Koalas. Welcome to the lead. Im jake tapper. Happy new year. We begin with our world lead. Hundreds of protesters, some violent chanting death to america and storming the u. S. Embassy in baghdad, smashing windows, scaling the walls, setting fires, claiming to be angry over american airstrikes on an iranianbacked militia on sunday and billowing smoke filling the air beyond the walls beyond the diplomatic compound, americas largest embassy anywhere in the world. Attachy helicopters were dispatched to fly over the embassy and more american troops are on the way. The embassy currently on lockdown but right now there are no plans to evacuate any personnel. President trump pointing the finger squarely at iran and the militia leadership for fuelling the protests and for launching the original attacks on americans that prompted the retaliation. As Cnns Kaitlan Collins traveling with president now reports. Reporter a chaotic scene as protesters storm the u. S. Embassy in baghdad today. Scaling
support to a foreign country in order to serve my country in congress or serve on committee. the people of the fifth elected me to serve their interest. i am sure we agree on that. steve: do you think that nita lowy is going to agree with her on that. no. no one has to take any kind of pledge to serve in congress and the united states. she told her constituents when she ran that she would support america. and she is not. she is supporting america s enemies. and undercutting american values. you know, the fact that she supports enemies of america and doesn t look herself in the mirror and say my god, if i m accusing people of dual loyalty, where are my loyalties? are my loyalties to america or are my loyalties to the palestinian authority to hamas, to hezbollah? i m not accusing her of dual loyalty. she has the right to express support for enemies of america. that s part of her role as a free person in congress. but, for her to accuse
out j slamming this thing. and then sean hannity as the news was breaking, sort of coming out and saying this is a garbage deal. nobody should take this. anita lowy was asked about this. i want to play for you, a little bit of what she had to say. did you get some signal from the chief of staff of the white house that yes, this is something that the president would sign? look. i don t listen to signals from above. does it concern you that sean hannity who the president listens to a lot calls it a garbage deal? i would hope sean hannity and all the other people you mentioned aren t running this government. this was a bipartisan deal. so she s right. it is president trump and not president hannity. right? we know they talk. they talk, and they re very close. that s not really a secret. that s okay. that s all right if he and sean hannity are friends. is it okay if hannity says don t take it? do you think that presents a
are with him. all i can say, for my constituents perspective, my funds are being lit top with constituents who are angry that it seems as though when we have the chance right now to do what we said we would do, it doesn t seem the will to get it over the finish line. still what we re looking at is a short-term measure that would go through february 8. there were seven agencies, very important agencies, but congresswoman anita lowy, who is a democrat, they will be in charge once they are sworn and says this, when house democrats assume control in two weeks, my primary focus will be to pass reasonable spending legislation that does not find president trump s wasteful wall. so where are you with this? ? the hypocrisy blows me away. nancy pelosi had no problem when he set up that jumbo jet to iran, yet we can t get by $5 billion actually, $3.4 billion of additional money. it is important, and it s not
president responds to them? and this is a key moment and it s not simply kind of swallowing some parts of a bill that they don t like. it s handing the president a major victory right now which will set up the republicans for 2018 and for the next couple of years. representative nita lowy from new york earlier this week, kelly jane, said republicans control the white house, the senate, and the house. they are in charge. if the government shuts down, it s because they couldn t do their work. are republicans really going to get blamed if the government shuts down or are democrats going to get blamed? who is going to carry that? a great question and it depends what happens. if the government shuts down, what it was, what was the final straw that did it. when you have a party in control of both chambers of congress and the executive branch, it sort of looks difficult to understand why they can t get things done and get things passed.