tehran. so i do not believe that the united states is now in a better strategic position or safer as a result of soleimani's departure. >> we heard a lot of regional experts tell us late last week that he was singular -- actually that would be early this week. that he was a singular force in the middle east, the most influential military figure over the past 30 years. do you agree, and does that not weaken iran militarily? >> i think he was my principle

nemesis during my four years as the counterterrorism adviser and as years of cia director and we tried to thwart his activities throughout the region. he's going to be followed up and he already has been. an individual who has had long experience in the quds force. he doesn't have the experience or contacts or the charisma that soleimani had, but that doesn't mean that the iranians are not going to leverage those capabilities in a much more aggressive way against us as a result of this killing of qassem soleimani. >> senator men nan dez. a lot has been made of the president not talking to congress before hand and informing you all that it had just happened. the white house has said we had one of the most dangerous men on the face of the earth in our cross hairs and we took a shot at him. we didn't have time to consult congress about that. what's your understanding of how that should have played out and what should happen from here? >> well, if the published

reports are true that there was advocacy for months before the taking out of soleimani to target him, then obviously there was plenty of time to come consult congress. if secretary pompeo could come up to speak to leader mcconnell about his supposed decision not to run for the senate, he could come up and talk to members of the senate foreign relations committee, armed forces committee and intelligence committee to talk about the decision they made and the aftermath. none of that has taken place. tomorrow we'll have ab all-member session and i intend to press really hard on what was the intelligence and the immediacy of the intelligence, the imminent threat that ultimately led to this decision. because in the absence of an imminent threat, that uniquely puts soleimani at the center of it in a way that eliminating him eliminates the threat. i think that's going to be hard to make, but i'm going to be all ears tomorrow and pressing them

really hard. because with soleimani off the battlefield, does that mean iran doesn't have the capabilities of going ahead and targeting whether it be american troops or im baseds broad, all of that still exists. >> director brennan, obviously the brush administration could have taken shots at soleimani, the obama administration had its opportunities as well. this guy wasn't exactly bin laden hiding in caves and being protected in secret compounds. he was out in the open. so tell me about the decision from your vantage point in the obama years not to take out soleimani. what was the calculation there? >> well, i wasn't really a decision, willie. because i don't see what the -- either the u.s. or international legal basis would be to strike and assassinate a senior government official of a sovereign state. and so i think in the obama administration we were trying to be as lawful as we could be in

the prosecution of these efforts. but fundamentally from a strategic standpoint, there would have been no reason to go forward with this if in fact the calculation was that by assassinating soleimani you only increase the iranian ire and it's a likelihood they're going to use the capability against us. we tracked him and tried to frustrate his efforts, but there was never a discussion in my experience during the obama administration to target soleimani for an assassination. >> director brennan, u.s. intelligence was good enough to find soleimani and take him out. how good is u.s. intelligence on exactly how the iranians may now retaliate, how good are our sources on both their capacity and on whatever planning they might be going through? >> well, that's a great question, katty. and i don't know right now how finely tuned our intelligence capabilities are against those

various nodes that are making those decisions. so i like to think that we are being as aggressive as possible to gain insight into what they are planning and what the capabilities are. but the iranians are very capable. their intelligence and para-military services are quite experienced, so i think they're going to try to do things that are going to be under the radar. whether they take responsible for strikes or not, it's unclear. but people may reach out against u.s. targets on their behalf and the iranians are not going to say that this was directed by tehran. so u.s. intelligence has its work cut out for it now and in the coming weeks and months. >> senator menendez, there's been debate, even on this show this morning, about whether or not we are on the precipice of war with iran based on what's happened over the last couple of weeks. what's your evaluation of where we are, if the iranians do retaliate as foreign minister zarif just said on national

television that it would? what do you believe happens next from the american perspective? >> well, in part, it will depend upon what the retaliation is and what the president's response is to that. if you listen to the president's own words, he intends, regardless of what the response is, to have a disproportionate response in return. so what we've seen from the missile strikes inside of iraq and syria, to the targeting of soleimani, to the 3,000 troops being sent into the region, all a process that has no strategy because i spent the better part of 2019 arguing that the administration needed to device a strategy as to how we deal with iran, an international coalition as it relates to iran's nuclear ambitions. there's no strategy here. and so we have a series of tactics that are escalating on a pathway that is a path to an

undeclared, unauthorized war, which is why i'll be meeting with senator cane who has introduced a resolution on the war powers. i think that congress is going to need to act to both con strain the president from moving forward, unless the congress feels that it is necessary to give the president authorization of use of military force. and in the first instance, that becomes before the senate foreign relations committee that has jurisdiction of it. >> ranking member of the senate foreign relations committee, senator bob menendez, thank you very much. and former cia director, john brennan, thank you as well. and up next, financial markets under pressure from the tensions from iran, trying to rebound from last week's steep losses. but uncertainty remains. that's next on "morning joe." as a struggling actor,

i need all the breaks that i can get. at liberty butchumal- cut. liberty biberty- cut. we'll dub it. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ my body is truly powerful. i have the power to lower my blood sugar and a1c. because i can still make my own insulin.

and trulicity activates my body to release it like it's supposed to. trulicity is for people with type 2 diabetes. it's not insulin. i take it once a week. it starts acting in my body from the first dose. trulicity isn't for people with type 1 diabetes or diabetic ketoacidosis. don't take trulicity if you're allergic to it, you or your family have medullary thyroid cancer, or have multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. stop trulicity and call your doctor right away if you have an allergic reaction, a lump or swelling in your neck, or severe stomach pain. serious side effects may include pancreatitis. taking trulicity with a sulfonylurea or insulin increases low blood sugar risk. side effects include nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, belly pain, and decreased appetite, which lead to dehydration and may worsen kidney problems. i have it within me to lower my a1c. ask your doctor about trulicity.

oh, your she's landed.ed. and she's on her way to our house. what. i thought she was coming next weekend. i got it. alexa. start the coffee. set the temperature to 72. start roomba. we got this... don't look. what? don't look. lets move. ♪ mom. the lexus es, eagerly prepared for the unexpected. lease the 2020 es 350 for $389 a month for 36 months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. ♪

♪ ♪ 51 past. d dominic chu joins us for business. >> we are watching what's happening with the stock market, showing signs of stability over volatility the last few days, given the killing of iranian general qassem soleimani. oil prices are a key focus in that market narrative, that story. they're pulling back from highs we have seen as well as traders

start to handicap, guess, speculate on the type of retaliation, if any, that will happen from iran's side of things. gas prices for u.s. consumers have been relatively stable over the last month. we'll see if it stays that way as we approach coming weeks into february and march as well. we also want to talk about what's happening with facebook. it wants to purge platforms of deepfakes and other doctored videos. it will remove if they're edited to mislead as opposed to meant that way for satire. think about "saturday night live." it is to stop misinformation before the election, all as lawmakers and politicians both sides of the aisle scrutinize big tech more these days about how much power over content and our personal data. wall street paying close attention to what's happening with tesla stock, up again in

premarket trading after hitting record highs yesterday. today marks the first day tesla will start to deliver mass market and lower priced model 3 cars to consumers in china, which were made at tesla's factory in shanghai in china. the market for electric cars in china has been slowing down, but tesla's china factory does mean it can sell cars in that country that are not subject to car i m import taxes. if the market value stays on pace, it will be worth more than general motors and ford combined. and end on technology of another sort. food technology. privately held impossible foods behind the meats and burgers at places like burger king announces a plant based ground pork and sausage. that's out in las vegas. faux pork.

burger king already sells the impossible whopper, will test that in the kro san witch. i tried it, it is pretty good. >> thank you so much, dominic chu. i mean, willie geist, jfk had his moon shot, we have the impossible sausage. >> or fork. >> the arc of civilization is upward. >> bending towards pork as it does and should over the course of history. let's turn, dom, thank you very much. quickly what's a crisis in law enforcement. according to a nonprofit that tracks police suicide, 228 officers died by suicide in 2019. that's the highest number the organization has recorded to date, and more than were killed in the line of duty. joining us, msnbc chief legal

correspondent, host of the beat on msnbc, ari melber. he is here to preview his report on the fatality rate of law enforcement officers, reporting officers killed on duty and communities and families left behind. good morning. good to see you. we talked on the break, feels like even in new york city, once a week you pick up the paper, read a story about an officer that died by suicide. what is behind the trend with 228, and as the report points out, the number is probably higher than that. >> the number could be technically higher than that. this is something we do every year at msnbc, done it several years with morning joe, look at police killed in the line of duty and in the communities. two big things. number one, fatality rate for officers killed by gunfire in the line of work is steady, slightly down, 49 killed the last year. one of the things we're doing tonight is speaking to a family member of one such officer, who

was the first seik officer. the suicide i want to get to as well. let me show you an interview with a man that knew him. take a look. >> if he is remembered as the selfless servant he has been to us, that would be the most touching thing that could be left behind for his legacy. >> you see some footage there, his work with children and the community, this is someone that took time from vacation to do hurricane relief. a model of public service, a trail blazer in a lot of ways. and that's just one of many stories. we also have something we can put on the screen, the faces of these individuals around the country, officers that served and died in the line of duty. it is time to take stock, so much end of the year stuff. sometimes we look at the best sometimes, some cases the worst

stuff. these are people that were lost and we remember them. the other case is the suicides. more officers, think about this, more officers dying death by suicide than killed in the line of duty. it shows the scale of the crisis. there's a range of factors we can discuss. there's ptsd, access to guns, and what officers tell us, chief law enforcement officers and police chiefs talked about a kind of crisis of stigma. people that need help don't always seek it. >> ari, police conduct and criminal reform are top of mind in the national conversation. is it time for that conversation about policing to expand a bit to include the unique stresses and dangers of being a law enforcement officer on the beat? >> i think there's tremendous stress. there's ptsd, there's trauma,

there's fear. 90% of suicides are males. we have seen police chiefs talk, what does it mean in the community where you have your life on the line, where you do walk around and face people. that is part of law enforcement. and that involves strength, masculinity, male strength. that doesn't mean you can't go home or go to work and feel that this is stressing you out, that this is overwhelming at times and get help you need, same you would with a physical ailment. we are seeing that conversation main land in a way officers and leadership say is necessary. >> and military veterans as well, seeing it with police here, too. i think it is worth pointing out, you mention the death of that officer and many of them. i had a lot of officers say don't use the term routine traffic stop. there's no such thing as a routine traffic stop. you don't know what you're getting as a police officer when you walk up to a car you pulled

over and don't know what you're getting when you leave the house every day. >> talking about work that's front line in a way where a level of fear, what may also be called anxiety is part of the job, part of looking alert. we're seeing the way it shapes some of the reaction which is necessary. to nick's point, i think both these conversations in journalism and in society, the way we report and debate as americans are necessary. there's a discussion obviously about rules for police and dealing with cases of misconduct which are statistically a minority of what police are doing and then the majority of what they're doing, the work, threats they face. as we have seen as well, threats that are sometimes fatal. >> ari melber, thank you very much. watch that special report on "the beat" at 6:00 p.m. eastern. joe, mica, final thoughts this morning? >> as we wrap it up, i think your article in "the washington

post" trumps ignorance created international crisis, that's where we are at this point. his ignorance has been known for years now during his presidency, but we see something actually happening now. >> again, he didn't know who soleimani was when he started running for president of the united states. it is that ignorance, arrogance, created a toxic mix. we're in an international crisis now. >> and chaos in an administration with a lot of people leaving and not a lot of people holding firm. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up coverage right now. >> thank you so much. i am stephanie ruhle. it is tuesday, january 7th. we have a lot going on today, starting with a two-part drama. lawmakers planning to hit the ground running on impeachment, right when they return to washington are splitting time