lieutenant colonel anthony shaffer a former cia analyst, also with me msnbc s ali velshi and co-host of our show vel she rule debuting here on msnbc, 12:30 eastern standard time and joel benson and ned ryan. ned, i want to start with you, i know the of the trump team wants to turn this page. there are a couple things. his speech that he s going to be giving i think will be really interesting. the themes that i think will be coming out unifying the muslim world against extremism, taking a hardline against iran, but also saying that they re going to start sharing security some of the security burden in the middle east and juxtapose himself against the cairo speech in 2009 of obama s. trying to lay that marker down obviously in regards to nato he will be going back to say there is a role for nato, strongly encourage people to put up 2% of their gdp. israel again, we ll see, you
that wraps us up for the hour. i m stephanie ruhle you can find me any time on twitter and tomorrow join me at the premiere of velshi and hle tomorrow right here on msnbc. now i ll turn it over to my friend and colleague who looks fantastic today, chris jansing. thank you so much. right now deputy a.g. rod rosenstein is arriving on capitol hill. these pictures from just minutes ago. he ll brief every member of congress. a week and a half after recommending, use that word in quotation marks, recommending firing fbi director james comey. remember, we just learned he knew already that james comey was going to be fired when he wrote that. lawmakers demanding answers after a slew of new details in the saga. a friend of the now ousted director saying comey was disgusted with the president. the short list getting shorter in the search to replace
welcome back. i m stephanie ruhle. you re watching msnbc. it is time for your morning primer everything you need to know to start your day. we begin with russia and syria condemning a u.s. airstrike against pro-syrian government forces. pentagon officials say fighters backing president bashar al assad ignored warnings and advanced inside a restricted zone posing a threat to the u.s. and allied forces. voters in iran are headed to the polls today for the first presidential election since the 2015 nuclear deal. moderate president hassan ra hani who helped broker the deal is facing a tough challenge from a conservative cleric. prosecutors in sweden say they are dropping their rape investigation into julian assange. the wikileaks founder denied the allegations. the driver accused of slamming his car into
it is the end of an era here at the fox news channel. as we mentioned earlier bill o reilly is leaving this chair and this network after more than 20 years. there you have it the top rated host on cable news, bill o reilly, is out after a series of sexual harassment assertions and claims that even more women might soon come forward. now there is new reporting that allegations against fox news may be bigger than previously known. wendy walsh was the first of o reilly s accusers to come forward publicly, a psychologist who made regular appearances on his show and her call helped prompt the company s investigation. with me msnbc contributor gabe sherman and authored the book about roger ailes called the loudest voice in the room. wendy, i want to start with you. what was your reaction when you heard the news? well, you know, i always said i never had a dog in this race
vote. one thing to watch tonight as these polls close is both the early vote, as that starts to get counted if ossoff can maintain a lead it will indicate he has a better shot of breaking the 50% mark, that may sound obvious, but the question mark there is, the independents in that early vote. if they break big for ossoff that will tell us a lot about what we might see the rest of the night. the other thing is to watch for, again, more independents than normal, low propensity voters. are the polls off the way they were in 2016 because they re not capturing people that aren t likely to vote. the enthusiasm is the big mark. kasie hunt in sandy springs, georgia, it s going to be a busy night there in georgia. thank you. here to talk about all of this, rick tyler, republican strategist and msnbc news political analyst and josh barrow, senior editor for business insider and an msnbc contributor. always good to see both of you. rick, start with you, the difference between the kansas