Were planes in the hour . No, about ready to go. No but they would have been pretty soon and things would have happened to a point where you wouldnt or couldnt turn back. So they came and they said sir, were ready to go and we like a decision. I said i want to know something before you go. How many people will be killed . And in this case iranians. I said how many people are going to be killed . Sir, id like to get back to you on that. Great people, these generals. They said, came back and said sir, approximately 150. I thought about it for a second, and i said you know what . They shut down an unmanned drone, plane, whatever you want to call it, and here we are sitting with 150 dead people that would have taken place probably within a half an hour after i said go ahead. And i didnt like it. I didnt think it was, i didnt think it was proportionate. And in a series of tweets, the president again reiterated that he wanted to mitigate casualties, while leaving open the possibility for future action against iran. He blamed president obama for the current tensions in the middle east. But the difference between the president s language and his actions highlights the inherent contradictions in trumps approach to foreign policy. On the one hand, he often promises fire and fury against our enemies, both real and perceived, while at the same time he ran for office promising middle east peace and is prone to then substitute deescalation tactics over the use of military force in this case suggesting the shootdown might have been unintentional by someone acting loose and stupid. As peter baker writes in the New York Times, mr. Trump has always been a commander in chief of contradictions. He has adopted a modified version of Theodore Roosevelts maxim when it comes to overseas military threats. Speak loudly, and carry a small stick or carry a big stick but wave it around without actually using it much. Our big question today is what is the president s strategy when it comes to iran . Joining me from the white house nbc news correspondent kelly odonnell, and from qatar, richard engel. Richard, iranian leaders previously said the president is not worthy of negotiations so what next, at least from the perspective of irans Supreme Leader . So it seems unlikely that President Trump is going to sit down with the Supreme Leader of iran, ayatollah al khamenei. The Leadership Structure is not like north korea where you can meet with kim jongun or a u. S. President could. In iran, the Supreme Leader has a more symbolic role. Yes, he does have the ultimate decision, does have the ultimate veto power, but the daytoday running of affairs falls to members of his government, including the entire administration of iran, and president rouhani. So while the Supreme Leader says that he wouldnt meet with President Trump, it does seem increasingly likely that we might have some sort of diplomatic resolution, despite what iran says they do want talks with the United States. They want the sanctions that the president has been putting on iran to be alleviated. I would say that is why they have doing all of this. In the middle east there is something of a chicken and egg situation. From the United States, it may look like iran started everything, and iran is causing these provocations out of nowhere. If youre sitting in iran, you look at the situation around you, and you see the u. S. Has been imposing ever tightening sanctions, so much so that there are shortages of medicine in iran, and you feel that it was President Trump who pulled out of the nuclear deal, increased the sanctions, and that at some stage, iran had to push back, but the reason iran is now pushing back, it seems, is that they do want to have some sort of negotiations, but i doubt it is with the Supreme Leader himself, but there are plenty of other people who could speak for him. So kelly f its not going to be a one on one with the Supreme Leader, we obviously ask the question what does the white house see as the next step, and obviously the president has a big foreign trip coming up . He certainly does. So heading to osaka, japan, which will host the g20, and this kind of an international razors edge moment is the kind of thing the president will be able to discuss with other World Leaders. He plans to speak with Vladimir Putin and chinas xi jinping and others, and this is the kind of setting where the president s conduct in the last 24 hours would certainly have been a part of the dialogue, had he chose to go forward with a strike, and now he can try to use especially European Partners and remember japans abe has had a relationship with iran that the president has tried to utilize to try to bring down some of the tensions. It appears, based on the president s comments today, that he has set a new standard for the moment, that irans provocations have been about american property so far, and property longing to u. S. Allies, and not an american personnel, and so does this mean the president s own threshold for taking a retaliatory strike of some kind would have to be the loss or harm to american lives. One might infer that based on the way he has outlined his thinking here, but he has dialed it back for the moment. The big question will be, will other World Leaders view this as prudence by the president , or will he also face criticism for allowing iran to do something provocative without a decisive response . Chris . Kelly odonnell and richard engel, thanks to both of you. Let me bring former ambassador to morocco mark ginsburg, Hagar Shamali and former commandant of the u. S. War College Major general robert scales. Major general as somebody who has the rank among the four of us, let me start with you. What are your sources telling you about what transpired what was clearly a very dangerous situation over the last 24 hours . I mean, we did learn i think this is new in chuck todds interview, the president says the planes werent flying but they were awfully close and ships were in position. What happened here . Thats a great question. Ive queried my friends at the pentagon and the answer i got was that it went down pretty much like the president said. When he was briefed i guess it was yesterday, the final preparations for launch, the answer was, you know, these are the targets that will be struck, and so forth, but he never really asked the question about how many people would die, and then it popped in his head just prior to giving the final launch authority, he asked the question, and you know, there is this rule of law called proportionality, and i think it just popped in his head that 150 dead innocents in iran was a disproportionate price to pay for knocking down a piece of american materiel. So in a way, there is a strategy here, but it was an impulsive move, and i think in the minds of most people in this town, probably the right move. If indeed, ambassador, there was a strategy here or at least in the president s own words, and from the reporting that were hearing there was a question about proportionality here. The president did step back, at the very last minute, is there an overall white house strategy . Is there something that people can look at, that you look at and say okay, this is where the United States stands in the middle east in general and where it stands with iran in particular . Well, the withdrawal, chris, from the Iran Nuclear Deal was what precipitated all of this, and i think it surprised the white house how effective its been in its sanctions effort imposing major hardship sanctions on iran, that has resulted in iran lashing out by putting arms on tankers, bombs on on tankers, the attack on the american drone, provided harmed drones to the Houthi Rebels to attack arab allied airports in the gulf. This is irans chess game that it is playing, but i dont believe in the end the United States has really calculated how iran would react when the suffocating sanctions reach the point where the leadership of iran and eye rain revolutionary guard corps was determined to show the United States that it was no longer going to tolerate all of this effort to isolate iran without some sons. Response. Hagar clearly the president has the opposite view from what we heard of the ambassador. He believes the nuclear deal getting into it is what brought us to this point. He recently of course in a tweet called the deal desperate and terrible. But iran has Just Announced this week they are going to breach one of the key elements of that deal to limit its nuclear program. What do you see right now is the level of danger here . When you work in the middle east its really par for the course unfortunately, right . You have these issues, iran has always been a bad actor when it comes to u. S. Foreign policy decisions, deciding between bad and worse decisions and tensions are heightened now but they were heightened in 20 11 and 12 when sanctions were at their peak and the Public Discourse was about the possibility of going to war. At that point i was at the white house, i didnt think that we were going to war. At the end of the day the sanctions brought iran to its knees. They did it then. I expect them to do it again now, but that being said, i dont think trumps number one goal is to reach iran deal version 2. 0. I think his number one goal which he stated as priority number one when he abdicated from the deal is to undermine irans support for terrorism in the region and sanctions are working in that regard. So he doesnt really have a reason to stray away off course. General, you remember very well an baface in 1994 when forces were en route to haiti and president clinton called them back. How rare or how surprising is this situation, and how do you imagine it is being viewed both within our military and abroad . Yeah, you know, the callback phase of an operation in todays military climate is not unusual. You may recall the 6th of september, 2013, when at the 11th hour president obama called back a strike against syria for their use of chemical weapons. I was on active duty when we did the haiti caper in 1994. I must say, though, these types of operations, while planned for, are enormously chaotic, because there was always this fear, as you know in the military, that seems to be always one soldier who didnt get the word, and had a soldier not gotten the word in this instance, it would have turned out catastrophically, but our communications are so good today, and this thing is so tightly wrapped, that, when the president called it back, even what, a half an hours warning i guess, the operation seemed to turn off fairly smoothly. So mark, let me put you in the shoes of some of the foreign leaders who the president is going to be on his way to meeting and obviously all of them have a stake in this, but some very directly more than others. What are those conversations going to be like, and what are they going to want to hear from the president . Well here is the ticktock thats going to happen, chris. The iranian president is going to be going to europe in a few days to try to galvanize european leaders to try to put pressure at the g20 meeting to force the United States to ease sanctions or the iranians are threatening the escalation against their own requirements under the eye rain nuclear deal. So theyre engaged in this brinksmanship with the europeans. Theyre hoping that together with the russians and the chinese that the president will be isolated with respect to his policy towards iran, because all of these countries are deeply concerned about the economic consequences, the price of oil going up, their loss of trade, et cetera, and the fact that their companies have had to choose because of the president s sanctions either do business with the United States or do business with iran. Marc ginsberg, always good to see you, ambassador chemali, and major general, thank you. This is about the president s tweet earlier this week, he promised mass roundups of undocumented immigrants, just as the democrats were about to get all the attention for their debates this coming week, julia joins me now what were expecting. What can you tell us . Well, it seems these could start as early as sunday, chris, and target up to 2,000 immigrants. Thats the maximum, and the reason it isnt millions is logistically that would have been hard to carry out but its clear here the i. C. E. Director is planning on following the president s orders. This is mark morgan, acting i. C. E. Director and a position to want to show strength and impress the president , and we also know that these people who will be targeted are largely families, people who came to the United States as parent and child with a minor child, and they have now had final orders of deportation, but they have not yet left the country. It could also target children who came here unaccompanied and then turned 18, that some of those people have final orders of deportation. The reason theyre going after those populations is because those are the rising populations of Asylum Seekers and they want some kind of deterrence, they want to send a clear message, but where this gets tricky, chris, is oftentimes families include u. S. Citizen children, any child born in the United States is a u. S. Citizen. We could see families being separated yet again, if a parent is deported and a child stays here. So a lot to be watching for, and were going to start watching for that this sunday. Julia ainsley, thank you for that, so much. Still ahead, roy moore not riding off into the sunset. Hes running for the Alabama Senate seat against despite the president s disapproval and despite republicans vowing to crush his candidacy. Wait until you hear what he told us in an exclusive interview. But first, why joe biden isnt cleaning up the controversy. Could it cost him or do voters just see him as joe being joe . Okay, paint a picture for me. Uh, well, this will be the kitchen. And wed like to put a fire pit out there, and a dock with a boat, maybe. Why havent you started building . Well, tylers off to college. And moms getting older. And eventually we would like to retire. Yeah, its a lot. 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Joe biden and cory booker are headlining the event, right in the middle of very public sparring over bidens remarks touting his past working relationship with two segregationist senators. Biden called booker in an effort to tamp down the tensions but reportedly did not apologize. How long did the two of you talk last night . I would say 15 or 20 minutes. Did either one ask the other for an apology . We had, you know, i dont want to characterize the conversation. Joe biden should explain to people because its not about me. I dont feel i want an apology to me. This is something he should speak to the public about and i think he has an opportunity here. He said things that are hurtful and are harmful. I believe he should be apologizing to the American People in having this discussion with all of us. Joining me from South Carolina, msnbc correspondent Garrett Haake and from pennsylvania, former governor ed rendell who has known joe biden for a long time. Gary, we know africanamericans have helped elevate joe biden to his frontrunner status. Has this latest controversy as far as we can see put a dent in that support . What are you hearing from voters . Reporter yes, its been interesting. Ive been talking to voters here in South Carolina all day. One of the disadvantages of being joe biden is sometimes you say things less artfully than you would like to. One of the advantages of being joe biden is people know that about you, because you have been doing it for so long. What i found from the voters that ive talked to is that most of the people i spoke to were willing to give joe biden the benefit of the doubt here. Africanamerican voters who i spoke to said perhaps he didnt say this as artfully as he should have. The story he was telling in his fundraiser about a segregati segregationist senator calling him son instead of boy is something theyd like to hear him drop entirely but by and large, they got what he was trying to say, and theyre willing to work with him a little bit on this. Heres one man who i talked to this morning who i think makes this case pretty well. Take a listen. If he did say it, im willing to work with anybody who better would you want ads a president , somebody that can work with anybody and everybody. This country as a whole we have different segregation, di