Country. I was being facetious. You should be able to deal with everything. You practice compassion like it was religion. You are a good man. If it were your job, you would have to do it even if you dont feel great about the situation. He doesnt do that. To be silent about this come on. So im tieing my necktie just before and im listening to you. I was like yeah, i agree with everything he says. But this whole Like Congress is going to do theyre never going to do this. Its not going to happen. You have two republicans coming out saying this senator saying oh my gosh, this briefing today was unbelievable. Take a vote on it. Theyre going to vote. With tim cane. How many others will do it . We live in a time where republicans pretty much right now the party of hypocrisy. Its not the Old Republican Party of principle. Value. The party of max boot. Where character counts. Its a party of hypocrisy. Okay. Well, down in the mouth don. Have you been paying attention to the news . Are you a news anchor . Are you in reality . Award winning. The job is to work for the governed and test power. The job is take a vote and debate. Their job is to be in the loop at a minimum. If they dont like it and want to give away power that is fine. Not on my watch. I will call it out. I will shame them when appropriate. Because it is a deadly game. I think you should shame them. I dont think it will happen. I said max boot. Hes sitting here. He agrees with me. He told me. Did you see me tieing my tie. Im not getting in the middle of this. Theres chris with his kume by ya. Now you stand silent. We have a lot to get to. Ill see you. I hope what you say happens. Got to fight the good fight. This is cnn tonight. We have breaking news. New information on just how close we may have come to a dangerous escalation with iran after last nights attack. On military bases housing american troops. Came really close. A senator who spoke with the president saying he appeared ready to launch attacks if there had been even one u. S. Casualty. Well have much more on that bit of breaking news to come. Moments away. And we are learning a lot more about what happened behind closed doors today. There was a lot of happenings. Goings on behind closed doors on capitol hill. A classified briefing turning into a an epic fail. You have to wonder exactly what was said in that room in that skiff. That make republican senators like mike lee a trump ally come out and tell reporters this. Watch this. Probably the worst briefing i have seen at least on a military issue. In the nine years i have served in the United States senate. To come in and tell us that we cant debate and discuss the appropriateness of military intervejs gen intervention against iran. Its unamerican and wrong. That was insulting. Demeaning to the process. And i find it completely unacceptable. I walked in undecided. I walked out decided. Specifically because of what happened in the briefing. Unamerican. Unconstitutional. Insulting. Do you know who that is . Thats mike lee. Mike lee is a trump ally. Unamerican he is saying unconstitutional and saying insulting. A trump ally. Who now says that he is going to support the Senate War Powers resolution sponsored by a democrat. The same democrat who ran on the ticket with clinton. Tim cane. He aid hes going to vote with him. This will limit the president s ability to use military force in iran. Ran paul, also saying hes going to support it. Another republican. He says the briefing from top officials including the secretary of state mike pompeo. Defense secretary and chairman of the joint chiefs. Cia director didnt give anymore information they could have read in a newspaper. There was no specific information given to us of a specific attack. Generality was given to us. I didnt learn anything i havent seen already. Republican source telling cnn the attitude coming from pompeo and others in the room was dont second guess this move. Dont do anything to question us. The source said thats not a quote. Went on it say i dont think that goes over well in the senate. Sure doesnt seem like it. All this coming hours after the president spoke to the nation about his high stakes gamble in iran. Iran appears to be standing down. Which is a good thing for all parties concerned and a very good thing for the world. No american or iraq lives were lost. Because of the precautions taken. The disperse of the forces. And Early Warning system that worked very well. So, theres no question that cooling things down with iran is a very good thing for the world. Question is why was it so hot in the first place . We still dont have answers. No answers. So far. That is as we are hearing some Administration Officials believe iron intentionally missed areas that the two bases populated by americans. One official saying the message appears to be we could have done it and we didnt do it. In the sign of confusion and chaos it seems to be a feature of the administration, the chairman of the joint chiefs is contradicting that. I believe based op what i saw and know they were intending to cause structural damage and destroy vehicles and equipment. And aircraft. Lets not forget thats not just anybodys personal assessment. Thats the chairman of the joint chiefs. And defense official tells cnn that secretary mark es per agrees. At this crucial moment for our country, for the world, and for his presidency to be frank, donald trump cant resist doing what he always does. Blame obama. The missiles fired last night at us and our allies were paid for with the funds made available by the last administration. Not a shred of evidence to back that up. Not a shred. The president is referencing the release of frozen iranian funds. Money that already belonged to iran. Negotiated by the Obama Administration in the iran nuclear deal. As well as money owed to iran from a settlement in an international court. There is absolutely no evidence that any of that money was used to pay for missiles. But this president never seems to miss an opportunity to slam his predecessor. He mentioned the former president 537 times in the first ten months of 2019. Average of 1. 8 times every day. Like i said, never misses a chance to slam barack obama. Lives rent free in trumps head. Lets bring in cnn pamela brown. With the scene in the white house situation room in the minutes after the attack. Thank you for joining us with the information you have. Youre learning more about what was behind the decision for President Trump not to strike back at iran. Thats right. Our team learned as the president huddled with the National Security team inside the situation room until the white house the first objective was determine whether americans had died in the strike. A senator who spoke with trump said the president appeared ready to iraq iranian facilities had there been casualties. It took well into the night and morning to confirm the early evidence coming in to the white house suggested there had not been american deaths in and the lack of u. S. Casualties led to a sense of calm and restraint in the room. And the decision was made to hold off until more information came in. Until the final assessment which occurred on wednesday morning. This is what a Senior Administration official tells me. Were learned that iron through multiple intermediaries including the swiss sent messages to the u. S. That it was done with its counter attack in retaliation for soleimanis killing. Messages came in last night, iran saying it was waiting to see what the white house would do. The u. S. Responded it was well aware iran could use proxies to launch future attacks and iran claimed it wasnt responsible for proxies and the u. S. Didnt buy that. Biggest concerns from trumps aids . There were a will the of concerns. U. S. Casualties sp messaging the gravity of the moment wasnt lost on trumps top aide. Knowing the ensuing hours could redeem a chaotic several days ever since the strike against soleimani. Top white house officials express regret that trump hasnt addressed the nation sooner after the strike that killed soleimani. Worried he missed a chance to shape the narrative in his favor. Within hours last night at trumps direction aids began making urgent plans for the an address to the nation. Which was delivered this morning. Saying u. S. Is imposing sanctions on iran. Iran took a step back and the u. S. Is taking a step back. They were surprised so few iranian missiles were launched sfwl one of the initial reactions in the situation room is intelligence was come lg in was this is a surprise that so few iranian missiles had been launched considering the large arsenal. Thousands of missiles. Several officials have told us it appeared iran was trying to send a message. More than inflict maximum harm. There have been other officials that disagreed with that view such as the top u. S. General. Who said he believed that had iranians wanted to do more harm. Wanted to kill americans. There are differing opinions and view ins the administration of what irans true intention was. All right. Thank you so much for that new information. Senator calls todays iran briefing the worst he has seen in nine years. And hes a republican. What went on that got him so steamed. Well discuss. Max boot is here. Scott jennings. Next. whistling whistling shaq chime magenta . I hate cartridges not magenta not magenta. Im not going back to the store. Magenta cartridges are so. buzzer vo the epson ecotank. No more cartridges. It comes with an incredible amount of ink that can save you a lot of frustration. The epson ecotank. Just fill and chill. Available at. I am totally blind. 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Our comfort lasts all day. The bad news . So does his energy. Depend® fitflex underwear offers your best comfort and protection guaranteed. Because, perfect or not, lifes better when youre in it. Be there with depend®. Two republican senators breaking ranks slamming the briefs they got today on the u. S. Attack that killed irans top general soleimani. One calling it completely unacceptable. Lets discuss now. Cnn Global Affairs analyst max boot is here. Making second appearance in the show. Political commentators here as well. Good evening. Happy new year to one and all. What happened in the Briefing Room that upset mike lee and ran paul to this extent . Clearly the administration didnt make a very good case for its ir rational for killing soleimani. That they were preventing imminent attack. They presented no evidence to back up the claim. You can say it was justified to kill general soleimani because theres no doubt he has been responsible for a lot of american deaths in the past but the legal justification they chose to use and pompeo said was they were disrupting imminent attack. Which never made sense. If there was an attack in motion. How would that stop the attack. He doesnt carry it out he gives orders. And the members of Congress Listen to the evidence the intelligence behind closed doors have found it to be incredibly uncompelling and unconvincing. Its significant its mike lee denouncing the administration. You cant describe this guy as being a far left socialist democrat. Hes a republican. A trump supporter. Its interesting that some people have been casting it as mutually exclusive. You can understand that soleimani was a bad person. But you can also can want the administration at least to hold them accountable to give the evidence of how it was imminent. You heard the president say we stopped him from doing bad things. Wheres the evidence of that . Especially after the iraq war. Americans should want to see the evidence after the faulty no weapons of mass destruction. We asked mike lee a question. I want to play that exchange. Lets listen. Should the president have carried out the attack against soleimani . Im agnostic to that. I havent had the questions answered that i came into that briefing expecting to ask. We had to leave about 75 minutes. While theyre in the process of telling us that we need to be good little boys and girls and rub along and not debate this in public. I find that absolutely insane. I think its unacceptable. He is angry. They didnt get the answers they wanted on why this u. S. Strike had to happen. And theyre being told to stick to the script. Whats going on . Its really predictable lee and paul are out banging this gong tonight. To call them the president s biggest supporters in senate is misleading. All the republicans they have two of the three worst trump voting records. We didnt call them the biggest supporters. They are allies. They are not allies nearly as often as the rest of the colleagues and on National Security issues this is where they most often break with the president. Obviously paul has been in the president s ear over time trying to get him to pull completely out of the middle east. When trump does something in that region it makes them angry. They have a different point of view. They are out of step with the party in the senate. And people like dan crenshaw. Saying he thought after his briefing the attack was justified. And out of step with the president of the United States. Theyll rant and rave. But theyre in the minority of the party on this as they have been. They shouldnt want to hear the evidence of why this was a legit hat strike and why the according to the president there was an imminent attack and had to take this guy out as u. S. Senators they dont deserve to have that information . Of course they do. They destefsh to get the information and ask all the questions they are entitled to get. That doesnt mean they are point of view on this they have expressed in the video and statements today is going to be shared by anyone else in the Republican Party in the senate. Im telling you these guys are not in step with the rest of the republicans when it comes to what the president did and larger than that when it comes to general views on republicans engaging in the middle east. Theyre not in step with the party. Im not surprised theyre complaining. I dont have a problem with questions. To cast them as spokes people for a Larger Movement inside the party that will be unhappy with trump would not be accurate. I dont anybody is casting them as spokes people. They are republicans and generally supporters of the president. Not they agree with him on everything. But for them i think they are saying they agree soleimani is bad they want to hear the evidence especially after being in the senate and knowing what happened with the iraq war. Theyre saying they are deserving of the evidence and information and not getting it. What is so wrong with that and makes them somehow different than anybody in any party or somehow being aggressiveover against the president because they want information. I dont have a problem with them having information and asking questions. Their reaction to this is always going to be the same. They dont like it when the executive branch acts in this way. Im sure they didnt like obama droning in syria and afghanistan. And bushs Foreign Policy. Again i agree, i dont have a problem with asking questions. They point of view is never in step with the party. If people are listening and probably had a right to be to disagree with george bush. Especially the iraq war. I want to bring you in. Senator paul said he didnt learn anything in the hearing that he hasnt seen in a newspaper. And reacted to graham attacking them. Watch this and ill let you talk. Over reacting quite frankly. Go debate all you want to. Ill debate you. Trust me. Ill let people know that at this moment in time to play this game with a war powers act which is unconstitutional is whether you mean to or not you are empowering. You dont mean to. We live in the real world. Debate all you want. This a constitutional democracy. Its sad when people have the fake sort of drape of pate rollism and anybody that disagrees is not a patriot. He insults the constitution and Founding Fathers and making light of it and accusing people of lacking patriotism. Thats a low gutter response. Were seeing sharp words between senators on the same side of the aisle. They found this briefing extraordinarily lacking and concerned about the president s actions. Yeah. I want to say the notion that mike lee and ran paul are out of touch with the Republican Party is interesting considering you have donald trump a president who said he was going to end forever wars. A president who withdrew from syria and abandoned the kurds. I think ran paul and lee are consistent with that trump. I dont know which trump is president. Thats part of the problem. The reason they were upset is because there is a notion apparently that it was a notion that was expressed during the briefing. Which says if you question the whether congress should have been consulted before soleimani was killed, if you question whether Congress Actually is the founders intended should be declaring war, rather than having the president unilaterally do that. Youre a traitor. Youre aiding and abetting the enemy. Thats insulting. Conservatives are war hawks who think we should be everywhere and invading everything. And conservatives who are isolationists and i dont know who is right. Maybe its just depends on the situation. Its fair to debate that. And to say otherwise is part of the problem. Heres the thing, i have to get to the break. It may turn out there was an imminent threat. No one has seen evidence. It may be the right thing to do at this time. Theres no evidence