joining me now, general barry mccaffrey.eign relations and colonel jack jacobs, a retired colonel in the u.s. army. medal of honor recipient and also msnbc military analyst. two gentlemen on whom i depend very heavily at times like this. general barry mccaffrey, let's start with you. this all started -- if you listen to -- i don't know who it was who said, was it pompeo who said this started with the iran nuclear deal? that's just not true. the nonsense we've seen in the last 72 hours started with a decision by the president to decapitate qassem soleimani. you can agree or disagree about whether qassem soleimani was a good guy and needed to be gone, but the idea that there were follow-on actions to that should have been expected by anybody with a mode come of military or governing experience. >> yeah, i couldn't agree more. look, you know, he was a legitimate target. you don't have to prove an imminent threat. he's been organizing attacks on u.s. forces, and for that matter, throughout the middle east for the last 15 years.

army general barry mccaffrey back for a second hour. of course decorated combat veteran of vietnam and a former battlefield commander in the gulf. and retired u.s. army colonel jack jacobs, who happens to be one of 71 living recipients of the medal of honor for his combat actions in vietnam. both gentlemen msnbc military analysts. welcome to you all. mr. bash, i would like to begin with you on the state of the iranian military because the target package and the arm amentes they used in this attack tonight are important. their air force does not lead the world. a lot of their aircraft have over three, four, five decades on them. they decided long ago to put their money and their research into ballistic missiles. these have a long range. some of them have a lot of heft, and they proved tonight they have guided missile capability, which led so many people to leave that had they wanted to inflict more damage, had they wanted to rack up casualties, especially american casualties, perhaps they could have done so. >> yeah. tonight was importan

army general barry mccaffrey, a decorated combat veteran of vietnam, a former battlefield commander inhe persian gulf, now an msnbc military analyst. general, thank you for joining us. so much talk here about is there a response from iran that's imminent? if so, what will that response look like? what is your thinking like on that subject? >> well, who knows? you have to anticipate there will be a regional response by the iranians using surrogates, probably a direct attack on your embassies, diplomatic people, american citizens in the region. it's unknown. look, here's the bottom line, it seems to me. taking out this very dangerous soleimani leader of the quds force, i actually applaud. i mean the intelligence service was very clever in sorting out where he was. the special operations nailed him. that was a good thing. if it had been a covert operation perhaps and as part of an open diplomatic negotiation channel. but if you sort of back off this and look at the larger picture, we're in a very weak position. the iranians look at trump and they say, look, he's lost his european allies o

with me now faurmark jacobson a analyst retired 4 star general barry mccaffrey. general mccaffrey, i want to start with you. the president and his advisers have called this a deterrent. do you see this killing of soleimani as a deterrent to more violence? >> i think the general was a legitimate target. he's a military officer. he caused the death of tens of thousands of people throughout the middle east, not just u.s. troops in iraq. and so, you know, they weighed that option. they should have done the pros and cons. and the cons clearly outweighed the reasons for striking him. so i mean the obvious outcome almost immediately was to destabilize iraq, unify the iranian leadership, restart the nuke program. didn't make much sense. i'm also a little bit concerned even more about the rhetoric of the president of the united states now. i mean, some of the things he's saying are unsettling. they're bizarre. striking cultural targets, telling the iraqis we won't withdraw unless you pay for our air force base. some of this language sounds unhinged. and you know one wonde

army general barry mccaffrey, a decorated combat veteran of vietnam and notably a former battlefield commander in the persian gulf. and frank figliuzzi, former fbi assistant director for counterintelligence. welcome to you both, gentlemen. happy new year to you. general, i'd like to begin with you. what happens when you hear about a country like iraq, which under the you break it, you buy it policy, we broke and we bought, and now when you hear we are working up sanctions against iraq, how do you respond? >> with disbelief. you know, we're in a bizarre world. the interview with trump and some of his closest associates in which he basically in a fit of bluster talked about refusing to leave iraq if they told us to go until they paid for the air force base. we talked about hitting 52 targets, one for each hostage. this kind of stuff being manufactured inside a small group in the white house, this never came out of the jcs. a lot of it's illegal. most of it's stupid. it's embarrassing for the president of the united states to be saying it. look, hitting soleimani, a legitimate target, w

general barry mccaffrey. thank you again. still ahead, we have new polling out of iowa this afternoon, and it shows a margin of error race in a clear top four. who are they? first, this week's donald trump's impeachment is expected to move from the house to the senate. politico's jake sherman joins me here in the studio. their medicare options...ere people go to learn about 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 supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. here's why... medicare part b doesn't pay for everything. only about 80% of your medical costs. this part is up to you... yeah, everyone's a little surprised to learn that one. a medicare supplement plan helps pay for some of what medicare doesn't. that could help cut down on those out-of-your-pocket medical costs. call unitedhealthcare insurance company today... to request this fr

joining me is retired four-star army general barry mccaffrey, helene cooper, "new york times" pentagon correspondent, and david ignatius, foreign chill t columnist for "the washington post." general mccaffrey, what are the risks, the plusses and minuses for what many are describing as the most conventional foreign policy decision america has made since invading iraq? >> yeah, no question, this was a major turning point. let me start by just saying you've got to feel really good and proud of both the intelligence services and special operations people that took out soleimani and several other senior leaders. very dangerous people. this is an appropriate response and what appeared to be a new phase of attacks on either the embassy or americans in iraq. so i think it was a great move. now, having said that, mr. trump tweeting out an american flag, taking personal responsibility for it, escalates the situation in a very dangerous manner. i don't think they thought through it. there is almost no iraqi government. it imploded. so the 165,000 military people in the iraqi armed forces, we don'

our nbc analyst, former general barry mccaffrey joins us by phone.eaction to this breaking news story, sir? >> well, the bottom line is you have to know what kind of missiles are being fired at the air base. they're under almost constant intermittent attack in boeth irq and afghanistan. fortunately the u.s. has put in some technology that we borrowed from the u.s. navy and most of these, including mar tar rounds, are actually destroyed before they hit the ground. you mentioned surface-to-air. i'm sure you meant surface-to-surface missiles. if they're being fired out of iran, that's a game-changer, because then there will be bigger warheads. some of these missiles they fire, 107 millimeter are not too bad. the big ones, 122 millimeter and up are really scary. so i'll listen up for technical evaluation, which will happen very quickly. they'll know what kind of missile it was. and if it's fired out of iran, then we've got a game-changer in progress. >> and appreciate your point there. that is indeed surface-to-surface missiles. so let me repeat that and

army general barry mccaffrey, a decorated combat veteran of vietnam, former battlefield commander notably in the persian gulf. phil rucker, pulitzer prize-winning white house bureau chief for "the washington post." brett mcgurk, the former special presidential envoy for the global coalition to defeat isis. and our foreign affairs analyst here in new york, our own ayman mohyeldin, who has reported extensively of course from that region. and at the department of defense, courtney kube, nbc news correspondent covering national security in the pentagon. and, courtney, we need to start with you and go over a few things. first and foremost, something people are picking up on their phones in just the time we came on before the air. this is a report out of tehran that a ukrainian commercial airliner has gone down with 180 souls onboard. normally we'd be tempted to say there's no relation, but coming off a night where iranian air defenses have been on a hairtrigger, as we say, it gets your attention. do you have anything to add to this story? >> reporter: no. i mean i can totally understand, and i

and also joining us, retired four-star general barry mccaffrey, at the i wanted to reach through the space at the separates us and ask for a personal reassurance at the all of our allies would be safe. what do you think of the assessments today? >> well, first of all the president's address was monumentally right. fortunately he took the off ramp. we were headed towards a possible high intensity battle with iranians in the persian gulf. no one wanted at the, certainly not mr. trump politically and not the iranians. it would have been devastating. it's to be applauded. last night's attack -- i don't want to give too much good will to the iranians about the symbolism to their attack. we are ferociously dug in. we have wonderful antimissile systems we got out of the navy. we actually shoot down mortar rounds and missiles when they're inbound. and we were alerted. we get launch on warning. we watched the missiles come up. they tell this impact point. so, i think it was fortunate these well-trained troops didn't get hit. at the end of the day the monumental blunder of hitting soleimani at

. >>> joining me now is retired four-star army general barry mccaffrey. it's great to have your perspective here. i want to jump right into this because we know that the administration is sending these 750 troops to the region. of course to protect the embassy, to protect the compound. also i want to ask you whether this could be a broader show of force, and is the response appropriate? >> well, i think the response is appropriate. at the end of the day, the central challenge facing us is the iranians are being choked economically and they're trying to find some way out of the box. the way out of the box is to strike at u.s. forces, using surrogates. there's been a massive strike, as we remember, on saudi arabia, that temporarily knocked out half of their oil production. so we have a significant u.s. navy and air force presence in the middle east. the iranians should not want war with the united states. it would be devastating on them. they're a vulnerable oil industry. but on the other hand, they see no option, but in some way to not ka pitch late public

. >>> let's bring in barry mccaffrey, msnbc analyst. general, great to have you with us. let's begin, if you may, with iraq and obviously developments there. david sanger and "the new york times" assessing the effectiveness of the president's policies towards the two nations we've been discussing. many foreign policy experts saying he fundamentally misjudged the actions of two major american adversaries. the core problem may have been mr. trump's conviction that economic incentives alone, oil profits in iran and prospect of investments in glorious beach front hotels in north korea would over come all national interests. has the president misjudged the crises? >> i think in both cases. the iranians have been presented with a dilemma. they're choking economically. they can't get their oil out. the people are rested. there's all sorts of demonstrations against iranian leadership. they've got to break out of the box. what they're doing is trying to go against us using surrogates. it's been pretty etch fekive. our 5,000 troops in iraq are enormously vulnerable. it's not a dire

we had military guys on last night covering this, jack jacobs and barry mccaffrey saying we're always ready to go. we can do this. iran and america are not equal partners in a war and tend to like to think of this as a last resort when you have other things to do. donald trump said we'll put more sanctions on iran. why would that have not worked on friday? >> it is an interesting path if you will. there were a number of options to pursue before asass natded qassem soleimani. to me, i read that and i spoke to somebody close to the decision making who saw the intelligence, they viewed this really as a preeffortive strike. right now we can daeblt whetheb that's a the right move. they thought preefforting something that would have been worse. the idea of sanctions i took as a de-escalation of president trump. i'm sure you have seen -- >> i think sanctions feel less -- >> for him. >> than killing a general. >> yeah. for certainly him. it's more of the same. it's a de-escalation. what's left, though, in that i have to say is not a lot. the way he talked about it, the kind of something that

also with us, quincy institute parse ee, and military analyst, retired four star general barry mccaffrey, in terms of chain of command, how odd is it that top military brass are openly rejecting the president's strategic statements? >> look, you know, this is a preposterous situation. general soleimani was clearly a legitimate military target. he was actively involved in attacking u.s. forces, responsible for deaths of tens of thousands of people. he was in iraq clearly to orchestrate a continuing operation to get us out of iraq. cursory analysis of the option should have resulted in people saying this isn't a very smart move. now the president has descended into the bizarre language about the wharf museums and antiquities. not only is it stupid from a military perspective, it invites retaliation. we're going to have u.s. marines guarding the smithsonian institute? it is an unprecedented adolescent view of national security interests of the united states. >> mike pompeo says we're safer today than we were a week ago, but today, u.s. maritime website warns of, quote, multiple maritime thr

joining me now, general barry mccaffrey, nbc military analyst. welcome to you. get to what happened this morning, which was the federal depository library program's website, that's down after being hacked. authorities have not said who is responsible. there's one group claiming at least at this point to be iranian hackers. we have not confirmed that. general, how seriously do you take this kind of threat? >> well, there's no question iranians have a considerable capacity to conduct cyberattacks. they have done it before. they crippled the saudi oaudi o industry for a period of time. look, the response to killing general soleimani, who was a legitimate target -- this guy is responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people throughout the middle east to include hundreds of u.s. soldiers. but the notion of a provocative public act embraced by the president of the united states as his personal decision certainly put us in a situation where the iranians are likely to feel forced to respond. if they make a dramatically successful hit on us, whether through cyb

. >> general barry mccaffrey, and holly dag ris, my thanks to the both of you. >> coming up, 23 days the iowa caucuses, and the newest poll out of the hawkeye state makes it clear this is still anybody's race. we'll talk about who has the edge and what role undecided voters could play coming up next. you won't want to miss it. what's going on? it's the 3pm slump. should have had a p3. oh yeah. should have had a p3. need energy? get p3. with a mix of meat, cheese and nuts. >>> this is msnbc live. i'm geoff bennett. turning now to the race for the white house. with just 23 days and counting until the all important iowa caucuses, there's a new leader in the hawkeye state when it comes to the battle for the democratic nomination. the des moines register's headline reading sanders ahead. this latest polling has bernie sanders out in front with 20% followed by elizabeth warren at 17%, pete buttigieg who had been the front runner dropping to third with 16%, while joe biden is the only other remaining candidate in double-digits at 15%. that said, 45% of surveyed caucus goers say they could b