tonight to take us off the air. that is our broadcast for this wednesday evening. thank you so much for being here with us. as always. and good night from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. there are two reporters in this clip. haley talbot ask competing with and working alongside another reporter from a different competing news organizations, julia boccagno from cbs. and what they are doing here, which you're about to see, what they're doing here is hard. it is hard to walk and film and keep pace and not bump into things and ask concise, pointed questions on simultaneous crisis

and to keep pushing content-wise in terms of getting an answer while your subject is trying to blow you off, and you have to not get distracted in this instance by the sort of adorable interruption that happens in the middle of you doing your work where we encounter the republican senator from mississippi and learn about how lovely his family is as depicted on his christmas card this yearf it all happens in a short period of time. you're about to see it here. this is hard to do. but haley talbot from nbc and julia boccagno from cbs get it done. they nail it. they get yelled at a little bit for their trouble before it's all over with, but honestly, this is how you do it. if you want to grow up to be a reporter, this is how you do it. let's roll it. >> can we ask you about the iran

briefing? >> well, i can't talk about it. it's classified. >> how would you characterize it? did you think it was sufficient? >> we're going to -- >> people are t calling it the worst briefing they've ever got. >> there's competition for that in this administration. >> what about articles of pooech impeachment? >> thank you, thank you.t

>> thank you. >> house speaker nancy pelosi tonight captured in motion as she moved across the u.s. capitol. do you listen when i speak? do you? she said basically the answer is "no," you're asking about my decision. i've told you the grounds on which my decision has been made. the senate will get those articles of impeachment conveyed from me, the speaker of the house, when the senate declares their intentions for the impeachment trial on those articles. when they tell me what arena we're going to be operating in here in terms of the next steps in this impeachment, i will then forward them the articles as well as the list of impeachment managers from the house and all the rest of it. that's what i said i would do in the beginning.

do you listen when i speak? because everything is happening all at once now and it is impossible to extricate these crises that we are having in our government right now, it's impossible to extricate these crises from one another, in the same unbroken fast-moving trot across the capitol building, past all the statues through the rotunda and everything, you got to get her on the record on the other thing that that is simultaneously unfolding around this. will you talk to us about the classified briefing you just received? on the justifications for the u.s. military strike on iran. no, that's classified. madam speaker, others are saying it's the worst briefing they've ever received. she answers there's stiff competition for that these days, bucko. bucko is silent. this is the environment you're in right now, right? you're a reporter working in the u.s. capitol. you get 40 seconds, maybe, with the top democrat in washington because you're in the right place at the right time.

she is in motion and you can physically catch her, literally you can catch up to her and keep up with her while she is moving and she does not slow down. if anything, she starts going faster, but you are capable of doing your job in this way. in trodding after her, you can get her to acknowledge your questions before she dresses you down with them. but, i mean, what you're seeing there from those two working reporters in capitol hill extricating that stuff from nancy pelosi is that how inextricable these multiple crises are. this is unfolding rapidly. there's no break between these two enormous stories. how did the iran crisis start? well, it was after the president was impeached by the house led by nancy pelosi. it was as the senate was preparing to come back to washington to reconvene.

it was between him being impeached and him starting his trial that the president ordered this military strike which reportedly flabbergasted and stunned pentagon officials who were advising him on this matter. the president ordered up this u.s. military attack to target and kill the number two most powerful official in the iranian government, the most powerful official in their military. and those two stories, this happening in the interregnum between him being impeached and potentially removed, that and the military strike he ordered during that interregnum, these two stories will not be disentangled. in the history of this time in our country, the history of this presidency, these things will always be on the books as having happened at once. and our political leaders are having to confront them both at once. that's why you have nancy pelosi, speaker of the house, in one continuous, on-the-move sound bite being asked about both the intelligence briefing on why the president ordered

that military strike and when she's planning on sending impeachment articles to the senate. yes, there is a brief interlude where she compliments a senator on the beauty of his family as depicted in their family christmas card, but other than that, it's all one big story. as iran fired ballistic missiles at u.s. targets inside iraq last night and president trump today gave an odd, sort of stumbling speech in which he basically crowed about how those missile attacks from iran didn't do much damage, the consequences of the president's decision to launch this military strike are starting to maybe come into focus. there's still considerable uncertainty about what might happen next or how big the stakes might ultimately be here, but as that is happening, today was the day that the administration decided they would finally brief congress on the key question, the question that will loom large in the culpability of this moment which

is why the president chose to do this when he did it. was there a good reason for the president to order that air strike against a senior iranian government official when he did it? was the decision driven by some national security imperative in the interest of the united states, or was it driven by something else? which unavoidably a front-of-mind question because he ordered that out of the blue in the middle of him being impeached. it's been almost a week since that strike that killed general qassem soleimani, the head of the quds force. the iranian revolutionary guard. it's been almost a week. today finally the administration felt intelligence officials to congress briefings that were designed to convince both the house and the senate that the strike was legal and it was done for all of the right reasons. based on what members of congress said coming out of those briefings, it didn't go well.

>> this, however, is not the biggest problem i had with the briefing, which i would add is 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. >> that is republican u.s. senator mike lee from utah who came out of his version of the briefing today on the air strike against iran, which again was a briefing designed to reassure the congress that president trump launched this military strike against this iranian military official in the middle of his impeachment, but don't worry, it was for all the right reasons. it was for reasons that were fine and sound and legal and not at all suspect. senator mike lee, again, a republican, has long been a stickler for the constitutional prerogatives of congress when it comes to making decisions about war and peace. but his upset today would appear to be his revulsion for what the trump administration tried to sell him and other senators today. it seemed to go beyond just that concern.

>> i went this there hoping to get more specifics as far as the factual, legal, moral justification for what they did. i'm still undecided on that issue in part because we never got to the details. they left after 75 minutes. now, i understand these are busy people. they've got a lot of demands on their time. they're appearing before a coordinate branch of government responsible for their funding, for their confirmation, for any approval of any military action they might undertake and they had to leave after 75 minutes while they're in the process of telling us that we need to be good little boys and girls and run along and not debate this in public. i find that absolutely insane. i think it's unacceptable. i can say that after that briefing, that briefing is what changed my mind. that briefing is what brought me on board together with the amendments. i'm now going to support it.

i walked in undecided. i walked out decided, specifically because of what happened in that briefing. >> what republican senator mike lee is saying at the end there about him now being decided. he walked into the briefing undecided and he's now decided because of how terrible this briefing was from the trump administration. military and intelligence officials from the trump administration trying to justify to the congress why president trump launched this military strike against iran. senator lee says now, based on how terrible that briefing was, he's now definitively decided that he will support a forthcoming resolution in the senate to invoke the war powers resolution and essentially disallow president trump from continuing any further military action against iran unless congress approves. we don't know exactly what that resolution will look like in part because part of what senator mike lee said today is that they're now negotiating with the democrats about what the amendments might be to that resolution now that more republicans apparently want to sign on board of it.

but that senate resolution is coming and we're going to see a different version of it tomorrow in the house. tomorrow this resolution will be brought up on the floor for a full house vote. they brought it up in the rules committee today so it could be on the floor of the house tomorrow. it's labeled a concurrent resolution directing the president pursuant to the war powers resolution to terminate the use of united states armed forces to engage in hostilities in or against iran. quote, over the past eight months in response to rising tensions with iran, the united states has introduced over 15,000 additional forces into the middle east. the killing of iranian general qassem soleimani as well as iran's ballistic missile attack on iraqi bases risks significant escalation and hostilities between the united states and iran. when the united states uses military force, the american people and members of the united states armed forces deserve a credible explanation regarding such use of military force. the war powers resolution

requires the president to consult with congress in every possible instance before introducing u.s. armed forces into hostilities. congress has not authorized the president to use military force against iran. therefore, pursuant to section 5c of the war powers resolutions, congress directs the president to terminate the use of the armed forces in or against iran or any part of its government or military unless congress as declared war enacted statutory authorizations for such use of the armed forces is necessary and appropriate to defend against an imminent armed attack. that is the resolution that's going to be voted on in the house of representatives tomorrow according to house speaker nancy pelosi. it's going to be led by veteran national security veteran and a new freshman democratic member of the house, alyssa slotkin. now, nancy pelosi does not have a history of bringing

legislation to the floor of the house unless she knows she can pass it. she doesn't tend to make mistakes in that regard. so we should, i think, expect that this concurrent resolution under the war powers act will pass the house tomorrow. the speaker also said today that in addition to that war powers resolution, they will advance legislation in the house to withhold funding for any war in iran and to try to overturn an 18-year-old authorization for the use of military force which apparently the trump administration is now citing as the legal basis for what the president did with this strike against iran. but again, it's not going to be just the house. that's what's going to happen in the house. in the senate there will be an effort led by tim kaine. former democratic vice presidential candidate. he's going to lead a war powers resolution sort of moment of reckoning in the senate in terms of what president trump just did. we know as of today that it

looks like at least two republican senators will support that effort. senator mike lee, we know from his impassioned comments today, standing with him there, senator rand paul signaling that he's also in that same position. again, whatever it was that the administration rolled out in these closed-door briefings today in congress to try to convince the house and the senate that president trump did the right thing for all the right reasons when he ordered this strike against iran, whatever they were thinking what happened here, it has backfired. on the house side, you saw people from the foreign affairs committee like jerry conley calling the arguments that he heard in this briefing on the iran strike today, quote, sophomoric. decorated iraq war veteran seth molten said the briefers themselves couldn't even agree on what it was they were pitching to the congress in terms of the explanation for what trump did and when he did it. democratic senators also didn't

mince words. >> at least based on the presentation that was made, it does not meet what i consider to be an imminent threat. >> i would say that the briefing was incredibly thin on facts and to the extent they provided facts in my judgment, they did not support any claim of an imminent threat. >> i was deeply surprised at the lack of information presented by the administration. this appears to me to be a strike of choice by this administration, one that likely would have required congressional authorization. we did not get information inside that briefing that there was a specific, imminent threat that we were halting through the operation conducted last thursday night. i think it is likely because it doesn't exist. >> we had 97 senators there, 15 got to ask questions. as the questions began to get tough, they walked out. >> it seemed to reflect a very

rushed and reckless action. >> it was deeply concerning today. >> i came away from this briefing really angry, deeply dissatisfied that after waiting this long for the facts that justified the killing of the second in command of a foreign government that the answers were unacceptably vague and unspecific. in fact, my takeaway from this briefing was that it raised more questions than it answered. >> how we got here is that in the middle of being impeached, the president launched a military strike targeting the government of iran. today was their effort to explain that and say that there was a good reason for him to do it and it was definitely in the national security interest of the united states. wasn't at all motivated by his impeachment concerns or domestic

political worries and sure it was legal, right? it was legal? this is the outcome of that effort to show the evidence, to persuade the house and the senate that it was all right. in the wake of this fiasco in washington today, the administration interestingly canceled its plans to have vice president mike pence give a big iran speech on monday. on monday mike pence was supposed to lay out the trump administration's policy toward iran and their strategy toward iran and what exactly they're planning on doing toward iran and what was the justification for the air strike. that was supposed to be monday. as of tonight, they have canceled that speech. it is indefinitely put off. meanwhile, simultaneously, as the effort to try to present some sort of rationale for the president's action fails and falls apart and, in part, is abandoned, nancy pelosi isn't

yet handing the articles of impeachment over to the united states senate. and the senate republican leader, mitch mcconnell, is insisting he wants to go ahead with the impeachment trial on his own party terms only with how the trial will be conducted. it was 21 years ago today, january 8th, 1999, when the u.s. senate came to a unanimous 100-0 bipartisan agreement how they would proceed with the impeachment trial of president bill clinton. it was the gwen eiffel who reported on that consensus that night for "nbc nightly news." >> with the rest of the nation's capitol stuck in the snow, the senate moves forward, unanimously approving a plan to begin the president's impeachment trial next wednesday. supreme court chief justice william rehnquist now presiding. senators put aside party disagreements, unanimously

setting in motion what they hope will be a five-week trial. >> 21 years ago today following a 100-0 vote in the united states senate about how they would proceed in the impeachment trial against president clinton. in contrast, today republican senator mitch mcconnell who was part of that that 100-0 vote wants to proceed with the impeachment trial of president trump under rules that only republican senators will vote for and that no democrats support. so these two inextricable crises move forward. and as they move forward, you know what? in terms of what's going to happen next and the types of pressures that are going to change here, we don't know what's going to happen with iran. but we do have some inkling what's going to happen with impeachment. because one thing that the republicans can't control that the white house apparently can't control, that apparently it's going to be hard to distract

from, is the fact that more new evidence and potential witness testimony keeps emerging with each passing day in the impeachment scandal. and that day by day is going to change the stakes for the republican-controlled senate and them trying to do an impeachment trial that doesn't engage with any emerging facts or witnesses. i mean, in addition to john bolton saying he would testify in an impeachment trial, a revelation that reportedly left the white house scrambling in response, in addition to the hundreds of new emails that the trump administration tried to block from being released to the impeachment inquiry, which were neverless forced into the open by correspondent orders, emails showing the president's direct roll in ordering military aid withheld from ukraine. in addition to the classified supplement that was filed with the intelligence committee concerning the engagement of vice president mike pence with the ukrainian government around the scheme for which the president was impeached, in addition to the recently revealed pentagon emails which

showed the perception at the highest levels at the pentagon that the vice president would be key in securing whatever it was that was being demanded from ukraine in exchange for them getting their military aid. in addition to a federal district court judge ordering last week that rudy giuliani's compatriot in the ukraine scheme, lev parnas, would be allowed to hand other to the intelligence committee the contents of his new iphone which he and his lawyers say are materially relevant to this impeachment investigation, in addition to that new evidence and new material about the core impeachment allegations that has surged to the surface since the impeachment articles were passed in the house three weeks ago tonight, in addition to all of that, as of tonight a watchdog group called american oversight has just received from the state department by court order additional documents that were supposed to be about rudy

giuliani's engagement with the statement on this scheme for which the president was already impeached. just within the hour, american oversight announced they have received these documents. we have just ahold of them ourselves. we are reviewing them now. this is just the first batch. the day off tomorrow, american oversight is expecting yet more documents to be released, again, from the state department, things we have never seen before that the trump administration tried to block from becoming public that pertain to the ukraine scandal, the friday documents are expected to pertain specifically to president trump's special envoy to ukraine, kurt volker. i mean, all of this stuff is still coming out, which will change the dynamics of the senate impeachment trial against president trump and how much republicans in the senate are able to constrain it so none of that is discussed. everything all at once. senator chris von holland led the effort in the united states senate to try to force a full

trial of the president in which witnesses will be heard, in which this new evidence will be heard and examined. the senator joins us next. stay with us. stay with us go where the new year takes you with t-mobile. get free smartphones when you add new lines. so you can stream like this... ...because we give you that and we also give you that.so you can stargaze like this... game like this adjust this. re-adjust this. and you can do all this, because of that. so do this, on that, with us. hurry in to get free smartphones now. iand i don't add up the years. but what i do count on is boost high protein. and now, introducing new boost mobility with collagen for joint health. when taken daily, its key nutrients help support joints, muscles, and strong bones. new, boost mobility. a peaceful night sleep without only imagine... frequent heartburn waking him up.

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xfinity mobile has more coverage to keep you connected to what matters most. that's because it's the only wireless network that automatically connects you to millions of secure wifi hotspots and the best lte everywhere else. save up to $400 a year when you switch. plus, save even more with $100 off galaxy a50. click, call or visit a store today. mr. president, here's what we saw earlier. this is one of the emails, redacted emails. this is the draft letter i just referred to that had been prepared for the signature of

the deputy secretary of defense. it's addressed to mr. vogt, the acting director over at omb. so when the administration first released the emails in response to a freedom of information request, something that the administration didn't want to do but it was required by law, they decided to black out this entire email. redact it. >> that's this double helix of crises. as it twisted its way through washington today, senators today were briefed by the administration on the purported explanation for why president trump launched that military strike against a senior iranian government official last week on a bipartisan basis. senators expressed dissatisfaction with those briefings today. simultaneously, though, there is a joined fight between senators about whether or not the senate impeachment trial of president

trump will be conducted along anything that looks like bipartisan lines and whether or not new evidence that has surfaced since the house passed its impeachment articles and new witnesses will be heard in that senate impeachment trial. joining us now is democratic senator chris van hollen of maryland who has called for more witnesses and more evidence to be heard at the senate impeachment trial. sir, thank you for joining us tonight. i appreciate you being here. >> great to be with you, rachel. >> first, let me ask you about my perception, which i've described a couple times tonight already, which is my sense that there are these twin crises right now. there is this matter in terms of what's happening between the united states and iran, the possibility for further retaliation, the justification for that strike that the president launched against iran, and there is the ongoing negotiation argument, arguably crisis around the impeachment scandal. seems to me like this is a double helix, like these crises are unfolding in an inextricable way. is that fair?

>> that's very fair. and these are two crises that congress has an obligation to deal with under the constitution. i mean, congress has the power to declare war. the president can't unilaterally go out and do that. you are right to describe today's intelligence briefing as a disaster for the administration's position. first of all, the facts were very thin, and i can tell you that those facts did not support the administration's claim that there was an imminent threat. this was a choice that the administration made, one that has really made americans less safe and the region less safe. and has given the iranians a leg up on their major strategic objective in iraq, which was to reduce our influence and our position there, which we've seen happening. so you've got this going on, and then the other constitutional duty is of course for the senate to try a case. the word "try" is in the constitution, and every american

knows that in order to have a fair trial, you need to be able to call relevant fact witnesses and get relevant documents. as you've just described, that has become more important than ever with the recent revolutions that have come out in the last couple of weeks. >> now, you have called aggressively for the recent revelations to be aired out in the senate trial for the evidence that has been produced for the witnesses who either newly seemed relevant or who were volunteering now to testify to be actually harder as part of this trial. there's no indication that senator mitch mcconnell wants to do any of that. is it effectively settled now, the way the trial will convene and the way the trial will proceed given that he says that he can run things however he wants based on the votes of only republican senators? >> rachel, i do not think it's settled.

here's why. mitch mcconnell, senator mcconnell clearly is trying to rig this trial, right? he's trying to exclude witnesses and exclude relevant documents. even if senator mcconnell is to start this trial without a promise to call witnesses, we will have an opportunity to make motions, to call witnesses, and to request documents. those motions will be subjected to votes. and so we will need 51 votes. now, senator mcconnell may want to put his head in the sand, he may want to say he doesn't want to hear or see evidence, but the question is whether all those republican senators are going to be complicit in trying to cover up the facts. and we need four republican senators, hopefully more, who will recognize that the american

people want to see a fair trial, and that means a trial with witness ps and documents. so there will be votes. these republican senators will not be able to escape accountability on the question of a fair trial. >> sir, you came out very early in support of house speaker nancy pelosi's ultimate strategy here, which was not to convey the articles of impeachment right over to the senate. instead, what she has done is she said she wants to know what the arena will be in which these impeachment articles are heard, that she wants to know that before she hands the impeachment alders over and before she picks the managers who will try the case in the senate. you were very much in support of that strategy early on. has that strategy effectively run its course now, or do you think the speaker is correct to hold out until she has the kind of assurances that she's been asking for? >> rachel, i think she was absolutely right to take that position. i respect her judgment as to

what the right time will be to send over the articles of impeachment. because of her action, we've had a very public discussion throughout the country about what constitutes a fair trial and the fact that witnesses and documents are essential to that fair trial. i don't think we would have seen that level of attention. what you would have seen if mitch mcconnell had gotten those articles, he would have immediately launched into the proceedings the way he wants to without that discussion. now we see a lot more pressure on senators, including republican senators, to be there to call these witnesses. i mean, my goodness. we had john bolton, who we know from dr. fiona hill's testimony, described the president's holdup of ukraine as a drug deal. and you still got people like mitch mcconnell and republicans who don't think that the guy who is witness to the drug deal should come and give personal

testimony? donald trump, president trump on december 13th said he wanted mick mulvaney, the acting chief of staff to testify at a senate trial. well, we do too. so what speaker pelosi has done is focus more attention on this, and i would finally say on this point that mitch mcconnell says he wants to do this like the clinton trial. well, in the clinton trial, as you know, all the witnesses they wanted to call had already testified under oath in previous proceedings. in this case, none of the witnesses that we want to call have testified under oath in previous proceedings because the president has blocked them from doing it. so at some point we're going to have a vote on this fundamental issue of fairness in a trial. and i think speaker pelosi's strategy has helped highlight the importance of this issue. >> senator chris van hollen, democrat of maryland, sir, thank you for making time for us tonight. i appreciate you being here. >> good to be with you. thanks, rachel.

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here's what we know about the civilian passenger plane that crashed just outside tehran early this morning, killing all 176 people on board. it was a ukrainian international airlines flight. it had just taken off from tehran and was flying to the ukrainian capital of kiev. the plane took off at 6:12 a.m.

local team and reached nearly 8,000 feet in what appeared to be a normal ascent. but within two minutes it suddenly disappeared from radar. the plane then crashed into fields about ten miles from tehran's airport. 176 people on board all killed. they included 82 iranians, 63 canadians, most of the passengers were scheduled to transfer in kiev to a flight that would go on to toronto and canada. the associated press reports that many of the passengers who were killed were believed to be international students attending universities in canada returning to school after visiting family in iran during the winter break. that's some of what we know. here's some of what we still don't know. we don't know what happened that caused that plane to crash. and we don't know how we're going to find out what happened. this is a ukrainian airliner that took off from tehran before dawn. it took off on the same night

that iran had just launched a dozen or so ballistic missiles at american targets inside iraq. as "the new york times" put it today, just hours before the plane took off, quote, iran had fired missiles at two bases in iraq that housed united states troops, and iranian forces were on alert for an american counterstrike. the faa issued a notice last night, you might remember from our coverage, prohibiting civilian airliners from operating in the air space over iran over concerns that airliners might be mistaken for military aircraft. after the missiles were launched from iran, they put out this notice to pilots to stay clear of iranian air space. in terms of what we don't know and how we're going to figure out what happened here, there is reason to believe that the plane may have been on fire before it crashed. this video was taken from the ground in iran. it's been verified by nbc news. it appears to show the ukrainian

passenger plane on fire, aflame, streaking through the sky before it exploded on impact. aviation experts are telling reporters today that the crash site bears the hallmarks of a plane that looks like it broke up in the air before it hit the ground. no big central crater, wreckage strewn over a large area. so it's not surprising that at a press conference today to mourn the loss of 63 citizens, canadian prime minister justin trudeau was asked directly the question that's on everybody's minds about this disaster. >> can you say categorically one way or another that the plane was not shot down? >> i cannot. >> so now the question becomes how are we going to find out what happened to this plane? was it shot down, accidently or deliberately? was it some kind of horrific coincidence that a plane crashed out of that particular part of the sky on that night of all

nights just after those missiles were fired from iran and the whole world was on tenterhooks waiting to see if there would be further military interaction between the united states and iran or proxies on either side? because the crash happened on iranian soil, it is iran that will lead the investigation. iran has already insisted that the crash was a mechanical failure of some kind. one official going so far as to plane that the engine exploded and the pilot wasn't able to gain control, even though there's literally no way that anybody could know that at this point. iran is also insisting it will not send the airplane's recovered black boxes to boeing, to the airplane's manufacturer for analysis which would otherwise be standard procedure. but because the manufacturer, boeing, is an american manufacturer and iran doesn't want anything to do with america on this or any other matter, that's not going to happen this time. it's ultimately not clear who's going to get to analyze the evidence from this crash.

iran apparently is allowing a ukrainian team to participate in the investigation. again, this was a ukrainian airliner. while canadian prime minister justin trudeau said today he is, quote, confident that canada will also be a part of the investigation, canada, like the u.s., has no diplomatic relations with iran. it's not even clear that iran will speak to canada about this, let alone invite them into the investigation, despite the fact that about a third of the people who were killed on board this flight were canadian citizens. so, yeah the question is what happens here, but more imminently, how are we going to find out what happened here? hold that thought. that's next. did you know you can get unlimited talk and

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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. just hours after iran fired ballistic missiles at bases housing american troops in iraq last night a civilian passenger plane crashed outside iran's capital minutes after taking off. 176 people on board were killed. tonight we still don't know what happened, whether it was an aviation accident that struck coincidentally last night of all nights, in tehran of all places. for obvious, but certainly circumstantial reasons, there's speculation over concern about the possibility the plane might have been shot down somehow, perhaps accidentally, a case of mistaken identity in the midst of last night's military conflict between iran and the united states. how are we going to get those answers? joining us now is jeff guzzetti,

former ntsb investigator and faa accident investigation chief. thank you so much for being here. this is a very serious and concerning series of events. that's a pleasure and an honor to have you with us tonight. >> it's good to be with you, rachel. >> so looking at this crash from this distance, obviously we don't know anything in terms of what's been looked at. we don't know anything about what kind of investigation is ultimately going to happen. but you told "the washington post" tonight, quote, to me it has all the earmarks of an intentional act. i don't know whether it was a bomb or an missile or incendiary device, but if the video of the flaming plane was accurate, i can't conceive of a failure that would cause that conflagration. what do you mean by that? >> probably the word intentional act would be something i would probably correct in that, but it does have all the earmarks of something that isn't typically an aviation accident failure, that you explained in the opening. the circumstantial evidence that

is out there in the public now, basically the radar track, the normal profile right after takeoff, a normal, smooth, within parameters climb to 7,900 feet and then suddenly nothing. there's no more transponder. it's as if the entire electric system, to include the redundant battery backup all goes away. and then when you pair that up with the video, and if you take the video on its face that that's the video of the airplane, you got to remember the parallax. that plane is probably two, three miles away from whoever was filming it. and that was not just a light. that was a large fireball where chunks of, it appeared chunks of fire was coming off that fireball. and then it hits the ground and you see this giant plume of flame.

things like that just don't happen out of the blue in an aviation type of accident. it can, like twa 800 and other accidents, but that was a while ago. today's airplanes -- this was a fairly young airplane -- are built to be able to withstand these types of normal failures. a missile or a bomb, not so much. but an uncontained engine failure or cargo fire, it takes a while for something like that to turn into a full-fledged flaming fireball, and that is -- it didn't take a while in this case. it was just two minutes into the flight. >> what do you expect in terms of the investigation of this matter? obviously there's a lot of unique things about these circumstances, where it happened, the night on which it happened, the immediate and confused statements about what happened here. what do you think will happen in terms of investigating the cause of this crash? >> rachel, i'm hopeful it's going to be a transparent investigation. quite frankly, you know, the head of the iranian civil

aviation administration actually said that. you know, he doesn't want to speculate, and that's the right thing to say. they follow the international playbook for aviation accidents. it's called the international civil aviation organization annex 13. it's been in force for decades. most countries play by those rules. and it allows people to play in the investigation like boeing or ntsb or faa. i think there might be an issue with iran being a sanctioned country where there's actual laws in our country that will make it difficult for us to exchange technical information. and hopefully, you know, things can be worked out, waivers can be written for that. but something like this, it's very tough in the aviation safety world to keep under wraps and to keep a secret. and i think that we will get to the bottom of it eventually. i don't know the mechanism by which that's going to happen, but i think we will know.

>> jeff guzzetti, air safety investigator and engineering specialist at the ntsb for 18 years before becoming accident investigation chief at the faa. sir, thank you very much for your time tonight. >> thank you. >> more news to get to tonight. stay with us. t to tonight stay with us at? i think i forgot to lock my buick. got it. i bet you lunch you can't make it in there. i'm thinkin' sushi. alexa, ask buick to start my suv. you can do that? you can do that? you can do that? yeah, with a buick. what? at the heart of every buick suv... is you. find out why buick is number one in dealer sales and service satisfaction. pay no interest for 72 months on most buick suv models plus current eligible gm owners get $750 purchase allowance. ♪ ♪

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about the impeachment scandal that's been pried loose by the courts and oversight groups. these new documents just released tonight are from the state department, 44 pages including an introductory letter from state saying here are your records. american oversight expected that these documents would include exchanges between the president's attorney, rudy giuliani, and the state department august and september 2019. even though that's what they were supposed to get, the watch dog group appears to have gotten a bunch of stuff tonight from state that has little to do with giuliani. just to mention here or there, as in this letter from congress to secretary of state mike pompeo. american oversight says tonight --

>> american oversight says they are expecting another round of state department documents to be released to them the day after tomorrow. so possibly still more to come. stay with us. (whistling)

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thank you for being with us. thank you for being with us. time for "the last word" with lawrence o'donnell. >> good evening, rachel. we have the person who i've been hoping to speak to about this situation with iran since these hostilities broke out, former secretary of state john kerry is going to join us. >> excellent. >> no one knows more about how we got to here since he finished negotiating that iran deal which president trump decided he was going to rip up. >> excellent. get to it, my friend. >> thank you, rachel. >> thanks, lawrence. we've had exactly one secretary of state who began his public life as a war protester. after serving in combat in vietnam, john kerry tried to stop the war in vietnam.