good night from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. new questions this morning about the plane that crashed in iran shortly after teheran fired missiles at forces in iraq. u.s. intelligence suggests that the jet liner was downed by an iranian missile my mistake. the president slammed nancy pelosi during a rally in ohio. the house speaker is promising to send articles of impeachment over to the senate soon as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle grow restless over the delay. good morning, everyone, it is friday, january 10th. what a week.

has it gone by pretty fast, historic. >> on so many levels. >> almost on the edge of war we are at the end of it. i'm ayman mohyeldin alongside yasmin vossoughian. evidence suggestis that the ukraine airliner that crashed wednesday just hours after an attack on a base was downed by an iranian missile by mistake. video taken from the ground shows the moment the plane was struck or at least explosion taking place in the sky. it left iran headed for kiev. two minutes later, two missiles fired at the plane sending it crashing to the ground. nbc's tom costello reports that the missiles were russian made. canadian intelligence sources pin blame on iran telling reporters the evidence indicates it was shot down by a

surface-to-air missile. this may well have been unintentional. president trump said yesterday he believes the missile strike was a mistake. >> well, i have my suspicions. i don't want to say that because other people have those suspicions also. it's a tragic thing when i see that. it's a tragic thing. but somebody could have made a mistake on the other side, could have made a mistake. it was flying -- it was flying, not our system, it has nothing to do with us. it was flying in a pretty rough neighborhood and somebody could have made a mistake. some people say it was mechanical. i personally don't think that's even a question, personally. >> now, while iran denies a missile struck the boeing 737 before it went down, reuters reports that the u.s. national transportation board has accepted an invitation from iran to take part in an investigation into the crash. >> while the trump administration has cited various

reasons for the killing of general soleimani, his past violent behavior of the killing of a contractor two weeks ago, and unspecified imminent attack, president trump is now offering this explanation. >> we did it because they were looking to blow up our embassy. we also did it for other reasons that were very obvious and we had a shot at him, and i took it, and that shot was pinpoint accurate, and that was the end of a monster. >> soleimani was actively planning new attacks and he was looking very seriously at our embassies and not just the embassy in baghdad but we stopped him and we stopped him quickly, and we stopped him cold. >> a bit of a disparity in what we have been hearing over the last week or so. lawmakers say this is the first they're hearing of threats to quote blow up u.s. embassies. the chairman of the house arms services committee adam smith

told politico, nobody i have talked to in any setting has said that. chris van holland of maryland told msnbc this, none of the facts presented at the classified briefing supports the president's came. secretary of state mike pompeo couldn't give a clear yes or no about imminent plans to attack u.s. embassies. >> there were a series of attacks being plotted by qassem soleimani, we don't know precisely when or where but it was real. >> the president said president soleima soleimani wanted to blow up the embassy, is that accurate? >> it was his forces that penetrated our embassy a handful of days ago, directored by soleimani, i don't think there's any doubt he had plans to take action against our diplomats in iraq, but other countries around the region and world as well. >> i think it's obvious as to why so many people and congress people, legislators in washington are frustrated with

regards to the intelligence briefing because it seems like they're getting the same mixed messages, i believe the definition of imminent means it's going to happen at any moment. if you say there's an imminent attack, you should likely know when that attack is going to take place. >> i think a lot of questions remain unanswered about whether or not there actually was this sense of urgency. staying on the topic of the war, the house has passed a war powers resolution meant to limit president trump's military actions against iran. it was largely against party lines, eight democrats voting against the measure, and three republicans voting for it, those three were thomas massey of kentucky, as well as matt gates and francis rooney of florida. ahead of yesterday's vote, speaker nancy pelosi criticized the administration for the air strike that killed iran's top general. >> last week, in our view, the administration conducted a provocative disproportionate air strike against iran which endangered americans and did so

without consulting congress. we have no 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. we all would die for our country. we take pride in saying, that but to kill for our country is a pretty traumatic thing. >> similar legislation limiting the president's ability to attack iran has been put forward in the senate by tim kaine. senate democrats need the support of four republicans. mike lee of utah and rand paul of kentucky have committed their support. >> we played a bit of the president's rally a little bit earlier but in toledo, ohio, the president attacked speaker pelosi and defended the decision to launch the air strike that killed soleimani. >> they're trying to say how

dare you take him out that way, you should get permission from congress. you know, these are split second decisions, you have to make a decision, so they don't want me to make that decision. they want me to call up, maybe go over there, let me go over to congress or come on over to the white house, let's talk about it. we heard where he was. we knew the way he was getting there, and we had to make a decision. we didn't have time to call up nancy, who is not operating with a full deck. >> and the white house also put out a statement following yesterday's war powers vote. it reads in part this, this house resolution tries to undermine the ability of the u.s. armed forces to prevent terrorist activity by iran and its proxies, and attempts it hinder the president's authority to protect america and our interests in the region from the continued threats. these congressional actions are completely misguided. joining us from washington, d.c., senior writer, great to

have you with us at the end of the week. what do you make of three republicans that have sided with democrats, some close allies of the president on limiting trump's war powers. what was the reason, do you think? >> the members of the house, they tend to come from a more libertarian view of foreign policy, and come from that. mr. massey in particular. the same is going to be said next week likely when the senate votes from the likes of rand paul who's from kentucky. this is a traditionally less hawkish group of republicans so it wasn't really a surprise when they cast that vote, but it certainly, nonetheless, will have the attention of the president and have the attention of other allies of the president and hopefully i guess for the sake of those lawmakers, the ally of the president understand that this is an area where they're just going to always

disagree. >> we know that the senate has a lot ahead of it this next month, especially with the senate impeachment trial, where does this house resolution go from here, and what is it going to take for the senate to actually vote on it? >> what's funny is whether or not the resolution or senate companion gets a vote next week is dependent on whether or not today nancy pelosi sends over the articles of impeachment. once impeachment is the pending business before the senate, because itdefined in the constitution, it jumps ahead of everything else in line. frankly you can't have a war powers debate in the senate even though you're impeaching the president over foreign policy effectively, you can't have those two debates at once so impeachment would come first. >> still ahead, what president trump has to say about the possibility of having witnesses testify in the upcoming senate

impeachment trial. legal analyst, danny cevallos. and billionaire tom steyer has qualified for the democratic debate after new polls show him surging in two states. we're going to dig in to those two numbers, and a check of your weather when we come back. of yr weather when we come back. [ sigh ] [ deep breath ] "1917" is the winner of the golden globe for best director. fall back! and best picture. if you don't get there in time, we will lose 1,600 men.

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welcome back, president trump said yesterday that he wouldn't mind a deal in the senate for key witnesses to be called during his impeachment trial if it meant that his defense team could also call people to testify including house intel committee chair adam schiff and the bidens. >> and on impeachment sir, would you support a deal for witnesses if that included testimony from adam schiff and hunter biden. >> i'm going to leave it to the senate but i would like to hear the whistleblower, i would like to hear shifty shift, i would like to hear hunter biden and joe biden. >> do you have a problem with john bolton testifying in the

senate trial. >> always got along with him. he didn't get along with some of our people. that would be up to the senate. i have to ask the lawyers. for me, for the future, we have to protect presidential privilege. when we start allowing national security advisers to go up and say whatever they want to say, we can't do that. we have to protect presidential privilege for me but for future presidents. that's very important. i would have no problem other than we have to be able to protect. people can't go up and say whatever my thoughts are, whatever your thoughts are, about us, countries, views, you don't want that to be out, so we have to protect presidential privilege. >> joining us here onset, msnbc legal analyst, danny cevallos. so much to break down between the comments about presidential privilege but let me begin with the first point of what the president was saying about his desire to make a deal about witnesses that would include adam schiff and the bidens. do you think that is a wise decision by the president or do

you think he has a strategy here and that he's like let's muck the whole thing up with the bidens in there, and throw adam schiff and have a free for all. >> house democrats should take that deal. it's a great deal for them. ultimately the goal of impeachment is conviction and removal. if you bring in all these surrounding issues about hunter biden and joe biden, about what they did back in the day, it may be damaging to them, but would be far more potentially damaging to trump if he let those folks like john bolton come in testify. that's why this isn't a real offer. there's another level to the chess match and it's this. the president knows the senators are not interested into turning this into a witness jamboree. they don't want to hear from all these people. >> is that a legal term? >> it's a latin term, yes. the senate doesn't want to hear from all these witnesses. trump knows he's going to put it out there and say hey, i offered to let john bolton testify. they must be afraid.

adam schiff must be afraid of testifying. that's where i see this going. he doesn't really want those folks to come in and testify. >> what is the argument for bolton impeding or not impeding on executive privilege and the options of mick mulvaney possibly testifying, mike pompeo, mark esper, if the democrats had their way, that's exactly who they would want to see testifying. >> the president has a point, when it comes to national security there's a recognition by the courts that there may be a heightened level of privilege or possibly immunity. the president isn't completely off when he says people like john bolton and the national security arena have to be even more protected than folks who maybe just are aides to the president or even in his cabinet, so he's not completely off there. but at the same time, if a witness like john bolton has such relevant information, then there's a strong argument to have him come testify.

after all, there have been witnesses in every single impeachment trial since we started impeaching folks. 19 in all. so this is something that is not crazy to ask for witnesses. in the clinton trial, they were by deposition and video but they were witnesses nonetheless. >> and they have the main witness. >> yes, exactly. >> they have the president. >> well, yes, they did. it changed the game. we're not likely to see the president testify in this senate trial. >> danny cevallos, always a pleasure, thank you my friend. let's get a check of weather, nbc meteorologist bill karins. it feels like it's going to be 80s in some parts of the country. >> one of the weather maps had 81 in west virginia. >> i saw that and i saw that blowing up on social media, what is going on. 70 would be a record. 80 would be crazy. >> it's going to be one of those awkward sweaty day, where you walk out in layers. >> it's unusual. it's going to be dangerous,

unfortunately, too, areas on the east coast, the i-95 corridor, i can't believe how warm it is but we're going through a dangerous period, severe weather, tornadoes, hail, trees will be falling because of the winds in the south. as we go into today, we have heavy rain through southern illinois, indiana, northern portions of ohio, and missouri and arkansas. those are the states that are going to have two straight days of heavy rain. later this afternoon, we're going to deal with severe weather. the storm prediction center gives us the forecast, located in oklahoma, and they do it for the whole country. only four times in january have they had a moderate risk and the area of red is the area of greatest concern for severe weather today. first initially tornadoes, and then thunderstorms producing straight line winds in excess of 75 miles per hour. that's enough to knock down significant trees and knock out power and be damngerous from th sfa falling trees alone.

those storms sweep through arkansas and louisiana. the storms will be going through louisiana and mississippi, and finally weaken by the time they get to atlanta saturday night. that's the severe weather portion. then we have to deal with flooding concerns. flood watches for 44 million people. little rock to dallas to memphis, the ohio valley, western new york, and northern new england, concerned with the potential for flooding. t possibly isolated spots up to 5 inches. then we have the cold side of the storm. we have winter storm warnings for kansas city, southern portions of wisconsin, michigan with snow and ice, and the potential of an ice storm there. northern michigan, a foot of snow. chicago about 2 to 4. milwaukee could get 6 inches. kansas city is going to deal with snow, and the paralyzing part of this, if i was in michigan, i would be concerned with losing power for a couple of days. significant ice storms in areas of central michigan. not so much detroit but areas

like lansing, saginaw. a dangerous storm. >> across the entire country. >> that's not even mentioning at least three or four dozen record highs we're going to set too. >> thanks for that update. still ahead, the latest on the australian wildfires. temperatures are soaring across much of the country today, leading to another dangerous fire threat. we're going to get a live report coming up. et a live report coming up. definitely. we're gonna go in that. seriously? i thought we were going on a test drive. we are. a heavy-duty test drive. woo-hoo! this is dope. i've never been on a test drive like this before. this silverado offers a 6.6 liter duramax diesel that can tow up to 35,500 pounds. awesome! let's take these logs up that hill. let's do it. wow! this truck's a beast. are you sure there's a trailer back there? this is incredible. best test drive ever. [chuckle] about the colonial penn program. here to tell you best test drive ever. if you're age 50 to 85 and looking to buy life insurance on a fixed budget, remember the three p's.

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welcome back, in the wake of the brush fires in industrial, authorities are ordering a quarter million people to evacuate their homes. temperatures are expected to hit 100 degrees or more in several parts of the country. high winds are also expected to fan the flames that have already left thousands of people homeless and a billion animals dead. joining us now from new south wales industrial, nbc news correspondent janis mackey frayer, when you hear of things getting better, hearing news of positivity, you hear the downturn of temperatures soaring. what more can you tell us about this fire threat and how it's progressing? >> reporter: well, the key factor for firefighters is the wind, you know, the temperatures have been soaring. they have been all over the place, really. the earth is already really dry. the drought has been here for several years, but it's that wind that is the game changer and they were watching today for what they call ember attacks. these are the tiny bits of burning stuff that blow around

and can start new fires or can encourage existing fires to get bigger, and that is the situation that we had around this area today. we're in a town called kuma, and there were two large fires around here that have now officially merged in the snowy mountains. this could be catastrophic. it's now burning at a rate of about 1.5 million acres is the size of this particular fire. today we saw a lot of the fire brigade driving around, watching for hot spots and being able to react to them when they see them. across southeastern australia, four states now, there are different levels of alerts because of these extreme conditions. on kangaroo island, it's particularly bad. apparently the water bombers are not being affected because as soon as they drop the water on the fire, the flames are so intense, they evaporate the water. this is the situation they're dealing with, and there's still

several weeks to go in the fire season. >> all right. nbc's janis mackey frayer for us. thank you very much. >> to give a sense of an international effort this is, this video of american firefighters arriving, many of them being cheered at the airport there. it was obviously, you know, a moment, a touching moment because industrial has already mobilized so many of its own forces using its military and it's the largest mobilization effort and you're getting americans and others around the world to help, and the fact that the australians are welcoming, gives you a sense. >> obviously it's a global effort to help industriaustrali >> we had the brazil one earlier in the year, i should say in 2019 where that also garnered a strong international response. the world seems like it is literally on fire sometimes. >> on edge. let's get to the latest revelation, following the shocking announcement by prince harry and meghan markle, the duke and duchess issued a statement saying they plan to

step back from royal duties but failed to get clearance from queen elizabeth. according to "the new york times" the announcement has come to symbolize what palace officials regard as a rogue operation by prince harry and meghan. they felt forced to disclose their plans prematurely after they learned that the british tabloid the sun got wind about their status and was preparing a story two people with ties to the team said. the uproar disrupted plans with prince charles and other members of the royal family to meet and discuss how they could take on other roles. diplomatic, financial, and tax ramifications. still ahead with pressure mounting, house speaker nancy pelosi says she's going to be sending articles of impeachment over to the senate soon. new polls show billionaire tom steyer surging in two states, it's enough he has

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welcome back, everyone. i'm ayman mohyeldin alongside yasmin vossoughian, and we begin this hour with the mystery behind what downed a ukrainian jet line near teheran hours after attack on a military base, killing all 176 passengers that were aboard the plane. u.s. intelligence officials believe the plane was shot down by an i ranian missile. tom costello has more.

>> reporter: u.s. intelligence sources say satellite imagery, and communications intercepts confirm that iranian missiles shot a passenger jet out of the sky. this video taken from the ground appears to show the moment a missile exploded, the fire ball streaking across the sky, flight 752 left teheran at 6:45 a.m., two russian made missiles fired at the plane. seconds later, a id many air explosion, the plane crashing to the ground. u.s. officials believe the shoot down was an accident, as iran was on high alert for a u.s. counter attack after firing missiles at u.s. troops in iraq. >> it was flying at a pretty rough neighborhood and somebody could have made a mistake. some people say it was mechanical, i personally don't think that's even a question personal personally. >> among the 176 on board, 11 ukrainians, 82 iranians and 62

canadians. >> we have intelligence from multiple sources, the evidence indicates that the plane was shot down by an iranian surface-to-air missile. >> reporter: this photo unconfirmed by nbc news shows what could be the remains of a russian made rocket. iran calls it a fake. at the kiev airport in ukraine, friends and family members remember the passengers and crew members with flowers and photos. >> why they decided to take off three, four hours after an attack instead of just saying, let's stay on the ground for a while, that is a question that i can't answer right now but it's a question that needs to be answered. >> reporter: early on in this case, aviation sources were suggesting this simply could not have been mechanical, it had to be some sort of a missile. here's why, the size of the fire ball in the sky, an inch in fire would not be that big. pilots would have been able to fly if it lost an engine, and they would not have lost all of

their coms. this plane went completely dark in a flash two minutes into flight. u.s. and canadian intelligence says in fact it was shot down by one or maybe even two missiles. >> our thanks to tom costello for that report. amid increased internal pressure by democrats, house speaker nancy pelosi is inching closer to sending the articles of impeachment against president trump over to the senate on her own time line. >> now, in terms of impeachment, you all keep asking me the same question, and i keep giving you the same answer. as i said right from the start we need to see that the arena in which we are sending our managers. is that too much to ask? >> are you holding them indefinitely. >> i'll send them over when i'm ready, and that will probably be soon. >> according to "the washington post," senior democratic lawmakers and aides say pelosi has kept even her closest allies in the dark on her thinking,

causing concern to spread inside her ranks. meanwhile, senate majority leader mitch mcconnell continues to anxiously await the articles to move forward with the trial. >> they do not get to trap our entire country into unending groundhog day of impeachment without resolution. if the speaker continues to refuse to take her own accusations to trial, the senate will move forward next woke with the business of our people. >> mcconnell has sipdnce backed measure to allow for lawmakers to dismiss the impeachment articles before the house sends them over. he told nbc news he has quote no idea when the articles would be transmitted. one day after calling on house speaker nancy pelosi, some democrats are toning down that pressure. >> would you like to see the speaker send the articles over now? >> well, i think that's up to the speaker. >> should the articles of impeachment be sent over today? >> i fully respect the prerogative of the leader of the

house to ensure that there is as fair a trial as we could possibly secure. >> you told us you support pelosi sending articles over, a few democratic colleagues echoed the same. have you heard from other democratic colleagues that it's time to kind of get on with the trial. >> what i have heard from any democratic colleagues emphatically is profound respect for the speaker's decision. she has waited and the result has been additional evidence. >> let's talk 2020 polling here. tom steyer surges to second place in south carolina according to a new fox news poll while former vice president joe biden sits at 36%, 21 points ahead of the rest of the democratic primary field. steyer up 11 points since the last poll in october. he's in a statistical tie with senator bernie sanders who has 14% support. both sit in the polls over 3

point margin of error. senator elizabeth warren rounds out the top four, and former mayor pete buttigieg has 4%. tom steyer tieing with elizabeth warren, according to the latest fox news poll. former vice president joe biden at 23% has a 6 point advantage. senator bernie sanders following at 17%, he is also down one point. boat steyer and warren have 12% since november. warren down 6 points. former mayor pete buttigieg, 6 points, down 2 points, and andrew yang is up one point. steyer's performance in the polls appears to make him the 6th candidate to qualify for the debate in iowa. he is the only candidate to make the stage by hitting the dnc's polling threshold. other candidates have until just before midnight tonight to qualify for the 7th democratic

debate. in nevada, both former vice president joe biden and senator bernie sanders lead president trump in a hypothetical 2020 match up. biden has an 8 point advantage over trump in the silver state. 47% to trump's 39. sanders has a 5-point lead, 46 to trump's 41. meanwhile, trump in a statistical tie against elizabeth warren, 42 to 43%. 40% to buttigieg's 41%. both sit in the poll's 2 point margin of error. joining us from washington, senior writer at roll call, niels lesniewski. we're going to circle back to house speaker pelosi's strategies with regard to the articles of impeachment but let's talk the major jump we're seeing for tom steyer. what do you make of it? >> what it speaks to is what

happens when you're spending a lot of money on television ads in a state where people aren't necessarily as involved or other candidates aren't necessarily as involved. it seems to be working. i don't know if it's gaming the system or if it's just playing by the rules as they have been presented but for me, what it really makes me want to know is what happens with mike bloomberg, particularly in states where people are even paying less attention at the current point, where you have billionaires bombarding the air waves and there's not a whole lot of other attention being paid to presidential politics yet. >> i think the big question is how long president trump tweets against the fox news poll. >> any moment now, we can expect that. >> we're watching our phones. let me switch gears and talk about nancy pelosi, and her strategy for the timing of sending the articles to the senate, the articles of impeachment to the senate.

is she coming under increasing pressure with democrat or has she been able to maneuver that a little bit, saying look in the week i have held the articles, more evidence is coming out, and now the president is saying he's open to a deal on witnesses. >> if you look at what happened to adam smith, the chairman of the armed service committee when he was on another network saying he thought it was time for the impeachment articles to go over and then he basically had to do a complete back flip reversal to side with speaker pelosi, that seems to be what's happening. every time democrats step their toes in the water of saying it's time for the articles to come over, ultimately the speaker ends up winning. i don't know what kind of leverage she's been using on people or if people are just hearing from their democratic constituents and progressive constituents, but she seems to be winning the argument ultimately at least for now among democrats. >> you heard that from a couple

of democrats the other day. niels, thank you so much, great talking to you. >> thank you. still ahead, president trump's apparent reversal on his position on climate change. we're going to play for you his bizarre comments next. your first look at "morning joe" is back in a moment. joe" is back in a moment. tremfya® helps adults

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in two other high profile war crimes. president trump gave bizarre remarks on climate change during a white house event focused on scaling back the requirements of the national environmental policy act. the president said he did not believe climate change was a hoax, contradicting previous statements and even touted a book about his environmental record. >> since the environment is something that is on the table here today, what is your position on global warming, do you think it's a hoax? do you think something needs to be done? >> nothing is a hoax about that. it's a very serious subject. i want clean air. i want clean water. the environment is very important. an environmentalist wrote a book, actually before i did this, but they wrote a book. i would like to get it. i have it in the other office. i'll bring it to my next news conference, perhaps, i'm sure you'll be thrilled to see it. you'll report all about it. i'm a big believer in that word, the environment. >> let's not forget this is the

same president that pulled out of the paris climate accord amidst all thof this. >> he is an expert on windmills. let's switch gears and get a quick check on your weather with nbc meteorologist bill karins, weather, climate, not the same thing. >> definitely different. iowa, health care was the number one concern, climate was the number two. >> i think the younger generation, you're going to see that more and nor, people are more and more concerned about climate and global warming. >> climate scientists aren't making it up to get rich. >> i don't know many climate scientists that are rich to be honest. >> climate scientists i talk to, that's the one that drives them the most nuts. >> they're doing it for the money. >> they're waiting for the big checks, just not getting them. the forecast, today is going to be a dangerous day. we are going to watch the severe weather outbreak taking place. if you didn't know what the calendar was over the next three day, you would think it was

march or april, anywhere east of the rock i didn't sies. we could see tornadoes out of this, and later it will turn into a strong line of thunderstorms with damaging winds up to 75 miles per hour right through the night in arkansas and louisiana, and then as far as what we're going to deal with tomorrow, we take that line of storms through louisiana into areas such as mississippi, and then eventually it will be pushing its way into georgia tomorrow night. now, as far as airport impacts go, today dallas, fort worth, obviously some significant delays this afternoon and evening when the storms go through houston, kansas city, we're going rain to to an icy mix. heavy rain on and off today and the severe weather possibility will be as we head through this evening. here's how your weekend forecast shapes up. obviously today we have the severe weather threat. the storm gets enough cold air for a snowstorm on the backside of it saturday. areas from kansas city on 70. driving through missouri will be rough. chicago northwards, heavy snow in areas of southern wisconsin and it's going to be an ice storm in areas of michigan.

the east coast, you're dry but it's very warm. d.c. in the mid-60s. boston could get up into the 60s. only northern new england has to worry about some snow and ice. look at sunday, 66 in new york city. 68 in washington, d.c., so as i mentioned, guys, it's going to be a wild ride, obviously the biggest concern is if we get these ice storms in michigan, people losing power, be prepared for that. get your batteries stocked up and for the severe weather threat make sure you stay alert, either on your phones or through your social media. >> very important tips. thanks for that, bill, appreciate it. still ahead, a preview of the latest jobs report due out later this morning. plus facebook refuses calls to limit platforms, allowing politicians to make false claims or lie in their post. >> and how much print harry and meghan markle will need to make to meet their goal of financial independence. your stories driving our business day are next.

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welcome back. time now for business with the december jobs numbers due out later this morning, economists predicting 160,000 new jobs were add last month. the jobless rate and wage growth are expected to remain steady. unemployment at 3.5% and wage growth at 3.1%. we'll have final numbers around 8:30 a.m. later this morning on "morning joe." we are following a number of other big business stories developing around the world concerning boeing and their grounded 737 max jet. and facebook now refusing to

block misleading political ads. all of this will be wrapped up for us by joumanna live in london this morning. let's start by that controversial move by facebook saying they'll not filter out lies by politicians. >> yep, no, that's exactly it. facebook has said they will not be limiting the a. political advertising that takes place on their platform but they will be giving users the discretion to determine how many political ads they want access to. the facebook stance has been that it shouldn't be companies determining how political messaging gets out there but it should be regulated by other noncompany entities. of course many critics will say this does actually open up the door to this information and, indeed, we saw that back in 2016. it's also breakaway from what other social media companies are doing. twitter has completely banned political advertising on its platform. another company that we'rebling

loog we're looking at closely is boeing. there was that other fatal crash that happened on wednesday. yesterday the company revealed 150 pages of documents dating back to 2017 and 2018 showing that many employees had a relaxed approach towards safety. messages revealed how some employees persuaded and in some cases lied to government officials and it seemed to include using a flight simulator for the boeing 737 max was not essential at the time. one employee wrote in a message, would you put your family on a max simulator-trained aircraft? i wouldn't. boeing said it wasn't covering anything up but did announce new training would be provided as in when the 737 max is cleared to fly back in the airen. >> let's talk about these most resent developments with regards to the royal family. you have been follow the latest with prince harry and meghan

markle specifically for their request for independence. what are you learning? >> it's a big question everyone's asking. how financially independent can they be? 95% of their income is coming from harry's father prince charles via the dutch e. of cornwall which was established an estate in the 14th century. last year that estate paid out more than $6 million to both the cambridges and sussexes to support their finances. now, the other 5% of their financing comes from something called the sovereign grant which is basically taxpayer money. and that, according to the estimates last year, also covered a lot of their travel expenses. for example, their trip to fiji and tonga alone cost about $105,000 last year. in total forbes estimates that they're spepgd for 2019 topped

$3 million and that doesn't include the refurbishment of their residence in the uk. lots of questions as to where they're going to make this money, how they're going to make this money and if they're going to cut ties with prince harry's father too. >> it's a fascinating development to say the least. we'll be watching and seeing how it disploes play out. coming up on "morning joe," democrats vote to limit his war powers. we'll talk to republican congressman dan crenshaw who accuse democrats of military's efforts to americans safe. plus, a slew of new polling in the democratic presidential race, including the stunning new numbers that will put billionaire tom steyer on next week's debate stage. and yasmin and i will be co-hosting an msnbc special on the crisis with iran this sunday at 9:00 p.m. we'll break down exactly how all of this has played out and what's next. but first, we are back here in just three minutes. here in

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welcome back. joining us from washington, cofounder and ceo of axios jim vandehei. good morning to you. >> good morning you to. >> talk to us about axios one big thing today. >> we're looking at mark zuckerberg's 2020 campaign. while he's not running, i would say he and facebook are two of the most powerful entities outside of the candidates in the 2020 race. and if you look at what zuckerberg's doing, you just touched on this idea that they're going to allow ads of any type, whether they're false or not, on their platform are part of a much larger strategic push by the company. they want to make sure they defend free speech and allow whatever they want to happen on facebook happen because that goes to the heart of their business model. goes to the heart of his personal belief in free speech. you see them spending more money on advertising to make sure they can polish the facebook image. and you see him, himself, meeting late last year with the

president of the united states. you see his staff much more engaged to make sure that they can tighten those relationships with most democrats and republicans knowing that facebook will be under scrutiny in this campaign because it played such a pivotal role in donald trump's election in 2016. >> how are some of the key swing state voters, jim, responding to president trump's decision to kill iranian general qassem soleimani. >> we did a focus group in pennsylvania, they're with trump on this pretty solidly in terms of taking out the iranian leader. i think where it could shift is if this led to all-out war. i think that would affect a lot of folks and certainly that small subset. but with that group in an important swing state, they like what the president did. >> i'm also interested to know quickly with regards to that how concerned american voters are

with national security and foreign poll? i general. in 2004 they were concerned about it but not every presidential race is top of zbliend mind. >> i would say this is the first time it's become a big issue in the media on any kind of sustained basis. we've been largely talking about impeachment and whatever trump does on a daily basis, talking about health care and the state of the u.s. economy. i think it depends on what happened. if this spirals in something much larger, if there's additional retaliation by the iranians, if there's other side effects of this back and forth between us and the iranians then it could become huge. but my expectation is it will be much more about trump and impeachment and the state of the u.s. economy. >> all right. jim live for us in washington, d.c. we'll be reading axios a.m. in a bit and you can sign up for that newsletter at signup.axios.com. >> that it does it for us this morning. "morning joe" starts right