jeremy peters is a reporter for the "new york times" and msnbc contributor.lso with us from washington the dean of the john hopkins school of advanced international studies and is now a professor there. his latest book is called "dispensable nation, american foreign policy in retreat" and msnbc correspondent cal perry. tensions running high bracing for retaliation after thursday's air strike in baghdad that killed iranian general qasem soleimani overnight president trump addressing the targeted attack. >> soleimani was plotting imminent and sinister attacks on american diplomats and military personnel, by caught him in the act and terminated him. we took action last night to stop a war. we did not take action to start a war. >> here in new york city the new york police department on high alert according to the city's mayor. he says currently there are no credible and specific threats. meanwhile, mourning in iran and iraq. on friday hundreds gathered outside soleimani's family home. iran loses its indispensable man is how the atlantic put it a former defense d

jeremy peters is back with me.ou write about how democrats and republicans are using the economy to connect to voters. >> trump likes to say i deserve credit for all of this and if you elect one of those awful socialist democrat it's will all come crashing down. what the democrats are saying is hold on a second. the president might be right back the stock market, but how many of you in the audience here in iowa, new hampshire, or south carolina feel like your lives have improved dramatically. i think what i found is fey feel like their lives are a little better, right? that things are good enough. and i think that is the die kna -- dynamics. am i willing to take a risk on a democrat and throw things up in the air and see what happens here with the economy, or are things just zood enough that i want to keep them the way they are. that's how i hear the swing voters, people who voted for trump in 2016, that might be open to someone else talk. >> but the people that elected president trump were the angry americans that

peter baker, chief correspondent for "new york times," jeremy peters, political reporter with "new york times." here with me in studio. jeremy, what do you make of the change, midnight, 1:00 in the morning, obviously mitch mcconnell has a strategy here. >> right. well his strategy is first and foremost to protect his members. he has a number of republican senators who are up for re-election this year who could be in some tough races if they are allowed to force certain votes to look like they're reflexively siding with president trump. this is why susan kcollins, lamr alexander say i am open to the idea of witnesses with conditions. they haven't specified what the conditions would be in saying i'm open to calling witnesses, that's a lot different from saying i will vote to have witnesses. >> you also have cory gardner who doesn't want to talk to anybody about anything. >> that's exactly right because this is tricky. for the last three years, the republicans have been followed around the capital by reporters asking about the latest controversy and have gotten practiced. they know when to

national committee michael steele, and the joining the conversation, "new york times" reporter jeremy petersnalyst for nbc news and msnbc mya wiley, also with us, republican strategist and msnbc political analyst susan del percio is with us and senior writer at politico and co-author of the playbook, jake sherman. an msnbc political contributor and just one more, professor at history at tulane university walter isaac. are we going to have a 12 box today? >> let's do it! >> very exciting. you know, walter, in these tribal political times that we live in, you often know what's going to happen in congress well before the vote's taken. this, though is a time -- we find ourselves in this very interesting time where there are a lot of pieces that are moving around. the board has been sort of thrown up in the air. you have 70, 75% of americans who want to hear from witnesses. want a fair, open trial. the opposite of what the senate majority leader and the head of the judiciary committee are asking for. you have this extraordinary parnas information. interview, plus a lot of supporting documentation

and jeremy bash, former chief counsel to house intel. good evening and welcome to you all. peter, let's go over how this is going to differ. going by mcconnell's rules, how this will differ from the clinton impeachment schedule? >> well, there are two main differences in the rules that senator mcconnell outlined today from the rules that were used in 1999. one of them is they're going to push this opening argument phase of the trial into a tighter time frame. last time each side got 24 hours over the period of several days to make their case. this time they'll get 24 hours but only over the space of two days, meaning you either have to go 12 hours a day, or you'll give up some of your 24-hour time in order to get this done. that would mean you would start the opening arguments on wednesday and thursday for the house managers. you'd have the white house presumably on friday and saturday. by the end of the week, you'd be done with that phase. the other major difference between this set of rules and the 1999 set of rules is that it doesn't admit the house report and the house eviden

jeremy dimon and diane gallagher, thank you so much. >>> joining me is cnn political commentator peter barnard and cnn intelligence and former cia operative bob baer. peter, let's get to you. i want to get your reaction to the president's tweet, really sort of taking this to another level. we are just hearing that the congress is about to be briefed on the strike. the administration's talking points the past few days has been that this was intended to de-escalate tensions and this was to sort of bring peace talks back together. what is your interpretation of the president's tweet mean for all of that? >> i think the president likes to seem like a tough guy. this is a guy who evaded war himself and i think the prospect of now being in control of this powerful military where he can kill people on command makes him feel and gives him a sense of virility and in reality he's totally unprepared for the series of things that might happen next and he knows that his own political base does not want a third middle eastern war. the american people do not want a third middle eastern war and could