shannon pettypiece, senior white house reporter for nbc news digital, retired four star u.s. 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 t

obligations to prevent him to come to the security council. >> trita parsi, shannon pettypiece, thankporting from the white house. we're going to go back to the region for a live report now that the sun has come up when we come back. you're watching msnbc. come back. you're watching msnbc. s your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. i love you! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ i am totally blind. and non-24 can throw my days and nights out of sync, keeping me from the things i love to do. talk to your doctor, and call 844-214-2424. so chantix can help you quit slow turkey. along with support, chantix is proven to help you quit. with chantix you can keep smoking at first and ease into quitting so when the day arrives, you'll be more ready to kiss cigarettes goodbye. when you try to quit smoking, with or without chantix, you may have nicotine withdrawal symptoms. stop chantix and get help right away if you have changes in behavior or thinking, aggression, hostility, depressed mood, suicidal thoughts or actions, seizures, new or worse heart

annie karni, ashley parker and shannon pettypiece. in the president tries to keep a nation focused on his re-election and not his impeachment trial in the senate. >>> later -- accused felon lev parnas said he should be the senate's number one witness, but is there proof for all the things he's saying and, for that matter, again, what about witnesses? "the 11th hour" just getting under way on this thursday night. it's kind of my quiet, alone time. audible is a routine for me. it's like a fun night school for adults. i could easily be seduced into locking myself into a place where i do nothing but listen to books. i never was interested in historical fiction before, but i'm obsessed with it now. there are a lot of like, classic and big titles that i feel like i missed out since i don't have time to read, mean i might as well listen. if i want to catch up on the news or history or learn what's going on in the world, i can download a book and listen to it. because i listened to her story over and over again, i made the decision to go ahea

joining us now senior white house correspondent for digital, shannon pettypiece, thank you for joining us on this. talk about the president's agenda this morning considering the split screen moment we're going to have throughout the day with the senate impeachment trial underway. >> reporter: right. it's another effort by the president to do some counter programming here, to try and shift the narrative away from impeachment and on to the topics he would like to emphasize in his reelection bid, for example, the economy, trade deals with china, trade deals with mexico that he has finalized recently. but of course as we've seen from these past foreign trips, even when he attempts to counter program and have a split screen moment as you said where he is being presidential on the international stage, we often find him pulled back into these domestic sagas playing out back at home. and actually i remember being here in 2018 when the big news all of a sudden was that he had tried to fire then special counsel robert mueller, and so the second day of his trip was engrossed in his response to th

joining me is nbc news senior white house reporter shannon pettypiece. what have you got?th the trump campaign say there's a deliberate effort to attack bernie sanders that started in recent weeks. we saw a couple emails last week from the campaign, one calling him a fuel-guzzling millionaire, attacking him for reported plans to fly in a private jet and having three houses. trump started bringing him up several times in his rally. trump has called him crazy bernie in the past. seemed like trump was bringing him up more and more. we saw a tweet on sunday, another one today. expect to see more coming from the trump campaign going after sanders, not just on his policies, but his character as well, too, and the campaign trying to paint him as a hypocrite. >> what's the point? what are they trying to achieve with this? >> it seems to be an attempt to put their finger on the scale of the democratic primary. the trump campaign going after a democratic isn't going to hurt the democratic with democratic voters. those people are pretty solid behind their opposition to the president.

back to shannon pettypiece in washington, shannon, this morning because these days feel like years indsey graham who seemed to be saying publicly to the president, ixnay on the bolton criticism because this plays into a plot line you won't like. speak to what you've learned today on the white house from just the tranche of this that deals with john bolton. >> so there was definitely a twitter venting this morning about john bolton. i talked to someone close to, familiar with the president's thinking. they say often he has to use twitter as a way to vent, to get things off his chest, and then once he does that he's able to carry on with other business. so they viewed this as a sort of venting air clearing that the president had to put out there about bolton and then could move on. he had a big event at the white house today. it was a signing of the new u.s.-mexico-canada trade deal. but even there you could tell impeachment was very much on his mind. he jokingly referenced a number of times that he had to be nice to the senators who were at this event and only the senators. and he did

shannon pettypiece, thank you, as well. >>> up and next, as pete williams puts it, it's a duty the chief does not want, but cannot avoid. formula coas and kills bacteria to relieve diarrhea. the leading competitor only treats symptoms it does nothing to kill the bacteria. treat diarrhea at its source with pepto diarrhea. hi, i'm jonathan, help. a manager here at colonial penn life insurance company. and with coverage options starting at just $9.95 a month, you can get a whole life insurance plan to help close that gap with a benefit check paid directly to your beneficiary. it's cash they can use right away, and generally, it's free from federal income tax. if you're between age 50 and 85, coverage options start at just $9.95 a month. and the rate is locked in, so it can never go up. there are no medical questions. you cannot be turned down for any health reason. and it comes with two lifetime guarantees. one, your coverage can never be cancelled, and two, your rate can never go up. this is our #1 most popular whole life insurance plan. take the first step now. call for free information a

national political reporter for "the washington post," moderator of washington week on pbs and shannon pettypiece on the digital team. robert, once this goes to the senate, then what? >> you have to have an agreement. 51 senators have to come to consensus about the rules package, whether they'll allow witnesses or not. at the top of mind for most senators i have spoken to recent days is whether ambassador john bolton will testify. republicans are saying, close allies of the president, if they allow him down the line, the white house could exert executive privilege, they maybe want hunter biden or other witnesses related to the ukranian issue come testify as well. >> shannon, this isn't about democrats. the big question is whether senate democrats can get four republicans to cross party lines and vote to call witnesses. this isn't even vote to impeach the president. just voting to call witnesses. do they think they can get them? >> reporter: it comes down to dynamics in the different senator's states. you have three sort of moderates up for re-election. susan collins, cory gardner, joanie earnst.