thanks for joining us on "the beat." we'll be back tomorrow including a house vote to limit the president's war powers. don't go anywhere though. "hardball with chris matthews" starts right now. not buying it. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. 24 hours ago america was on the brink of war with iran. today after six days filled with fear and anxiety president trump took a step back from the edge telling the american people he would refrain from a retaliatory attack on iran for now. >> no americans were harmed in last night's attack by the iranian regime.

we suffered no casualties. all of our soldiers are safe and only minimal damage was sustained at our military bases. our great american forces are prepared for anything. iran appears to be standing down, which is a good thing for all parties concerned and a very good thing for the world. the civilized world must send a clear and unified message to the iranian regime, your campaign of terror, murder, mayhem will not be tolerated any longer. >> well, the president's remarks came hours after iran launched 16 short-range ballistic missiles at two iraqi air bases housing american troops. when last night's missile attack was retaliation after president trump approved the assassination of general soleimani, the head of the quds force, the administration has not provided

the public a detailed explanation for conducting that strike on the general. a senior administration official tells "the washington post" that, quote, the lack of casualties gave administration officials more confidence that the iranians had intended to make a public show of force largely to save face at home. however, during a briefing with reporters the chairman of the joint chiefs, mark milley, said that his own personal assessment led him to believe that the iranians intended to kill personnel. the speech which at times veered into a laudatory campaign event by the president was riddinged with factual inaccuracy answer took aim at his favorite target former president barack obama. >> over the last three years, under my leadership, our economy is stronger than ever before and america achieved energy independence. these historic accomplishments are ones that nobody thought was

possible. the missiles fired last night at us and our allies were paid for with the funds made available by the last administration. >> well, the associated press said the president's speech, quote, fell short on the facts. noting that he, quote, wrongly dismissed the continuing threat of the is lambic state group and spread a false tale to those paying out billions of dollars into iran as part of the multinational deal freezing rather its nuclear program. early today speaker of the house nancy pelosi announced that the house would take up a resolution that would limit the president's military actions with iran. well, the senate has a companion bill introduced by virginia democrat tim kaine. he'll join me in just a moment. first i'm joined by richard engel, nbc news chief foreign correspondent who is over in especial erbil, iraq. it's hard tell we're lucky with no american service person being killed and that happening.

>> reporter: so we're lucky there were no casualties here but we are on a cycle of violence and anyone who has covered the middle east or anyone who has served in the middle east knows once you start these cycles of violence they are very, very difficult to break, and the president set up this threshold that is probably impossible to meet. there are tens of thousands of troops and contractors in harm's way and he is now set up a scenario where effectively there is a zero acceptance of casualties. that while pursuing an aggressive foreign policy against iran and attacking the most senior military leaders of the iranian system. we are setting ourselves up for a cycle of crises. so, yes, we got past this crisis, but i could see us in the same scenario a week from now, just a few hours ago there

were two rockets fired at the green zone where the u.s. embassy is in baghdad. they didn't hit anything significant. they didn't caution any damage or casualties according to iraqi officials but what if they had? what if they had hit a couple of contractors because these -- by the way these short-term rockets are not even guided. you just put them in a direction and fire them and they are being fired by shiite militia groups that are more or less allied with iran. if those -- if there had been an incident tonight, a deadly incident we'd be right back here tomorrow or we'd be right back here right now. so i don't see the -- a very good ending here. sure, we got past this crisis, but are we going to be back again waiting for president trump to come out and brief the world if he's going to take the united states to war or not? we've been down this road before and it doesn't end well. >> thank you so much, richard engel, over in especialrbil.

mike pompeo and others headed to capitol hill to provide members of the house and senate the justification for last week's assassination of general -- the -- the general from iran. after briefing the house which we will get to later in the show they headed to the senate where trump supporters gave the briefing rave reviews. >> i thought it was a good briefing. >> i just sat through one of the best briefings i have had since i've been here in the united states congress. >> it was very well done. i think they've done an excellent job of outlining the rationale. >> but senator mike lee, a republican from utah excoriated the administration calling the briefing we just saw there insulting and demeaning. >> which i would add was probably the worst briefing i've seen at least on a military

issue in the nine years i've served in the united states senate. it is not acceptable for them to tell us we can't debate and discuss the appropriateness of military intervention against iran. it's un-american. it's unconstitutional and it's wrong. >> joining me is tim kaine of virginia. senator, if you catch somebody in a bank robbery, an armed bank robbery and shoot them that's one thing. if you gut away their living and find some guy you hurt blew up some ranges or robbed some banks and kill them in cold blood, that's murder. this looks like an assassination and stopping what someone in the sxhigs of a crime. your thoughts after getting that briefing? which is it, an assassination or are we really stopping in the act of somebody blowing up somebody? >> well, chris, i'll tell you, you know, with soleimani, was he a despicable killer, yes, is iran a bad arc, yes. the question is should the united states be at war are iran? here's mie take on the briefing,

the administration did a very poor job of suggesting there is an imminent threat, a very poor job. they suggested that iran and soleimani in particular was carrying out plans against the united states just as we have all kinds of war plans against iran, but the eminence or any decision being made to carry out these threats, that was weak. second, the administration didn't acknowledge. they kept saying we ought to red line and iran crossed it when an american contractor was killed but didn't acknowledge that the united states is also taking military action against iran, killing 25 militia members at the end of the year, killing not only general soleimani but killing an iraqi parliamentarian in the strike so we get to have a red line but nobody else does but the thing that infuriated minimums of congress was how dismissive they were about congress. at some point there was a sort of a challenge and this isn't

classified. there was a challenge, you know, you should seek authority for war from us but at a minimum consult with us and one of the briefers said, well, i'm here now consulting, yeah, but six days after this major, major escalatory action so what we need, chris, is we need not escalation, but deliberation and the framers of the constitution understood that the best antidote to unnecessary escalation was deliberation by congress. we'd be more likely to get it right if we had a debate in front of the public and voted and that's what i'm trying to force. >> well, it seems to me that this tit for tat began in at least in the latest round of our killing of the general. the president said today, no, it was because barack obama, his predecessor in the white house financed the ballistic missiles that were launched yesterday, last night. i mean, was it obama's fault that we got hit overnight?

>> well, in the president's comments and i will say the one good thing about them was that they were a little bit of a climb down the ladder of escalation, thank god, but the president's comments were really wrong in so many ways. the opening line is, iran will never get a nuclear weapon as long as i'm president. when president trump came into office iran had signed on to a deal, chris, that said they would never seek to a purchase, acquire or develop a nuclear weapon forever and now president trump is saying for the next year they're not going to get a nuclear weapon. that's supposed to make us feel good. by tearing up diplomacy, president trump put us in a place where he maximized or increased the risk of unnecessary war. we predicted at the time if you tear up the deal, you'll increase the risk of war. if you engage in a maximum pressure campaign, you'll raise the risk of retaliation against americans. and importantly, if you tear up

diplomacy with iran, the mountain that you're going to have to climb to get a deal with north korea is going to get much steeper. all those things happened because the president torched diplomacy and that's why we are where we are. >> we have a president as you basically said tore up the deal on nuclear arms with iran and talked about going after people's wives and children if we don't like them. he's talking about going after their religious and cultural relic space, like going after our statue of liberty and pyramids. he looks like he's going into war with the iranian people. it's a policy to risk war. how does the congress -- is there any real way to stop them? in his direction right now? >> yeah, and we need to because you're right. what would the iranians think as they contemplate, you know, do they escalate after general soleimani is killed? if all -- if he think all americans are like president trump, that hate iran, want to abandon diplomacy, want to carry

out military strikes, if that's who america is to them, that's one thing they have to deal with. but if congress says, hey, look, we think we should de-escalate. we think deliberation is the answer, so that's what i'm trying to do. i filed a privileged resolution of the war powers act and you know it well. it says that if a president initiates hostilities and those hostilities aren't covered by a previous congressional authorization, then any member can file a resolution that says, stop the hostilities. and get a privileged vote on the floor by simple majority within a reasonable period of time. we are in hostilities. those hostilities are not covered by a previous authorization so i'm filing this motion saying, fine, we want to have a vote. we want to terminate u.s. hostilities against iran and there's only two circumstances under which we should be engaged in those hostilities. defense against an imminent attack, the president can always do that or if congress passes

its own declaration. we're trying to reclaim from this executive who like other presidents, let's be honest, believes they can do things on their own. we're trying to reclaim to congress the power to initiate war because that's what our troops and their families deserve. >> thank you so much, senator tim kaine of virginia. coming -- let's bring back shannon petty piece, senior digital white house reporter. this question about the justification probably precedes anything about war powers ago. that's always going to be a court issue whether the congress can stop the president but the issue now they're raising is and mike lee's dramatic statement, it's all over the video now, we've seen it, a conservative from utah saying this is a joke. they don't have a justification they can present for why they assassinated this general. >> i think it's a reflection of a broader feeling within this administration of not viewing congress as a legitimate branch of government. we saw this in impeachment with

how they responded to the house inquiries, essentially saying, you know this, is not a legitimate investigation. you're not a legitimate body of congress of the government. we don't have to respond to you. the same thing when they did not brief members of congress before and one of the justifications that the administration gave was, well, they would just leak the information, why would we tell them? they singled out adam schiff, chairman of the house intelligence committee. why would we tell adam schiff? he'll just leak it. he is an elected member of congress on the house intelligence committee. there is a sense that, you know, they're not legitimate members of congress, really. that that just because they were elected doesn't mean they have to share information or get their authorization from them and i think it does fit in this bigger power struggle between the executive branch and the legislative branch that we've been seeing play out for three years now. >> the president can basically do what he wants to do even in the area of starting a war, because as everybody has been saying starting with richard

engel tonight in the beginning of our report tonight if another fire is shot from the other side, some militia person who shoots somebody, kills an american according to the latest threat shown of war we're at war again big time. >> right, and as we have seen over the past three years, what is anyone going to do about it? if the president oversteps his bounds and the executive branch what are you going to do about it? well, you could impeach him which congress -- the house is trying to do now but are you going to remove him from house in the senate? so there's no real, i think we're seeing this, test, not the checks in place on the executive branch that i think people thought there were. >> it takes such a decision by the congress, a two-thirds vote in both houses plus one in this case to override what is a presidential veto because you're replacing the president's warmaking powers by the congress as a tough threshold to reach. it's a nice effort by the senator, senator from virginia, tim kaine but not sure it will stop this president but does raise the question, why did they

assassinate this general? was he in the act of doing something or are they simply wanting to hit him hard because of what he did in the past and send a message of vengeance to the iranians? thank you very much shani pettypiece. coming up trump alerted all-out war with iran this time. luckily no one got killed last night in the western u.s. base in western iraq, but who can predict this president or can predict the iranians. >> finally to the people and leaders of iran, we want you to have a future and a great future, one that you deserve. >> oh, yeah. well, those words are a far cry from a president who just recently threatened the blowup of iranian cultural treasures and not at all clear whether the president has a long-term middle east strategy at owl or just winging it. we'll talk about it with cory booker. plus, pressure is growing on speaker pelosi to give the

senate those two articles of impeachment. what's her next move? can republican senators get away with blocking witness testimony from john bolton and others? it's a tough vote for a republican to say i don't want to know the truth. much more to get to tonight. stick with us. ♪ $12.99 all you can eat now with boneless wings. only at applebee's. cologuard: colon cancer and older at average risk. i've heard a lot of excuses to avoid screening for colon cancer. i'm not worried. it doesn't run in my family. i can do it next year. no rush. cologuard is the noninvasive option that finds 92% of colon cancers. you just get the kit in the mail, go to the bathroom, collect your sample, then ship it to the lab. there's no excuse for waiting. get screened.

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welcome back to "hardball." over the last two weeks the conflicting statements, cross signals have left our allies confused about what trump's strategy on iran is. is there a strategy? "the new york times" peter bakers points out the president who promised to bring troops home from the middle east is now dispatching more instead. the pentagon sent a letter saying it was withdrawing from iraq only to disavow it as a mistake. the state department talked about de-escalation while

mr. trump described all the ways he would devastate iran if it harmed american -- more americans and even then the president was forced to back off his threat to target iranian cultural sites after his own defense secretary publicly said doing that was a war crime. for moore i'm joined by peter baker, we have courthouse correspondent for "the new york times." peter, i guess it's hard to predict events but also to predict this president. i mean, we're hearing from richard engel just now and senator kaini, the information we're getting if you put it together if there is another shot fired to kill from the other side in any front over there now from iran, we're back at war. >> yes, certainly could be the case, absolutely. he wants that to be the impression. but one of the reasons why it was important for him to take this action at this time according to his advisers was to re-establish deterrence and by that they mean that the fact that the president hadn't responded to previous provocations over the last

number of months, in fact at one point ordered an air strike and called it off ten minutes before it was supposed to get started may have left iran with the impression that he wasn't going to respond to anything like this and so that's one of the things that you heard them say and explaining this strike but as you pointed out, and as we wrote about in this morning's paper the message had been at times conflicting and it's hard for our allies to get a sense of what is the broader picture here? what is the broader strategy in a region he says he wants to get out but we find ourselves entangled in just as much if not more than ever. >> like roosevelt deploying our ships into the north atlantic basically saying to the german, go ahead and make our day and the japanese attacked us. when the president sets red lines out there, sometimes he wants the other side to cross them. sometimes he doesn't. what's trump want? >> yeah, that's a great question. you know, he has been one of

these really interesting characters who talks a big game when it comes to military confrontation. he uses terminology no other president has about annihilating other countries and wiping them off the map and all that kind of thing, very, very bellicose and yet there is a part that clearly has been reluctant to commit to a major kind of military operation, said that the 2003 invasion of iraq by bush was the biggest mistake in history and don't have a stake in a lot of things that are happening in overseas countries and should be in america at home and recognizing these different strains of trumpism is a tough thing for many americans not to mention our friends and adversaries oversea. >> thank you so much, peter baker. i'm joined by senator cory booker from new jersey running for president. senator booker, thank you for joining us. here's a presidential moment. put yourself in t what would you do? >> first of all, i wouldn't do what i did in front of the

united states senate right now when you send high-level official, members of your cab at the time to brief us to show us just for using military force and you really give no adequate justification. the answer of an imminent threat. i can tell you as a united states senator coming out of a briefing, they did not show us that they were dealing with an imminent threat. i saw no evidence of that whatsoever so this is what's got me really angry. if you look at this region under this president's leadership. iran is closer to a nuclear weapon right now as they're breaking out to better enrich than they were before he was president. we now have an iran that has greater influence in iraq than before he was president. we now have our allies like israel at greater danger because of iran than when before he was president and i can go on and on and on and so he has been a foreign policy disaster in the middle east. someone who said he would detangle himself from the middle

east moving more troops there now and saying he would defeat isis and tear them up by the roots put us in a worst position to prevent their resurgence. there are so many problems under this president because of his inability to have a strategy to conduct foreign policy and as a guy who's visited this region, chris, who's been meeting with our generals and our leaders from afghanistan to baghdad, they will tell you that this is going to have to be solved with a diplomatic solution. this president has shown no ability to do diplomacy from north korea to the middle east and, frankly, has tore up one of the most important diplomatic agreements we had that enabled us to have a stronger relationship with our allies in europe and even with the chinese and russians because now iran is doing naval exercises with the chinese and russians. talk about putting us in a weaker position. >> well, conflicting foreign position statements from this president is nothing new. here he is during the 2016 presidential campaign playing both hawk and dove.

>> my foreign policy will emphasize diplomacy, not destruction. >> i'm going to bomb the [ bleep ] out of them. >> you're tired of the reckless foreign policy. the crazy wars that are never won. >> i'm the most militaristic person in history. nobody is going to mess with us. >> this president doesn't do his homework. i think we all agree, senator. here's the problem, i'm not playing elitist. i'm not an elitist but it seems to me you ought to learn something you can't in business school. when you shoot a guy you assassinate someone loved by the people so the streets are filled with tens and hundreds of thousands weeping with emotion point loss of one of their hero, it would be nice if our president knew he was one of their heroes and knew what he was igniting. do you think he knew who the hell he was killing here? >> look, this president is weak.

he is weak of mind. he has no impulse control whatsoever. i do thought think he has a mastery of the issues in this region enough to conduct himself in a way that's going to keep america safe so again i do thought think this president as we saw during his campaign can even name world leaders not to mention understand a bigger strategy on how to deal with the complex issues going on right now from the middle east, frankly, to asia. >> i don't think wharton teaches you who to kill. good luck in the race. always great to interview you. you've been great whenever we interview. next if you few congression congressional democrats want to take his word? congress heard from several administrations today and they weren't happy. they weren't satisfied with what they heard, not even mike lee,

the conservative from utah. he think it's a joke. we'll ask one of the senators next back on "hardball." (whistling) (whistling) and my lack of impulse control,, is about to become your problem. ahh no, come on. i saw you eating poop earlier.

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ask your doctor today, if epclusa is your kind of cure. last week we took decisive action to stop a ruthless terrorist from threatening american lives. in recent days he was planning new attacks on american targets, but we stopped him. >> welcome back to "hardball."

that was president trump again defending the killing of iranian general soleimani. members of congress, u.s. congressmen were briefed this afternoon on the intelligence that the administration says justified the assassination. as the administration faces increased pressure for details about what prompted this whole cycle of violence, the briefing by four top members of the president's national security team, secretary of state mike pompeo, mark esper, cia director gi gina haspel comes amid objections that congress was kept largely in the dark. of course, it was. in the hours beforehand pompeo and esper offered mixed messages publicly about the urgency of last week's assassination. >> if you're looking for eminence, you look no further than the strike taken up against soleimani then you in addition to that have what we can clearly see continuing efforts on behalf of that terrorist to build out

activities that would lead potentially to the death of many more americans. >> can you clarify the attack soleimani was planning, was that days or weeks away? >> i think it's more fair to say days for sure. he was clearly on the battlefield. he was conducting, preparing, planning military operations. he was a legitimate target and his time was due. >> he was a baghdad airportment for i'm joined by joaquin castro and valerie plame and democratic candidate forcongress. congressman, what did you make of the briefing? did you hear a jinx for stopping an imminent attack against the united states or anything like that? >> no, in general the briefers were very vague. they were evasive of the questions posed by the members of congress and they were at least two failures there, number one providing a sufficient legal justification for taking the action that the president did and then secondly demonstrating

that there was an imminent risk to u.s. personnel, a justifiable reason for taking the action that they did in assassinating soleimani. >> you know, i used the example of a bank robber. if somebody is shot in the act of an armed bank robbery. that's one thing. it's awful but it happens and is appropriate sometimes but if you go looking for somebody in his house or apartment and go searching for a guy you think robbed some banks and you kill him in his apartment, that's a murder. so it sounds like it's more of an assassination in this case. >> yeah, they certainly didn't provide ample justifications for why they did things the way they did. >> valerie, let me ask but this whole thing in terms of your background in intelligence. i don't think they're giving us any intelligence here. according to mike lee the conservative republican from utah, he stormged out that have briefing and the scif which is secure and nobody else can hear

what's going on in there they wouldn't even tell him why they did this, not really. >> hi, chris. thanks for having me. absolutely. it sounds like there is absolutely no justification. this -- we've been lied into war before. unfortunately, i had a front row seat to that and i know how that was approached and i see this all over again where the intelligence is so thin and i want to point something out that i don't think anyone is really noticed which is on one hand you have trump denigrating the intelligence community if they do something that he does not deem in his favor, on the other hand now we're supposed to take everything they say as trust us, the intelligence community told us that we have imminent information about an imminent threat. you can't have it both ways. >> let me ask you about what we should have done and go back to the congressman on this. when some people die, we, you know, you don't know what the i

will packet is going to be. when princess diana died there was a huge emotional outpouring. these kinds -- elvis presley in our culture, it turns out that this general he killed was a beloved hero of the american people to the point -- look at the people. these enormous crowds coming out. there is no american emotion but there is a hell of a lot of emotion on the other side. should our leaders know what they're doing before they kill somebody, congressman. >> yeah, they very much could have anticipated that iranians would react in this way, both the iranian public but also that the government would strike back and this speaks to a much larger issue, chris, which is the president has had a very chaotic and erratic foreign policy and especially with respect to iran. you think about what he did, he replaced the iran deal, the iran agreement which was containing their nuclear program, replace that with what is now being called a mexico pressure campaign, well, that important follows, if you can call it

that, has failed. although this administration considers air force bases or bases being bombed by the iranians, it considers losing the respect and moral authority for the united states around the world as some kind of success for its maximum pressure campaign. but it's clear at this point that the president's strategy has failed. >> let me go back to what valerie said on this question. it's really a question of intelligence and when you use it normally like knowing what you're doing, having the information to proceed. the ability to pass a driver's test. a president of the united states, man or woman, democrat or republican, right wing or left winger, they have to know what's going on when they do something. they have g-2s. they have intelligence people that tell you, if you do this this, is going to happen. does this team look like they're work flag way, the ones in the white house now? >> i think that's called a leading question. >> yeah. >> no, it's complete chaos. there is no foreign policy, per

se. he's -- trump is impulsive, impetuous and the consequences are profound and what i was really taken with today was with the briefing of the senators of the intelligence was how dismissive the white house, the executive branch is of the congressional branch. i learned in eighth grade civics class three coequal branches of government and we have seen in both -- under both parties, democrat and republican and the white house there's been a graduate ceding of power toward the executive and i think it's time that congress reassert itself, not -- and rebalance those three coequal branches of government to steady, steady the ship because at the helm right now we have a very erratic leader. >> thank you so much. u.s. congressman joaquin castro.

your brother ran a here roaric campaign for president. you should all be proud. valerie, what can i say? i've known you for a long time and served your country under incredible conditions and risked your neck overseas under cover. i can't vote out there but i'd be grad to be your character witness. you are the greatest. thank you so much. it's all true. don't laugh. how much longer can nancy pelosi hold on to the articles of impeachment before sending them to the senate? it's getting a little rough out there. a growing number of senators, in fact, are already saying it's time to move this thing along to a trial. you're watching "hardball." ♪ ♪

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there will be no haggling with the house over senate procedure. we will not cede our authority to try this impeachment. the house democrats' turn is over. the senate has made its decision.

>> welcome back to "hardball." that was mitch mcconnell doing what he does, needling speaker nancy pelosi over the articles of impeachment which she has yet to turn over to the senate for the president's trial in the senate. it comes after mcconnell announced yesterday he has the votes to set the rules of the trial without democratic support. he's got his 53 votes. that means republican intend to postpone a decision on whether to call witnesses in the trial well into the trial itself. yet the trial can't begin until speaker pelosi actually sends over the articles physically and she made clear again today she wants to see mcconnell's proposed rules before doing that. >> when we see the arena in which this will happen, we will then be prepared to send arti e articles over. >> well, meanwhile several senate democrats are now saying publicly that pelosi would --

should not wait. they want them over there now and also making clear they'll continue to fight for witnesses under mcconnell's rule. senator chuck schumer promised repeated votes because any member of the senate can simply say i move we bring for these witnesses in. we bring witnesses in, the ones that matter like john bolton and joe manchin, the moderate democrat said the trial would be a sham without these witnesses. >> i would say to mitch mcconnell say, majority leader, don't you think if you've got a person with firsthand knowledge how can you have a trial without witnesses or without evidence? i want witnesses to come and i want evidence to be produced. if not, then it's just basically truly a sham of a trial. >> a sham of a trial. amid all this senate republicans appear ready to use any excuse to suppress new evidence from being presented at trump's trial in the senate. that's next on "hardball." stick with us.

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welcome back to "hardball." senate republicans are putting off a decision on witnesses at the president's trial. but doing so despite the news that former national security adviser, there he is, john bolton, is willing to testify under subpoena. and as we've seen several republicans have already made clear they'll use any excuse to suppress the new evidence. here's lindsey graham, for example, just yesterday.

>> i'm not going to add anything to the record. they had a chance to call john bolton in the house. they chose not to and i don't intend with my vote to reward them for doing this. >> well, they're now saying they're unwilling to hear from firsthand witnesses like bolton but the house republican had complained about hearsay evidence from secondhand sources. >> it's hearsay. somebody told somebody told somebody else that created some concern about the president's conduct. >> no impeachment should ever proceed on the basis of hearsay and conjecture and speculation. >> the impeachment articles rely almost exclusively on hearsay. an attempt to undo the 2016 election based on hearsay. >> and record speed this majority has assembled hearsay. >> they are based on hearsay. >> the democrats' case is based on secondhand opinions and

hearsay. >> i'm joined by ted deutch, democrat from florida, david jolly as well, left the republican party. congressman deutch, it takes four republicans to join the ta four republicans to join the 47 democratic senators to get these witnesses before the senate trial. what are the chances? >> well, i don't understand why the senate republicans are so opposed to getting to the truth. so many of these direct witnesses didn't appear because the president banned them, barred them from doing it, said you can't come. >> right. >> that's why the second count is obstruction of congress. the only reason not to call these witnesses and to hear from them is because you're afraid of what you can say. that's the only conclusion we can draw here. >> do you think you can shame

the republicans, at least four of them, in joining democratic senators so we have these witnesses? what the congressman just said is true. shame doesn't seem to matter. republic republicans said i don't care what you're saying. i'm sticking with the president. that's their answer on everything. it's not about values. it's about my loyalty to the president. i am a lemming. i will do what i'm told. >> it is about loyalty or i would even say futily to donald trump. it's covering up for themselves. house argument is about hearsay. they were wrong. as ted said, the impeachment was based on witnesses who were on the call, based on a record of facts. the fact is that they were saying what allowed them to take the vote they knew they want ed to take. senate republicans are covering for trump. but they're covering for themselves. they don't want witnesses because they don't want all this evidence to be on display, have compelling testimony of witnesses and then take the vote to acquit, which they already know they're going to do.

chris, the foolishness of republicans in this moment is that it would be so easy to say to the american people, we're going to have a fair trial and we are going to have witnesses and 71% of the country wants a fair trial with witnesses. so, we're going to do that. and in the end, through the partisan lens, which our founders knew we may evaluate this case, we are likely going to vote to acquit the president, we know that. but you can do that following a fair trial. it would be so easy to do that. but they are intimidated by the president and, obviously, won't do that. >> congressman deutch, looks like the president has a plan here, settled things with the iranians for a short term, couple of days, couple of weeks. but he gives the state of the union day after the iowa caucuses and comes prancing in and says i'm exonerated by the senate. he wants it all over by the state of the union day. the president gets a standing o from the republican side of the aisle and some democrats and he's a hero.

he's julius caesar. i mean this is the plan. they're going to get away with it. >> no, of course not. remember, regardless of what happens, chris, the president of the united states is going to appear before the country as a president who was impeached by the house of representatives. and i don't believe that rushing through -- trying to ram this through, as mcconnell is trying to do, trying to show that his devotion is first and foremost to the president rather than to the constitution is going to work, as dave just said. the overwhelming majority of people in this country believe there should be a fair trial. they want witnesses. they want evidence put on. as the senate weighs the decision of whether to remove this president from office for abusing his power, for soliciting involvement of a foreign government in our elections. all of that is what everyone knows. the pressure, i think, will only increase on the republican

senators to recognize that they're actually -- they may think they're helping donald trump. they're doing an enormous disservice, obviously, to the country, but they're going to wind up hurting themselves as well. >> the choir is with you, congressman. the people outside the church don't want to hear this stuff. they're walking past the church. thank you both as always. >> thank you. mike pompeo and mike pence, i've got a big one for these guys, this trio. you're watching "hardball." wat. we made usaa insurance for members like martin. an air force veteran made of doing what's right,

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it's hard to imagine it's possible to make our relations with iran worse but president trump, mike pence and mike pompeo have managed to do just that. it was one thing to subvert their elected democratic government and give them a quarter century of the shah. after the refb lugs of 1979, that brought the ayatollah to power we got one report after another of how the people of iran have retained their goodwill to us, the people. until recently the people in iran were divided toward their own government, demonstrations in cities large and small were calling for an end to the islamic republic and downfall of its leaders. those people in the streets there now protesting us. how did trump get the people of iran hating us again? he assassinated one of the country's most beloved heroes and threatens to zroit country's cultural sites.

imagine telling the egyptians we're going to destroy the pyramids, telling the french we're going to destroy the eiffel tower, italians we're going to destroy the coliseum or someone telling us we're going to destroy the statue of liberty. it's about an enemy shouting threats to a people. in this case, the persian people, whose culture goes back thousands of years. my question for the president, the vice president and the secretary of state, why do you want to stir up the hatred of the iranian people? what is it that makes you want them enraged at u.s., at us? i'm not talking about the country's current government, ayatollah and the rest. why are you targeting the country's soul? why do you want them to hate us and us hate them? what's with the blood war you're trying to start? i don't get t thousands of iranians in the streets right now, is anyone in america out on our streets? nobody. there's not a single american out on the streets calling for

blood which are an. none of us. no, mr. president, mr. vice president and mr. pompeo. the people who got iran to the boiling point are you three. that's "hardball." "all in" with chris hayes starts right now. >> tonight on "all in." >> my reaction to this briefing was it was sophomoric and utterly unconvincing. >> the house will vote to check the president's ability to wage war. >> as the questions begin to get tough they walked out. >> as the white house infuriates republican. >> it's unamerican. it's unconstitutional and it's wrong. >> tonight, where we stand after iran's retaliation. >> iran appears to be standing down. >> what we learned from the white house briefing to congress on the assassination of soleimani. >> probably the worst briefing i've seen, at least on a military issue in the nine years i served in the united states senate. >> what we know about what's happening in iraq and iran. spencer ackerman and michelle