my thanks to jake, heidi, eddie and you for watching. "mtp daily with chuck todd" starts now. ♪ and welcome to thursday. it is "meet the press daily." i'm chuck todd here in washington on what is a very busy day of just good old-fashioned breaking news. you're looking live at a debate on the house floor where we are likely moments away from a vote on a war powers resolution that to some is symbolic and others is not. it's aimed at attempt to go at

least limit, perhaps just symbolically, the president's use of military force against iran. there are still questions about what this resolution is all about, how binding it really is. it comes as president trump is once again lashing out at critics of his iran decisions, and he's now claiming that he took out iran's top general because soleimani was planning to blow up our embassy. it's a remarkable new claim, no evidence at all, though, to back it up. we also have breaking news involving iran's retaliatory strikes. intelligence sources tell nbc news spy satellite evidence suggests the passenger jet that mysteriously crashed in the hours after their retaliation was mistakenly shot down by an iranian missile. we're going to dive into those developing stories in the next hour, but we're going to begin with perhaps the biggest wild card in american politics right now which is when or if we're going to have an impeachment trial in the united states senate. all right. we're going to have one. the question is when. right now house speaker nancy

pelosi is defending her decision despite unease growing within her own party about that strategy. speaking with reporters today pelosi was defiant mitch mcconnell must first give more details about how he's going to conduct a trial before she considers releasing the articles. >> we are concerned that the senators will not be able to live up to the oath they must take to have an impartial trial. i'm not holding it indefinitely. i'll send them over when i'm ready, and that will probably be soon. we want to see what they're willing to do, and the manner in which they will do it, but we will not let them say this is like clinton. fair is fair. it is not. we should move smartly and strategically. >> a number of top democrats recently began rebelling against the pelosi strategy, but in a remarkable display of her iron grip over the party these days,

they've all walked back their criticisms. still, it's not entirely clear what pelosi's end game is or what leverage she had over mitch mcconnell, if any, which leaves us with significant questions about her strategy. the risk grows an impasse could scramble the presidential primary and the spotlight is on the impeachment process and not the president's conduct as outlined in these articles. we go to my nbc news kcolleague kasie hunt. i have a question about all the things happening in congress today, but let's start with, frankly, some confusion at how many reporters, i think, interpreted speaker pelosi's comments today. what is she waiting on from mitch mcconnell? is it simply releasing the text of the rules he plans to try to pass, or is there something else? >> reporter: so, chuck, there are two governing documents. there's a rules package for impeachment that was put out in the 1980s, and then there's the

resolution they passed to open up the clinton trial. and taken together, you can see some of the places where nancy pelosi says she's looking for answers. how many people will there be to make each argument on each side, at what point in the trial is there a motion to dismiss. a lot of it is technical and a little bit down in the weeds. i think the kind of important top line thing here is that nancy pelosi is still trying to exercise what leverage she does have over mitch mcconnell, and there are a wide variety of opinions on how much that is, although i think pelosi's most ardent defenders would say the instant she sends the articles over, she loses all leverage. so sitting here she has at least a little more than she would if she went ahead and did that. there are a ton of questions -- i mean, the rules for the impeachment process, it's 100 plus pages long. it's very arcane. you read it and it says, this is how we do things unless the senate decides that we're going

to do it another way. >> right. >> reporter: there's incredible leeway built into it. for that reason, i think they do want a little bit more clarity. the reality is the longer she drags the process out. when she sends it to mcconnell the trial is going to start and then be over and the president will be on the campaign trail saying that he was exonerated by the senate most likely. so i think that's what they're trying to extend, if you will, and she clearly, i mean, you're right about that iron fist. those statements -- >> it's amazing. >> reporter: all of a sudden there was a major smackdown on capitol hill. >> we like to talk about all the times we watch republicans walk back once trump speaks. pelosi has a similar hold, it appears on her party. it's not every day you see someone like dianne feinstein walk something back. that one, of all the walkbacks, that one surprised me the most. let me ask you about what's happening right now. symbolic or not, binding or not,

there's a lot of confusion about this war powers vote that's taking place right now. >> reporter: so, chuck, this is -- i would view this as a symbolic gesture more than anything that's going to tie the hands of any future president. this is something democrats feel they want to get out there and make a statement for the record. it's being led by a former national security official slotkin herself who served in the administration, did several tours with the government abroad and has a lot of skin in the game in terms of what's been happening overseas and they felt like she was the kind of person to make this argument. republicans have turned this into a chance to say that democrats are mourning soleimani, a talking point you're hearing from republicans. clearly that is not the message we have heard today from speaker pelosi. she said this was a bad guy. we know he was a bad guy. the question is why was this decision made, and what are the ramifications for this decision?

it's a politically tricky place to be. i think the president in his on the fly analysis of it when he was talking with reporters said as much. i think it's politically problematic for democrats, and it may well be. but if it is, they've decided they're on the winning side of it because they spent today, and part of me wonders if these impeachment articles aren't being held up because nancy pelosi wants to keep the focus on the vote today. >> which is -- again, it's still, though -- the question i have is the longer she waits the more this becomes about impeachment process, and that ultimately i feel do they want to take the eye off what he actually did in the substance. >> reporter: that makes a lot of sense to me, chuck. i guess the flip side of that coin is that if she sends it over and the trial is done and we have, let's say, 14 days of a trial, does dragging this out three, four days, mean we have 20 days of talking about impeachment instead of 14? is every single day this goes on

better because once it's over, it's over? i think that's the line of thinking. my question is, is there a political price to pay with some of the moderate republicans? do you get to a point this is being dragged out for so long that it's much easier for them to just throw up their hands and say this proves that this is just a political exercise. it's not actually about the president's conduct. is she losing leverage with them instead of where she's trying to gain leverage with mcconnell. is that tradeoff worth it? >> the more political it looks over time, the more easier to make a political -- basically a political pun. kasie hunt kicking us off on capitol hill. kasie, thank you. i'm staying on capitol hill and want to talk to democratic senator tom udall, good to see you, sir. >> great to see you, chuck. good to be with you. >> there's a couple topics i want to get to. let me start with impeachment and what is now -- it is not clear what the time line is.

it seems like while there might be some cracks in the democratic unity about whether the articles should be sent over now, apparently publicly, no democrats can say that, how much time do you have? at what point are you concerned this becomes too much about process and not about what he did? >> i think the most important thing here, chuck, we have a full and fair trial. and i don't think there's a full and fair trial if we don't get witnesses and we don't get documents. as you know president trump has stonewalled this all the way through the house. he's specifically instructed a number of the key witnesses to not testify. remarkably john bolton has now stepped forward and said he's willing to testify in a senate trial. so i think we've gained something by her actions, and i support what she's done. i think what she said today is going to be over soon. i would imagine it will be over soon. the articles of impeachment.

>> do you believe you've gained as much as you can gain, though? you have the bolton announcement, and i take your point on that. i think john bolton alone helped split screen the week, if you will, from iran and impeachment. is there any more to extract or do you think that's as much as you're going to get? >> well, i hope that mitch mcconnell will put out the resolution he wants to offer. at least then the managers of the trial in the senate who come from the house will know what the rules are and they'll be better prepared. and i really think that's what speaker pelosi is trying to do, prepare the house managers for what's going to happen in the senate. and i think, you know, always judges in a trial, they want both sides to know what the rules are. i think that's fair to allow what she's asked for and the ultimate thing is to get to a full and fair trial with documents and witnesses.

and we're going to have a lot of votes on those. we may not get them but then i think we end up in the place of a sham trial. >> what is wrong with the clinton rules where the entire senate votes on witnesses? >> the clinton rules actually apply to a very different situation. you had investigation for nine months. then you had a grand jury during that nine months talk to every single witness. some of the witnesses were deposed in another affiliated case. so you have extensive testimony. there was not a single witness that hadn't given testimony when you got into the clinton impeachment trial. not the case here. absolutely key witnesses. mick mulvaney, john bolton, blair, duffy, key figures around the office of management and budget. these were all really key people. and the president instructed them specifically, said don't go testify. >> there's a point here where

you may not like what the republican majority is going to do, you may believe it isn't the intent of what the framers had when they wrote it in. at the end of the day elections have consequences, right? mcconnell has the votes. your side doesn't. at what point do you think it becomes a political debate, i guess, in the campaigns about how impeachment is conducted? do you think there is a political upside for democrats here if republicans are seen as not doing a fair trial? >> well, i don't like to look at the politics of this because when i called for a full and fair trial, i think that's what the american people want. i don't think they want a political process. so if it appears to the american people that this isn't a full and fair trial, if there are no witnesses, if there are no documents that are going to be allowed, then i think senators who are running in difficult districts whether it's democrats or republicans are going to feel

the heat when it comes to voting on those issues. >> is there any scenario you're sitting here thinking, you know what, we're better off not having a trial that if they short circuit this. >> i think the constitutional process is in place, the indictment occurs in the house and then it comes to the senate and i think that's the fair thing to do, also. >> let me move to iran. i want to first place something the president said this morning about the potential imminent threat to take out soleimani. here is what the president said this morning. >> we caught a total monster and we took him out. that should have happened a long time ago. we did it because they were look to go blow up our embassy. >> in your classified briefing did -- and since the president said -- if it was said in your classified briefing, that they

were going to blow up the embassy, then you're not giving away classified information since the president himself just said it. but did you hear that in your classified briefing? >> no, we did not. and several republicans spoke right after the classified briefing and said that there was not evidence of the imminent attack, and they were very clear. i said earlier in the day -- i joined them in a bipartisan way to say this briefing did not address the crucial issue. so increasingly in the briefings that i've had, my staff has had, what i've read, it's clear to me that there was no evidence of eminent attack and we're on a basis where the killing of soleimani was not authorized under law. >> you don't believe it was authorized under law? you don't believe johnson, the homeland secretary, was at the defense department in the

counsel role on these things. he believes it was legal. he's a military commander. he's essential ly -- it's legal. you think there's questions about that? >> i think if you don't have eminent attack and then you have hostilities, congress hasn't weighed in and you're going into an illegal war kind of situation. that's where we were. the important thing here, and i think it's been said a number of times, soleimani was a bad guy. saddam hussein, bad guy. we took him out, the place has been destabilized ever since. we understand and know if we're running foreign policy in a way which is thoughtful, is deliberate, where you have serious people that are trying to do what's right by america

and american trts and then you end up at the right place. he's now surrounded by a bunch of yes people. >> senator tom udall, democrat from new mexico, i appreciate you coming on and sharing your views. thank you, sir. >> thank you. thank you very much, chuck. up ahead, there's a lot of things that aren't clear about impeachment, as you just heard. one thing, though, nancy pelosi has democrats get back in line with her waiting game strategy. what is she waiting for? plus, missile misfire. u.s., canadian intelligence say they have evidence iran shot down a ukrainian airliner by mistake. a new video shows the moment this missile strike the airliner. at fidelity, we can help you build a clear plan for retirement to help cover the essentials, as well as all the things you want to do. because when you have a retirement partner who gives you clarity at every step, there's nothing to stop you from moving forward.

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no, i'm not holding indefinitely. i'll send them over when i'm ready, and that will probably be soon.

we want to see what they're willing to do and the manner in which they will do it. >> welcome back. as we mentioned the biggest wild card is when an impeachment trial in the senate is going to happen. you just heard speaker pelosi said she would send the impeachment articles to the senate soon, but she also indicated that she won't act until after mcconnell shows his cards. mcconnell right now seems to be in no rush to do that. and with the iowa caucus fast approaching a number of top democrats are start to go frein pressure pelosi. we're reaching a point where the articles of impeachment should be sent. pelosi's fellow californian dianne feinstein, i don't understand the delay. ah, but ahead of pelosi's remarks this morning, all of them walked it back. i fully support the prerogative of the speaker of the house. feinstein -- the speaker will send them over when she's ready to send them over. so it's clear pelosi got democrats in line, but there's

no clarity about what happens now. joining me now is politics reporter for "the daily beast" and msnbc contributor, and danielle gibbs senior vice president at the center for american progress. betsy, first of all, we talk about how quickly republicans fall in line when trump speaks sometimes. we just saw the same thing with the madam speaker. when even dianne feinstein is forced to something back, and that wasn't the hardest walkback, but she did it, you know the pressure they're feeling to stick together. >> getting di-fi to change her tone on something is no small thing. >> that is stunning. >> there are a lot of people who would like to be able to do that, and pelosi achieving it is no small thing. we had adam smith saying he misspoke, when he just talked about this -- >> how do you misspeak that? >> these are simple vocabulary

words. >> can we put that up? just so i think we have it here. let me play smith from this morning because it's amazing that he said misspoke. here is what he said. >> i think it was perfectly advisable for the speaker to try to leverage that, to get a better deal. at this point it doesn't look like that's going to happen and, yes, i think it is time to send the impeachment to the senate and let mitch mcconnell be responsible for the fairness of the trial. he ultimately is. okay. that was at 7:35 this morning, betsy. what was it, 20 minutes later, he had the tweet. i misspoke this morning. i do believe we should do everything we can to force the senate to have a fair trial. if the speaker believes that holding on to the articles for a longer time will help force a fair trial in the senate, i support that decision. there are people that i don't want to say are blindly supporting pelosi, i don't get the strategy but she's been right more than i've been right. >> i think the number of people on both sides of the capitol

build who go don't get the strategy who are in pelosi's party is even larger than we realized based on the last 24 hours of comments. it speaks to a chal thaeng pelosi and her leadership team have with selling fellow democrats on let's just wait and wait and wait and hope mcconnell changes his mind. >> as your party, as a democrat, are you comforted, concerned? what are you on this? >> i am not concerned because i feel pelosi has handled this well up until this point. so i am not -- >> you don't know what's next. >> i don't know what's next but i trust her and i think most of her caucus trusts her as well and that's why you saw the folks walk back and say he misspoke something very clearly. look, i understand that people are anxious and when you're just sitting around and waiting, it seems like there's a lot of airtime that is getting filled, but, look, the onus here, what pelosi's delay has done is

exposed mitch mcconnell and his plan or lack of plan for a trial. he just wanted to sweep this under the rug, and her putting the brakes on it and saying, stop, exposed to the american people what mitch mcconnell wanted to do, withhold documents, not call witnesses and be a patsy for donald trump. in that sense i think she has succeeded. >> on tuesday when john bolton made a statement, i thought, see, pelosi's strategy is it getting reinforced. it was sort of, like, you got that. now it feels like they want to extract a little bit more. >> they could have had that without this sideshow. he could have said that and chuck schumer could have taken it and run with it. instead we're back talking about the articles. these people are her friends. they're trying to help her. we are programmed to think nancy pelosi always has some strategy and there's always a master plan. there is not this is embarrassing for her. she has no cards. everyone knows it. >> kasie, i thought, was saying they made one point, her

supporters, and i thought it was a fair point which said you know when she has zero leverage, when she hands them over. i buy that the second she hands them over she's out of the process. >> she has no leverage then, she has no leverage now. all she's doing is allow mcconnell to flex his muscle. they're allowing him to say i have the votes. i am going to control the process, annoying all these other senators in the process and strengthening him. she has no leverage now and has no leverage then. >> i chatted with a senior republican leadership staffer recently about this particular impasse, whether or not pelosi is going to get anything out of this process. and what the staffer said, which pretty much all are saying, mcconnell has no problem whatsoever confirming judges. he's totally happy to keep doing that and no reason on his end to try to make concessions with pelosi. this dragging out, the calculation among republican leadership aides is there's not a down side for them, and that's why you're not seeing a parallel information or messaging control problem on the republican side. you have democrats criticizing

pelosi. you don't really have congressional republicans saying mcconnell should cave. it's not happening. >> to me the biggest victims, if you will, of the impasse are the presidential candidates, aren't they? they really are. >> i think it's definitely an issue for the senators running for senate. i want to push back a little bit. donald trump wants to be exonerated, does he not? that's where her leverage may be. donald trump wants this to be over, and he wants to be vindicated or whatever word he's going to use. in that sense i think she still does have some leverage. >> the one wild card is always trump, right? and he can't handle the waiting game, and she is, i think, counting on him, you know, to get anxious about it. >> there's been this talk about mcconnell coordinating with the white house. mitch mcconnell from day one, i'm going to control this process. >> are you saying gates and meadows will not be on the

senate floor? >> i would enjoy that. >> i thought john cornyn let the cat out of the bag, he seemed to acknowledge if you let them over, people from his side, you turn the senate into a circus. >> they still care about the senate as the upper chamber. we know where this is headed. i think you're right the process conversation we're having right now is dominating everything. no one is talking about the obviously really bad thing the president did with ukraine. all we're talking about is when are the articles coming? no one cares about that. it's a stupid debate. and it doesn't ultimately change what's going to happen when it gets to the senate. >> and that seems like, betsy, how do they get the substance back as the star? and maybe the trial itself will do that. >> it's going to be really tough. the more the arguments get, the more the moderate senate republicans who potentially would peel off from mcconnell are likely to end up basically deferring to him on these things. in the house, too, we saw this with the process of impeachment investigation where right from jump street when the

whistle-blower report came out, when the transcript of the trump/zelensky call came out, some said what is going on? this is bad. and then republican leaders were able to make the argument democrats were abusing the process. whether or not that argument is fair, of course, is an argument they used successfully to keep the republican party in line, and that argument is likely to be successful again, fair or not, it's likely to be successful again when it comes to the case mcconnell will make. >> i have a quick war powers question and i'm going to direct it to you, brendan, because you work for two speakers when there's a democratic president and you had a whole bunch of republicans who wanted to restrain executive power when their party informs charge. nancy pelosi i thought addressed that today, you always have these competing anyway tours anytime you're trying to decide how much power a congress should give the executive branch, people are more sympathetic to their own party, less sympathetic to the other. are we doomed here that basically -- that congress -- if

the party in power just can't bring themselves to protect the legislative branch anymore? >> i would argue, if you recall, back in 2014 and 2015 both my previous bosses wanted to give president obama authority or authorization for military force. i think you and i worked on this back in the day when i was working for john boehner when he took action -- when president obama took action in syria, he came and said he wanted it and john boehner supported it. congress has been unable to come together and decide what that authorization looks like. you have too many members who don't want to vote for anything because they're scared what it will turn out to be. and then you have this conflicting ideology of whether you tied the hands of the commander in chief and it looks like this or what we wanted to do as republicans give him maximum flexibility and we wanted to give president obama more authority than he wanted to give himself and that's where we got hung up. >> i do think that having -- forcing congress to continuously vote on it is the right thing to

do. forcing some accountability. they've only had to vote on this once. >> they would like to say they that you need an authorization but not outline what it looks like. >> it was the most fascinating and substantive part of the pelosi presser that, of course, everybody is focusing on the other stuff. i get it but if you have time to see it, i suggest it. up next, as the house is set to vote on the war powers resolution the trump administration scrambles to publicly justify the killing of a top iranian general but their stories keep changing. the latest reporting and new video that shows the moment a missile hit a passenger plane killing everyone onboard. welcome to the place where people go to learn about their medicare options... before they're on medicare. come on in. you're turning 65 soon? yep. and you're retiring at 67? that's the plan! well, you've come to the right place. it's also a great time to learn about an aarp medicare

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welcome back. in tonight's 2020 vision pete buttigieg still appears to have some mojo in new hampshire but it is a crowded top tier. buttigieg is technically in first place. this is margin of error stuff, guys, at 20%. biden at 19% in a monmouth poll. we call that a dead heat threeway and just behind that warren at 15%. look at that. since september a drop of 12 points. the candidate north of 5 is amy klobuchar. got to ask yourself are we down to a five person race already? warren saw the steepest decline since september where, remember, she was once the front-runner. is it the fact that bernie is

not surging, though, says a lot about his next door neighbor state. we shall see. biden is down six points since september. new hampshire, though, will change a lot based on what happens in our favorite midwestern states, iowa. probably two more debates including one in new hampshire four days, there's the iowa caucuses and all of that mess that will impact what happened but for now no front-runner in new hampshire if you believe our friends at monmouth and we'll be right back. my moderate to severe crohn's disease. then i realized something was missing... me. my symptoms were keeping me from being there. so, i talked to my doctor and learned humira is for people who still have symptoms of crohn's disease after trying other medications. and the majority of people on humira saw significant symptom relief and many achieved remission in as little as 4 weeks.

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in light of this new information it is now more important than ever that we know exactly how such a tragedy could have happened. the families of the victims and all canadians want answers. i want answers. that means closure,

transparency, accountability, and justice. and this government will not rest until we get that. welcome back. that was canadian prime minister justin trudeau this afternoon addressing reports it was an iranian missile apparently that may have downed the passenger plane in iran that killed all 176 people onboard including 63 canadians. we have newly obtained video "the new york times" is reporting an object exploding near where the plane stopped transmitting a signal. in translation, where they believe the missile hit the plane. this comes after u.s. intelligence sources they have evidence from spy satellites that supports the missile strike theory refuting previous information from iran that had tried to blame the crash on a mechanical failure. tom costello has been reporting on this possibility literally from the second this happened, tom. were you telling me your aviation sources all said this is not mechanical. this is something other than

that. >> every single aviation source we talked to in the private sector, former investigators, current investigators, people, all levels of the government, every one of them said there's no indication this was mechanical this appears to have been a catastrophic external event. translate that into a missile and, by the way, justin trudeau said definitively u.s. and canadian intelligence has definite information that this was shot down by an iranian missile or missiles. >> all right. so it appears there's evidence to back this theory. the airliner, why did they have flights going in and out of tehran in the middle of that point? many airlines when we know there's hostilities over here, a lot of times british airways will say we're not going to fly into the middle east or we're going to cancel . why did they continue to fly in and out of iran? >> exactly the question i've been asking, and we don't have an answer. i have two questions. why did iran, knowing they just fired off a bunch of ballistic

missiles at the u.s. and iran was worried about a counterattack, everybody in iran and tehran was up all night watching the skies, convinced america was going to strike, why did they leave the airport open? why would they ever allow a passenger plane to start rolling down the ramp, the tarmac at 6:00 a.m.? it was still dark outside. that's question number one. question number two, what in the world was that ukrainian airline thinking? why didn't they back in kiev, tell the plane, you stay grounded. you don't go anywhere. you're in a war zone. and our incredible nbc correspondent in tehran, he was reporting at 4:00 in the morning that night. you and i watched him. he said this entire city is up awake watching the sky, nervous as hell about the possibility of a u.s. attack. why did they keep that airport functioning? i have no idea. >> so there's going to be -- it's interesting and you've dealt with these -- not a crash.

a government shot down a plane. there will be all sorts of suits. what should we expect? obvio obviously what should the airline expect? >> iran insists this was a mechanical issue, even photographic evidence that may or may not be of a russian missile piece on the ground if iran. iran says that's a fake photo, says that all of this is a cia plant. this is not true at all. the notion that they shot down a plane. >> and they have yet to turn over the black box to french authorities? >> they have indicated they will cooperate with the international agreement. they are party to that international agreement. will they turn it over to the french, the canadians, the russians? >> in the past they have, correct? >> they have in the past but, of course, in the past they weren't accused of shooting the plane down themselves. we'll see how this goes. importantly ukrainian investigators are expected to be on the scene momentarily. the canadians also are expected to be on the scene soon. the british have offered their assistance.

so there will be no shortage of really good investigative personnel on the ground. the question is will that work be given precedence? will we be allowed to find out what they're learning? or are we going to be seeing an iranian cover story that this was just a cia operation? >> well -- >> a cia disinformation campaign. >> how they handled this crash is going to contribute to that positive or negative. >> international airlines are already canceling flights into tehran, so they're going to be even more isolated. >> tom costello, our aviation reporter at nbc news. thanks for doing this. >> you bet. still ahead, the house is voting right now on the war powers resolution we've been talking about aimed at limiting the president's use of military force against iran. symbolic of sorts. we'll get to the late nest a moment. ment for members like martin. an 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.

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introducing ore-ida potato pay. where ore-ida golden crinkles are your crispy currency to pay for bites of this... ...with this. when kids won't eat dinner, potato pay them to. ore-ida. win at mealtime. welcome back. tonight on "i'm obsessed with" this thing i just heard. it could be one of the biggest stories of this news cycle, if it's true. i'm going to tweet it anyway. nancy pelosi to sit on articles of impeachment until 2024. #bigiftrue. you see that phrase all over social media these days, twitter especially. and for three little words they sure do a whole heck of a lot because they seem to provide complete abdication of responsibility for failing to do any due diligence whatsoever

re-tweeter. amazon allowing unfiltered political speech into alexa to launch secret mind control network. bigiftrue. harry and meghan quit to be replaced by harry and sally. big if true. julian castro endorses warren for president who endorses mayor mccheese. big if true. all of these stories obviously are total fabrications. but they're catchy headlines, aren't they? easy to re-tweet, shiny metal objects if you don't think about them. look, i'm not saying every tweeter needs to be a fact checker and plenty are using big if true tongue-in-cheek, we get that, but the very minimum you should be responsible for what you tweet and if you think big if true absolves you of social media sin, well that is false. before you tweet, think and ask yourself is this a trusted news source? have i seen this story elsewhere? does it really seem believable

if? if not, it probably isn't. so just move on. nothing to see here f. we all start acting that way, twitter could be a better, nicer, happier place. and if that were true, that would be big.

welcome back. right now the house is voting on a resolution aimed at curbing the white house's authority to use military force against iran.

house speaker nancy pelosi called the strike that killed the top iranian general provocative even though she conceded soleimani had american blood on his hands. >> we have in illusions about iran. no illusions about soleimani. he was a terrible person. did bad things. but it's not about how bad they are. it's about how good we are. >> well, president trump either heard those remarks or misheard those remarks. he decided to imply that democrats supported keeping soleimani alive. >> you know what bothers me? when i see a nancy pelosi trying to defend this monster from iran who has killed so many people. when nancy pelosi and the democrats want to defend him, i think that's a very bad thing for this country. i think that's a big losing argument politically, too. >> straw, a straw man or a woman or whatever you want to call that there with trump. that is not obviously what the speaker said.

betsy, the president doing -- that's not a surprise. but it does seem as if the real divide is are you an ends justify the means kind of person or do you believe we should have a process in our foreign policy? it is interesting. the public seems to be as divided on that as washington. >> it's something where congress for multiple administrations now has gleefully added authority and consistently refused to assert itself. we are in this moment with trump where democrats and a handful of republicans are likely to do this symbolic vote to assert themselves. in the historical con effect, they have by and large basically given the executive branch carte blanche to do what they want when it comes to acts of war. >> what's interesting is the ends justify the means argument is a lot easier to sell. trump's argument is easier to

sell to the people. long-term we have known these targeted assassinations, whatever you wanted to call them, create more problems down the road and eventually this might not be a good thing. but right now you don't know. that's the position everybody's in. >> they cause problems down the road when you have a functioning administration and a president who actually knows what they are doing or thinks they know what they are doing. i can only imagine what's going to happen with president trump. i can't remember who said it but urk the obama administration there was an advocating for this authority. his argument was basically you may not have a president obama in office. you may have somebody who you need to rein in their authority. we are literally living that moment right now. and it is good to see that there are some republicans who are consistent in their desire to exert congress' constitutional authority when it comes to war. >> senator tim mccain, who has had the aumf, sort of been -- >> before corker retired was

leading that charge. >> totally. it was a lonely process urg the obama administration when he was the guy on the street corner, you know. we may at some point have a president who engages in foreign policy activity that maybe congress will interject. >> no president wants to participate. >> i am a house of representatives creature. i believe in the authorities that we have. it's important to make clear you can question whether or not this was a wise decision. the president had the authority to do what he did whether it's article 2 or the war powers resolution which talks about 60 days before going to congress. he had the authority to do it. whether it was smart, whether this leads to a longer conflict which would need some congressional authority -- >> she should he be responsible if he cherry picked, basically used a fictional -- >> whether it was the right thing to do. he made a process foul by not looping in congressional leaders. that is -- >> you could have done a gang of

eight thing here that would have been more responsible. >> one of the reasons you do that is to your own benefit, share the blame or share the responsibility. i talked to you about this. you didn't raise any concerns. that kind of things. there are reasons that you do these that aren't just necessarily for the benefit of congress. i think he had the authority. if congress ever really wanted to lay out what they thought a proper authorization is, they would do it. they are incapable of it. >> we talk about the politics of how each party is defending it, but if your long-term goal is to get some -- the irony is to go to this process foul. i like that phrase. a larobert mendez. there are quite a few democrats hawkish on iran, who might have been publicly supportive of getting soleimani had you brought them along. that to me was the -- i think that's the political mistake among any. it's like you could have had more buy-in for this. there are plenty of democrats who are hawks on iran.

iran is one of those that cuts across party lines in both parties. >> that leads me to question what was the intelligence? what exactly led them to make this decision? you are 100% right. there may have been democrats to support this if there was real intelligence. >> and there are front line moderate democratic freshmen in the house who would have been delighted to vocally support something like this had they any inkling there was a process their leadership could get behind. >> the ends justify the means, i think ultimately, brendan, that is, if there is some fundamental misunderstanding of us and washington trying to figure out why people end up siding with trump even they don't like him, it's this ends justify the means mindset i think taken hold on the right side. i think after all these many years in the middle east the idea of taking out a bad guy

with a missile, that was quick, seemingly easy, people, okay, that's how we should be fighting wars. not sending hundreds of thousands of troops. i think you score points that way. >> i mean bigger than that. this is how they justify all their support for trump. i don't like how he does it, but i got my tax cut. whatever it is, that that has really taken root. >> i have always said, and you have talked about this, sort of like nothing matters politics. everybody goes to their corner. i have long thought that the one breaking pint could breaking point could be if trump gets us into a ground war that cost a lot of lives. >> he knows he has to back off, doesn't he? >> you saw some of his favorite personalities on fox news giving bruckbacks on this. i don't think he has the juice to get there. >> i think that's why he so quickly took the off-ramp for what it's worth. thank you all for sort of a quirky busy day on capitol hill.

we will be back tomorrow with more meet the ayanna pressley. "the beat with ari melber" starts now. ari, man, it's a weird washington day a lot of breaking news happening. >> a ton. and we are watching the same story on the floor of the house there as well as other things. good to see you, chuck. >> thank you. >> we have a big show with news breaking right now. the house voting on limiting trump's war powers against iran. there are a lot of clues that the democrats have the vote. also, something special you won't see anywhere else. six senators who voted in clinton's impeachment trial join me together. it's a beat exclusive. the top story is the looming trial of president trump. there are new senate leaks it could start as soon as monday. speaker pelosi doubled down on her strategy signaling to gop leader mcconnell today she still holds the cars on timing and she'll act when she is ready. >> no,