retired general barry mccaffrey will be with us when we come back. in an accident. usaa took care of her car rental, and getting her car towed. all i had to take care of was making sure that my daughter was ok. if i met another veteran, and they were with another insurance company, i would tell them, you need to join usaa because they have better rates, and better service. we're the gomez family... we're the rivera family... we're the kirby family, and we are usaa members for life. get your auto insurance quote today. broadcast continues, as the >>> this is a signature of the taliban. this is a group that hates ballots and loves bullets and bombs. this is the way they do business. >> a u.s. service member was among ten people killed when a car bomb exploded in afghanistan's capital of kabul today. the taliban claimed responsibility for the suicide attack in the same week the u.s. announced in principle a peace agreement with the group. an agreement that would in theory end the war. as "the new york times" reports, the afghan government is pushing bac

here with us tonight to talk about it, general barry mccaffrey, retired u.s. army four star heavily decorated combat veteran of vietnam and a u.s. ground commander in the gulf war. he has been to this oil field in saudi arabia. also with us tonight, jeremy bash, former chief of staff at the cia and pentagon. general i would like to begin with you. tell us about this facility, and tell us your view of the optics of this president saying we are locked and loaded and seemingly awaiting instructions from the kingdom. >> well, look, it was a very serious blow at saudi arabia. it probably knocked half their total production offline, some of it maybe for months. i think at the end of the day, it's going to turn out to be an iranian technology, iranian devised attack, possibly through surrogates up in iraq or yemen, unlikely, and the question now arises, the president supplied maximum pressure since we withdrew from the nuclear accord. they are now pushing back with maximum deniable pressure. i think no one in the regionmenregion wants war. trump doesn't want war. the

army general barry mccaffrey, an nbc military analyst. welcome, all. kristen, there are some lower level national security meetings today to come up with more options. they're talking about sanctions. there will be a full national security meeting with the president tomorrow, as we understand it, and what pompeo is talking about is assembling a coalition, assembling evidence against iran, as they see it, to present to the united nations next week. what do we know? >> we know that the pentagon continues to prepare military actions for president trump including measured military strikes. this is a president, andrea, who despite the tweeting out that the united states is locked and loaded, who has been tamping down the rhetoric, if you will, in the days since he tweeted that. and as we know, this is a president who has an america first foreign policy, who has walked up to the brink of military action in the past and then walked back from it, including a recent provocation by iran when it struck down an unmanned u.s. drone in june. you'll recall that presi

retired four-star general and msnbc military analyst barry mccaffrey is back.onathan lemire, white house reporter for the associated press. elise jordan, former aid to the george w. bush and our friend donny deutsch is back you and i tend to meet on these days of crisis, whether it's cocked and loaded, locked and loaded iran 2.0. whether it's the belikos tweets toward north korea rarely match the tone, tenor, and substance of hisia is an at the elephant in the living room because war is really unpall unpalatable to everyone, and also the iranians. but they have decided to go to the mat. and i think at the end of the day, trump doesn't want to use military power and won't so he's in a real box. >> what culpability does the president have for being erratic in terms of foreign policy for sending love letters to kim jong-un, for pulling out of the iran keel but not replacing it with anything else what's the president's role in any of this? >> well, i think it's this widespread agreement that the president's behavior since he took office makes him an unserious figur

here to discuss it, general barry mccaffrey.our star general, heavily decorated from vietnam. now our msnbc military analyst. it is always fantastic to have a chance to talk to you. this is a pretty sobering report in the "new york times," general. this analysis suggest that's the improvements in short range missiles not only put japan and south korea in more danger but they also threaten at least eight american bases where there are at least 30,000 troops. how worrying do you think this is? >> well, it's astonishing to me that the president dismisses this as inconsequential. all these tests, there have been 18 launches since may have been in direct violation of u.n. security council resolutions. when they say short range, this is 430 mile range, which clearly can be target u.s. forces in okinawa, japan, and south korea. by the way, the larger issue in the background of all this, no constraints at all on kim jong-un's continued production of weapons grade fils material. he's probably done another dozen nuclear weapons since the

retired four-star general and nbc military analyst barry mccaffrey, mark jacobson is back, former senior adviser to defense secretary ash carter, plus axios political reporter alexi mccammond with us on set, sprf vf national correspondent emily jane fox and "the new york times" political reporter nick con scory is here. i hit myself almost every day but can you imagine how many times i hit myself this morning. what do you think? >> read that at the end of the day this was a seizure of department of defense funds that goes through a five-year process, congressmen are intimately involved in it, it does affect the readiness and family welfare of the u.s. armed forces here and overseas. congress refused to fund that wall and the president has taken an emergency declaration and essentially defied congress on the power of the purse. i think it's unprecedented. it's simply astonishing and they got our new secretary of defense, secretary mark esper, to sign off on it that he could use these funds for a different purpose. i think it's a fundamental threat to the way our democracy works. >> genera