the regional conflict that exists today right here on msnbc sunday night. i will join them for that. "deadline white house" begins right now. hi, everyone. it's 2:00 in new york. house speaker nancy pelosi confirms today in a letter to her colleagues that she will submit the articles of impeachment next week. the house impeached donald trump for asking the leader of ukraine to investigate his political rival before trump would hand over congressionally authorized military aid. as the president is faced with his closest brush yet with the possibility of war, one can't

but help but wonder if he used withholding the aid with any remorse? so i'm guessing the answer is slim to none on that front. even republicans questioning the trump administration's authority. dramatic contradictions burst into public between trump and his secretary of state, mike pompeo. an inexplicable ability to get their stories straight here on day eight. here are the comments on the intel leading up to the strike delivered last night within hours of one another. trump at a rally and pompeo on fox news. >> 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.

>> there were a series of imminent attacks that were being plotted by qassem soleimani. we don't know precisely where or when but it was real. >> the rolling calamity coming to sharper focus during these exchanges when pompeo did a bit of briefing with the white house. >> the administration said the strike was an imminent threat. but you said we didn't know precisely where or when. that's not the deaf nigfinition imminent. the president suggests an attack on embassies. can you clarify. did have anything to do with our embassies? >> we had specific information on an imminent threat and those threats could have included attacks on u.s. embassies. period, full stop. >> last night the president said it was a threat to embassies. why can you say it here and at a

rally but no one said it to law makers in a classified setting as multiple senators have since said. >> we did. we told them about the imminent threat l the intelligence that you've heard today, i assure you, in an unclassified setting, we provided in the classified setting as well. >> pompeo calling 100 senators there liars. and law makers calling bs on at the claim. >> i don't know what the secretary talked about. i stayed for the entire briefing, i stayed even as he left. because they abruptly ended the briefing. >> no one at that briefing said what president trump said publicly the other day, that they were going to bomb the embassy in baghdad. >> i have no recollection in classified and unclassified of hearing anything about embassies being targeted. >> all these questions about the

intel come as three republicans join democrats in the house to limit trump's wartime authority and place more decision making in the hands of congress. one is one of trump's closest allies. >> if the members of our armed services have the curage to fight and die in these wars, as congress, we ought to have the curage to vote for them or against them. i support the president but engaging in another forever war in the middle east would be the wrong decision and that's why i'm voting for this resolution. >> the house voting to grab back control as "washington post" hints at a broader offensive. that on the day u.s. forces killed soleimani, they launched another failed secret operation in yemen. quote, the unsuccessful operation may indicate the trump administration's killing of general soleimani last week was part of a broader operation than previously explained.

answering questions about whether it's to solely prevent an imminent attack on americans, as previously stated. white house reporter for the "washington post," ashley parker. on the capitol hill beat for us today. here at the table, former undersecretary of state in the obama administration, and chief public affairs officer and reverend al sharpton, host here on msnbc and the president of the national action network. ashley parker, i have the scar tissue from fielding questions about intel in the lead up to a war. you only get one chance to set the record straight after you've created a muddle. they're on day eight the president and secretary of state saying drastically different things including this in the last hour.

this is the president on "laura ingram" saying four embassies were at risk. >> did they have large-scale attacks planned for other embassies and, if those were planned, why can't we reveal that to the american people? wouldn't that help your case? >> i can reveal i believe it would have been four embassies. >> the problem with this is we really don't know what to believe out of this administration for a couple of reasons. the first reason is a blanket macro reason, which is for three years the president has said things that were true and just as frequently said things that weren't true. and to go to the micro, just looking at this, you have people like secretary pompeo going up to capitol hill for a classified briefing with senators, which is

the very place they're supposed to reveal specifics. and then you have the president sharing the same specifics on fox news as you just played at the rally in toledo last night i was at. and then you have this other murky thing, which is this is a president who often dismisses his own intelligence communities. and why do you not believe your own people when it comes to russia election interference but you do believe them on these imminent attacks? and there hasn't been a clear exlineati exline plnation of what the definition of imminent is. >> we can work on that for them. but here's daniel gale on the shifting explanation. over two days, trump has gone from one, not mentioning embassies too, two, not saying it was the embassy in baghdad too, embassies, plural, to four.

i thought it was pretty dramatic when mike lee called the worst briefing on a military action he's seen in his career. democrats calling it sauf moric and attacking the briefers who are none other than the american secretary of defense, the secretary of state and the chairman of the joint chiefs. what is the bubbling state of play on capitol hill among democrats and republicans? >> i think it's pretty stunning what mike lee did coming out of there, often times in lock step with the president on policy issues. what democrats have been saying for the last couple of days is the changing narrative, the fact they feel as though they didn't get a clear sense of why the president chose to acknowledge that's why you had so many democrats vote for the war powers resolution to reign back some of that power.

the most part on this issue and congress meets. what key is the outliar. you do not see a lot of republicans in congress choosing to break with the president yet. >> i also talked to somebody yesterday who said the twin pillars inside trump's mind have nothing to do with american foreign policy or the interest of the state. there is paralyzing fear of being revealed of being ignorant. he doesn't read, doesn't know a lot about world history. and in almost equal fear of leading the country into war. that he is afraid of that. he rain south carolina and other

places as a noninterventionalest. where does that leave us? >> in a dangerous situation. you know the expression, air on the side of caution? er on the side of lying because that's where he is. he's somewhere between trying to cover the fact that he is ignorant on foreign affairs and military action. he's trying to act as though he knew what he's was doing. we've already redefined lying. now we're redefining what imminent means. it is a very precarious place that the american people find themselves in. not to mention we're looking at the fact there may be an

unintended missile that killed 176 people and came out of these string of events. it was started because of the killing of general and i think those events should be of real concern. where's the moral concern that we have people that have died in a plane crash, rockets being blasted and a president that gives five different stories a day in the middle of this. and we act like human lives are expendable. i think we're in a very dangerous place. >> i want to point out, in terms of numbers, gets or gates? the "e" always gets me? >> gets. >> so the fact they're speaking out publicly against this rollout of their action is

staggering just on the right. they are sort of wholely owned subsidiaries of the john bolton view of the world and view of regime change in iraq. >> i admire they took the constitutional privilege given to the house and senate to declare war. i want to take a step back and one of the things that disturbs me about this is this revival of the bush doctrine of preventive assassination, which was discredited. >> defense secretary esper used it in a briefing at 3:00 p.m. pre-emptive and that's what we're talking about. >> i never thought i'd hear those words. >> me neither. mark esper all but foreshadowing this imminent, preeminent attack. >> one of the most reviled

doctrines. and another revival is this strange obsession with iran that neoconservatives have that somehow more than china, more than anybody else, iran is provoking instability in the world and is an existential threat to the united states. so part -- and i guess we'll get to the "washington post" story about the targeting. they daid a terrific story abou the targeting of a financer of it. abdul shalai in yemen. the fact this is part of a seemingly wider plot, almost to undermine the revolution guard in iran, goes back to this 40-year-old idea iran is a threat to us. when the ayatollah came to power

in 1979, he had an ideology of i want to undermine the west and democracy in the world. but iran is a far different place than it was in the 1980s. the underpinnings of iran's reaching out is this idea we weren't supposed to talk about at the time that not only were we going to end their pursuit of a nuclear weapon but we'd bring iran back the family of nations. and trump has gone back to this discredited view that iran is this terrorist power that it was in the 1980s. and to your point about him being ignorant of history, it's like he's siding with people whose point of view have been absolute absolutely discredited. >> i think on one hand there is a foreign policy debate this country could have about the appropriate posture towards iran.

what's interesting is people close to the iran deal thought it was in u.s. national security issue. so that debate falls along more extreme lines, even in the right. however, the reason i think there are cracks in the republican defense of trump is they're big deal republicans. mike lee is a real conservative who came out and was horrified by the briefing from the most senior national security officials america has. our sitting cia director, sitting secretary of defense, chairman of joint chiefs and secretary of state, who's playing anthony scaramucci on tv for reasons i can't understand. where he feels real terror politically is the fact that one people don't trust him and, 2, they don't think they're safer because soleimani is dead. >> and they've dealt with competent people before. they're now dealing with people

who are not competent. >> and don't tell the truth. >> jm >> there's one reason pompeo is so exercised about the attack on the embassy is he's m mr. benghazi. he made his career for attacking hillary clinton for not protecting this tiny, tiny outpost in libya, as opposed to the world's largest embassy in baghdad, the united states. he's obsessed with that. and that he may preside over a similar thing and he may still because we don't know when iran will reprise and they do know how to do this kind of stuff. i pray that it's not, but we don't know. >> because benghazi was invoked, i will confess i watched donald trump's tuxedo ward robed new year's eve comments and he invoked benghazi. he wasn't asked about benghazi but he said oh, it's happening

in iraq, isn't there benghazi? not just for pompeo but for donald trump, based on his own invoking of benghazi, seem to rattle him. >> absolutely. he invoked benghazi last night in toledo where he did say our response to the iranian-backed protests would be antibenghazi. he said that a couple of times. this is a president who, his ideology in some ways, is trying to undue or prove himself different and better than everything his predecessor, barack obama did. so that's where some of the scar tissue and obsession comes in from president trump. something he yuused to attack hillary clinton and obama. he certainly saw the parallels. in this case, there was no loss of life in what happened about a week ago.

he's incredibly lucky and relieved. i think everybody is. a final point. he's in a tricky situation because his supporters -- we interviewed interviewed a lot of them at that rally last night. they support him but generally very antiintervention. they don't want another long conflict in the middle east. so, he's able to paint his killing as getting rid of a bad guy. i don't think anyone disagrees soleimani was a bad guy. but we don't know what's going to happen in the next couple of weeks. that is a tough place to bring on those supporters who in crass political terms, he needs win in 2020. >> it was a wedge he used against hillary clinton. i mean it is a pillar of his

appeal to his base, that he is a noninterventionalest. >> and he started his campaign. in 2015, that's one of the things he ran on. i mean, you talked about donald trump having no empathy in the beginning of the show. he's erratic, self serving. you have to remember he took a break from his two-week long vacation in mar-a-lago to basically start an international crisis. he did it with no plan, with no ramifications and then after that, he proceeded to lie to the american people about the intelligence behind it and there is no end here. because at the end of the day, when you look at this with a 30,000 foot view, the region is less safe. he's endangered our military troops. and there's no plan. there was never a plan. and you were talking about how there's this obsession with iran in the last 40 years.

and you were talking about foreign policy. but that's the thing. it's just his reaction. whether it's obsession for barack obama or hillary clinton or just being erratic because of the people he has around him as well. it's all self serving. and now we're not safer. we're less safe. >> i just want to ask you about a report in the "wall street journal" that they report trump, after the strike told associates he was under pressure to deal with soleimani from gop senators he views as important supporters in his upcoming impeachment trial in the senate. that's being reported for the "wall street journal." he was whipping votes for his impeachment trial, so he took out the number two in iran? >> that story was pretty shocking when i read it this morning. it's all about politics, about winning.

he's been obsessed with impeachment for the last several weeks, frustrated by nancy pelosi. i think he's been told by allies he needs keep his republican flank in line because we already started to hear from susan collins and others they do want to hear from witnesses now. i think it shows how totally focussed he is on his own political survival. >> not reassuring at all. i'm sure it's accurate though. after the break nancy pelosi tells her colleagues to prepare to send those two articles of impeachment to the senate. inside nancy pelosi's master plan. ahead, new reporting on mike bloomberg's campaign on why the troll trump. and then with nowhere to be seen during the moment that just might remake donald trump's mideast strategy. all those stories coming up. all those stories coming up.

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big news today, the impeachment trial of donald j. trump will be moving forward. quote, i have asked judiciary chairman, nadler to be prepared to bring to the floor next week to transmit articles of impeachment to the senate. while this brings an end to the stand off a battle may be brewing over whether witnesses will testify. one of the republican senators who could block mcconnell for

dismissing outright, putting out a statement today advocating for a fair trial. quote, i've had many discussions on how we canned a here as close as practical for the precedent of impeachment trial of president clinton, which included as a third stage, whether to call witnesses. we're going to bring in msnbc correspondent, garret hague on capitol hill. yesterday, speaking of imminence. it was imminent speaker was going to send the articles. for those of us bringing sleepi sleeping bags to work and camping out, what does that mean for the schedule? >> we'll probably see a vote on tuesday or wednesday on the naming of the managers. that doesn't mean the senate can snap into what you or i would recognize as a trial right away.

there's an oath that has to be sworn and a federal holiday coming up next monday on mlk day. so we'll probably start to see what would look to every normal person like a trial. might come the week after that. so probably a week away from the presentation of the case on the senate floor. the thing to watch out for is it takes 51 votes to do everything. tie goes to the loser. the vice president doesn't get to break ties in all of this. and a lot of question of when you have a motion to dismiss and when you have a vote to call witnesses. this is one big change we're probably going to see from the clinton trial rules. they voted on dismissing first and then a motion to call witnesses. we've heard from witnesses like lisa murkowski they want to at least have this vote on whether to call witnesses. i don't know who the fourth vote

is going to be to get them to the votes they need call them. but they want to make sure, and this is what we heard from collins and mitt romney yesterday, that this vote happens before anybody can try to short circuit this thing and shut it down. we're in real impeachment trial mode starting probably tuesday. >> i have 7,000 questions for you and i'm one of those, like you, is pack a sleeping bag and a tooth brush. let me ask you about the effort on the democratic side to count votes. we all know mitch mcconnell couldn't do that. are you picking up any sense the democrats have sused out the people who may feel most pressured. 71% of americans want to hear from witnesses including 64% of republicans who think a real trial will include testimony from first-hand witnesses.

and we have our first witness, john bolton, who's said he'll testify. >> lisa collins and susan murkowski have expressed wanting to call witnesses. cory gardner hasn't said anything that makes me think he's going that way. i don't put him on the board. the other one -- >> can i just push back for a nano second. would anyone have had matt lee and mike gates? >> matt lee, yes, but mike gates was a surprise for me. remember, he's been consistent on at the. the gates vote was more of a surprise. but look, i mean cory gardner has avoided these kind of fights.

i don't see them being the kind to do it. lamar alexander is a serious minded senator. he's retiring. nobody's idea of a big donald trump fan. he may want to see the senate act like the u.s. senate and might be a vote in favor of witnesses. >> before garret and i start deciding who's bringing dinner on what night, take us into the substance of all this. donald trump about to be tried for abusing his office. it's sort of an indictment, if you view the house vote that way, that is undisputed by any word, utterence public and any document to date. so, what could the republican strategy be other than to push through something that isn't a trial at all? >> republican strategy is to simply short circuit everything. so that you don't have a real trial.

and that's why we're having all these fights about witnesses. he's going to march in lockstep with the president. i've never heard of a trial where the judge and jury announced in advance the verdict, at least not in america as opposed to the soviet system. you're right there, are two articles. one is abuse of powerful and it basically says the president tried to cheat and the other one is obstruction of congress. the idea the president, even nixon never did this, to say i'm not going to provide a single witness, write a single document. everyone is gagged who works in the executive branch. those two things are astounding. i think i'm a pretty good lawyer, but i don't know how i would defend the president on the merits. that's why i think you see a shift to other things.

>> you wrote a whole book on it. what is the case to those open-minded senators? and i know this about people the most politically vulnerable. they keep their mouth shut as long as possible. what would your case be to any fair minded republican senator thinking he's good for the country to say i want to acquit but i'd like the do so after hearing from first-hand witness. >> yeah, i'd say the essence of the rule of law is justice is blind. doesn't matter who's on what side of the courtroom. just pretend president obama did this or some democratic president. do you think you'd be consistent with the rule of law, with american traditions to have a president do this. the next president, maybe elizabeth warren or bernie sanders or whomever the republicans don't want.

and the idea a president could try and cheat in his reelection campaign or hers and then not invite a single document or witness, i think is so fundamentally unamerican. we're seeing this play out in the weird context of the iran strikes. they're behind closed doors trying to justify what they did and their explanations are shifting, they don't make any sense, to the point republican senators, as you said, like mike lee, said this is the worst briefing i've ever had and then they say it's classified. those are the same arguments they're trying to justify ukraine. the shifting explanations of corruption that fall apart and then they say it's classified. but they gave it to rudy giuliani who doesn't have a security clearance? again, none of it makes any sense. all the republicans need do is insist on a real, fair trial.

we've had 15 impeachment trials. every single one of them had witnesses. why is the president so afraid of a witness. >> and why would mitch mcconnell be so afraid of a witness? >> exactly. i think mcconnell knows the gig is up. i think mcconnell understands what the president did was wrong. i don't think anyone could fair mindedly look at the transcript of the phone call and think anything else. i don't think we should give up on the republican party as a whole and i'm looking for senators, including some surprise ones too, look at this and say this isn't our country. >> you and me both . thank you so much. we'll call on you early and often as this moves to the next phase. and will donald trump ever

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how did this start? how did start? ia had dirty cops, you had people that were bad fbi folks. >> our justice department and our fbi have to start doing their job and doing it right and doing it now. there's been a long-term look at, looksy and looks like it's becoming very serious from what i'm hearing. investigate the investigators. >> it's donald trump's rallying cry for his base, investigate the investigators because in his imagination the deep state's out to get him. new reporting from the "washington post" finds another effort to expose wrong doing from the fbi has turned up empty. the u.s. attorney in utah was

tapped in november 2017 by then attorney general, jeff sessions, to look at concerns raised by president trump that the fbi had not fully investigated the clinton foundation. they said huber largely finished and found nothing worth pursuing. and national correspondent for "vanity fair." emily, you know, on the maga hat, if you had a subhead, it's investigate the investigators. >> but it works for him. it's such a crazy mentality. his mentality has been the i am rubber, you are glue. anything anyone says about him is negative, he pins on somebody else. that's the way he's in private

life and public life. so when there are legitimate investigations into him and his campaign and administration, what he says is forget about those guys. let's look at the illegitimate investigations. it's just a trumpian fact that has been an effective strategy for him. this should deter all of us from talking about the investigations. but it won't deter him from talking about them. >> and the person it puts in a political vice is investigating the same things that john huber, the u.s. attorney out of utah was tapped two or three ags ago to investigate. at this point, he would be the outliars out liar. they've looked through three different parts of this. congress has looked at this. prrgs what could durham come up with that could land us any

credibility at this point? >> i think the short answer to your question is virtually nothing. maybe the longer answer is these investigations had technical distinctions with john huber, the former u.s. attorney under obama and now the u.s. attorney under trump looking into the hillary clinton situation. he was put there so that there would be some bona fide in the event he decided to indict but he didn't. so now trump is getting his third bite of the apple with durham in connecticut. again, someone who has served attorney generals of both parties with whom career people had this confidence. we had this shocking instance a couple of weeks ago where he said his case was still live. i think we'll have to scrutinize carefully anything that happens as a result of his investigation, giving this entire back drop. >> the other thing so clear is

this is trump directed, politicalization of prosecutions. this is from november 28, 2018, trump wanted to order justice department to investigate comey and clinton. he's obsessed with political investigations and prosecutions. >> and going after his political enemies and rivals. he sees the presidency, not as using your power for good or democracy or anything like that, he uses the different arms of the administration as political arms, which he's done with the doj. and let's not forget, he's wasting taxpayer money, not just doj time and it's insane, crazy. it's incorrodabredibly out of c. it's just going to continue. but like you said it works for his base. it gets them riled up.

it's that red meat he throws out there to deflect. >> how does it land in the fbi to continue to investigate and reinvestigate after their predecessors come up with nothing? >> the power of prosecution inside of our system of government. the reason it's different from everything else government does is because at the end of the day someone can grow to jail, someone can have their liberty taken away. they all take this power very seriously. that's why in so many cases the public is frustrated when the fbi decides there is not a case or doj declines to prosecute. and that's because of the respect for people with individual lives and liberty. the fbi will feel vindicated by what john huber has done here. doing what they do best. standing up to a president who's

tried to interfere in doj's work and needs to be told no, it's not tool for this president or any other president. >> i nominate you, joyce vance too, deliver that message to him. when we come back, mike bloomberg is airing ads on tv, in battleground states and even in the super bowl. he represents for donald trump. he represes ntfor donald trump can my side be firm?

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you want to take it for a test-drive? 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] nbc news is reporting michael bloomberg will keep his apparatus in place even if he isn't the democratic nominee. his army of some 500 staffers will continue working through the general election and his campaign will keep spending too. this is interesting and this is something trump didn't face. a normal opponent has to spend

their money promoting their own candidacy. he's saying even if he's not the nominee, i'll spend my money trying to take down trump. >> i'm not surprised. i met with mike bloomberg two and a half weeks ago. i think he's looking at, a, if there's not a clear winner, he can come in super tuesday and have a real shot at winning. weelg we'll see what happens. but he was just as committed to i'm going to help get rid of this guy, donald trump, which was very interesting to me because we both agreed and disagreed. i'm not supportediing anyone bue was as passionate about we've got to beat trump no matter what. and when you look at him investigating staff and money, the threat to a guy like trump is now you have somebody with a lot of resources that can answer

every smear, shoot back, buy commercials with all of your stuff, things we use sound bites. can you imagine him on rotation? and that has got to be something that keeps trump up at night other than a big mack. >> something new. in at the story said if my guy doesn't get the nomination, we so believe that trump is an existential threat to the united states, we will use our resources to make sure he isn't a two-term president. that's radical and different than in politics before. >> those resources are personal resources and are far greater than trump's would ever be.

>> a real billionaire. >> and donald trump can't take a punch. this -- the actual effect of this is every attack after mike bloomberg, chances look pretty long. pulling behind pete buttigieg, anything can happen, he's going do send jared kushner i guess today in charge of the campaign off to respond to the mike bloomberg ad, not going to give the speech that someone wrote for him and may be a good thing but this is not going to go unnoticed from trump. >> it is not. trump has a glass jaw as we all know and we have to remember, too, i'm not a bloomberg fan but give credit where credit is due. in 2018 he spent $110 million to help take back the house. he used his resources to be helpful in a big way and this is what you are seeing but in a ten times more than that so i'll take it. if he is not going to be the nominee, because it is going to take everything democrats have to win. it is not going to be easy to

beat donald trump. it really is not. >> i know democrats listen to you but i hope they take the bloomberg effort in that spirit. when we come back, the incredible shrinking policy portfolio of donald trump's son-in-law jared kushner who was once seemingly in charge of everything. that story next. searching for a way to help stop your cold sore?

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skyrocketing tensions with iran. "the new york times" reports kushner whose portfolio includes middle east peace among many, many other things was not in the situation room tuesday when it became clear iran launched an attack on u.s. forces in iraq. like the 2011 situation room in the bin laden raid the moments live on forever and kushner was notably missing. the times reports he was earlier missing from a tuesday saying he was sitting for a photo shoot. all i can think is if the story is true or not. was he about to be on the cover of "time." ? >> i think the last time was right after he won the election and caused a little stirring within the family. >> yeah. >> i don't actually think this is a change and i think it's a strategy. i don't think it's a shrinking of the portfolio.

i have covered jared -- >> policy stuff? less policies and more politics? >> adding politics. this could be a gigantic disaster what is happening with iran. jared kushner is thinking about that and has i think made a decision to not participate in that because he knows that this could be a disaster. it is not like he's been absent from the rest of his responsibilities. he was in the oval office with a member of the saudi royal family this week and running point on the nebulus peace plan and just been benched part -- for the iran part of this? i think this is a calculated strategy by someone that calculates every move over four years to publicly not be part of something that could be a disaster. so in keeping with who he is and seeing his role as a government employee and what brand building he is doing from the west wing. this is the exact kind of thing where he picks and chooses to

look best on the post-white house resume at its finest. >> do you think there's part of the president glad he's not there? >> i think he's there. i think he may not be in those situation rooms but not like he is not in the residence or the west wing after. so he kind of gets the best of both worlds. >> i agree on this sense real quick is i think calculating that when the other thing goes down he will step in an look like the guy i didn't help bring you down. >> all right. i'll look forward to that. we'll sneak in the next break. memory support brand. you can find it in the vitamin aisle in stores everywhere. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. build a clear plan for retirement. one that covers health care costs, taxes, and any other uncertainties. because when you're with fidelity, a partner who makes sure every step is clear,

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my thanks to you for watching all week long. "mpt live" with chuck todd starts now. ♪