global ban on imports of iranian oil. i think that s right. i think the fact of the matter is we have seen a series of provocations are our own administration in recent months. we did tally in recent days. we counted 36 provocations from the trump administration designating the irgc creating what s called the iran action group. touting our military prowess. all since the trump administration left the iran deal in may of 2018. i think the fact of the matter is here that we saw a really remarkable headline this week. the president of the united states had to tell his acting secretary of defense, i emphasize we have an acting secretary of defense in all of this. he didn t want more with iran. we have to ask how we got to a point where the president had to make explicit that he didn t want another devastating, potentially catastrophic war in
middle east. the answer is we have two hard liners. mike pompeo and john bolton leading a policy process that s a vacuum. they have driven us to a point of escalation for the sake of escalation. it s no small wonder that we re here in this situation right now. a small drone, in fact, flew close to the u.s. embassy in baghdad. the staff had to take cover. local security made sure the drone was not a potential attack but you can imagine in this climate that kind of thing can set off a lot of steps that we don t want to imagine. absolutely. the forces are on high alert and high guard, as they should be. we have to have a good deal of skepticism not necessarily for this drone event but from what we re hearing from this administration when it comes to the threat environment. our antennas should go up every
25% tariff on steel and a 10% reasonably be done. it risks reducing something that on i knew i would screw that is very human to a number. up word. aluminum. the important thing here is this clears the way for the usmca 50 colleges uses the score last year. trade deal. it will expand to more this there are other year. that wraps up this hour of msnbc live. andrea mitchell reports starts now. right now, a matter of obstruction. former national security adviser michael flynn told prosecutors that people linked to trump inner circle and congress tried to pressure him once he began cooperating even as he remained focus on investigating the investigators. the thing that s interesting about this is this was handled at very senior level of these departments. it wasn t handled in the ordinary ware. i think people have to find out what the government was doing during that period. the commander in chief says hopes there s not war with iran
this time you re seeing efforts to cut back the funding and foreign aid to those countries. dealing with those in the source areas is going to really help deal with those children who are coming here. senator graham has talked about putting more money into those countries but we have not seen the dollars put into legislation. a lot of talk but not a lot of action. there parts of these proposals which is to change the border wall itself. spikes and chains. he doesn t have any credibility on the border wall either. he s in campaign rallies telling people the wall is being built. there s no credibility here. what we do know is across the board, the american people believe that a wall on our border is costly, unnecessary and ineffective. it s why he couldn t get support for his wall and had to make a declaration that s been challenged in the courts.
time we hear this administration publicly characterize it. mike pompeo, the secretary of state was called out by congress for issuing a public report that mischaracterized and left out key intelligence on iran s compliance with the iran deal. mike pompeo, went to great lengths to weaponize and misportray and mischaracterize intelligence on iran s compliance with the deal. i think it s very dangerous environment. we need to be on guard and have our antennas up. fair warning. thank you very much. smart chris van hollen is here. he and three other democratic senators sent a letter to president trump thursday about the administration s growing confrontation with iran.