future trial juror corey booker will be joining us tonight. but now we will also be drawing on senator booker's expertise as the member of the senate foreign relations committee to get his reaction to the developments in iraq tonight where the pentagon has confirmed a top iranian general has been killed in a u.s. strike at baghdad air force. i want to read you a statement in full. it says at the direction of the president, the u.s. military has taken decisive defensive action to protect u.s. personnel abroad by killing qassim soleimani, the head of the iranian revolutionary guard corp., the cud force, a terrorist organization. general soleimani was actually developing plans to attack american diplomats and service members in iraq and throughout the region. general soleimani and his quds force were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of american and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more. he orchestrated attacks on coalition forces in iraq over the last several months including the attack on december 27th culminating in the death and wounding of additional american and iraqi personnel. soleimani also approved the attacks on the u.s. embassy in baghdad that took place this week. this was the final part of the department of defense statement tonight, the final two sentences, this strike was aimed at deterring future iranian attack plans. the united states will continue to take all necessary action to protect our people and our interests wherever they are around the world. we are joining in our breaking news coverage of thebreaking ne developments by andrea mitchell. she's an international correspondent for msnbc news. ambassador wendy shoalman was the lead negotiator on the iran nuclear agreement. ned price is with us, a former cia analyst and former senior director and spokesperson for the obama administration. and daniel ben, white house official in the obama administration is also with us. andrea, i want to start with you. and i actually want to start with that interview you did this afternoon with the defense secretary. i watched every minute of it. it seems as though things had calmed from his perspective and there was no clue about what was going to happen tonight. >> well, there were some hints along the way because he had briefed pentagon reporters this morning as well and said that there could be a preemptive strike if they felt that u.s. interests or certainly u.s. lives were at stake. but there was no real hint in our interview we asked what would happen next. and appropriately, if they were planning this, he certainly would not comment on it. they had him do our interview. he did one other interview that i know of. and mark esper was very carefully saying that the u.s. had the forces, that the u.s. would respond, that enough is enough, said he, and we also heard earlier today over at the pentagon, the correspondents there heard from the chairman of the joint chief said that anyone trying to issue a further attack would run into a buzz saw. certainly esper was saying that they thought that other attacks were planned. and what they are saying in the statement tonight is that they have a legal predicate for what was done because they said that u.s. interests, further attacks were planned, and that this was defensive in nature. and that would be according to the legal strictures that have obtained for decades on official kills or assassinations, targeted assassinations. this is, as you and rachel were discussing, the most significant attack i can remember since certainly what happened with baghdad di, what happened with bin laden. but this is more hierarchical and now this relates to the widespread state sponsored terror that has emanated from iran that has been the source of what esper was saying 40 years of iranian activities. now, they've claimed that they have had diplomatic overtures to iran. there's none that i can detect. windy sherman whom i covered for years during the iran negotiations, both the secret negotiations, knows there's diplomacy engaged with iran for years until that was cancelled by this president with the withdrawal from the iran nuclear deal. and that and the increasing sanctions, the maximum pressure that failed to collapse the regime which certainly was the underlying theme even though they denied it, has certainly led to this eventuality. i cannot predict what will happen. but in talking to our tehran bureau chief and other experts, my experience of having covered every engagement that the u.s. has had with iran since the taking of our embassy back in 1979 and having witnessed what happened when the shah fell and all of these years, lawrence, you've seen this from your experience as a journalist and previously at the senate. there are going to be reprisals around the world. iran is the most widely-engaged foreign military force in both terror and in diplomacy and is recognized by great britain, by all of our european allies who have embassies in tehran. iran is not iraq. this is not saddam hussein. this is a much larger country, a much more established culture and regime. and we are going to face repercussions for this, now acknowledged that it was an american military strike that killed soleimani who is an official leader in iran. >> cal perry, i want to quote one more line from andrea's interview with secretary esper, defense secretary today because there were lines as andrea says where he says enough is enough. he said other things. one of the notes he struck which sounded to me like he was trying to take down the temperature, he said there's a lot we can do, and followed that immediately by saying but i think it's important at this point in time to not make this a united states versus iran issue. his department tonight has just issued a statement saying this is a united states versus iran issue. >> yeah. i'm not sure what the communication is inside the defense department. i think donald trump's tweet of just an american flag is going to leave many people to wonder what is the strategy here. this man, qassim soleimani, is and was an icon in iran and in the middle east. the face of the middle east as we know it. it's hard to overstate this is in large part drawn by qassim soleimani. the war against isis ended the way it did in large part because of qassim soleimani. lebanese hezbollah has much of its power because of qassim soleimani. many hundreds of u.s. troops -- and this is something we will hear from the pentagon -- died during the war in iraq because of qassim soleimani. so, depending on who you talk to, he was a terrorist. others will say he was a stabilizing force. it's impossible to imagine anyone in iran and iraq and syria and lebanon viewing this as anything but u.s. versus iran from today forward. and as andrea is saying, you can expect that there will be response. iran is now put in a position where its back against the wall and it has to respond. with somebody like ambassador sherman on the panel, i have to wonder how we step this back. the iran nuclear agreement was partly such a break through because it opened communication between the u.s. government and iran in a way that we haven't had in a generation. and those communications tonight are just not going to exist. the u.s. will certainly, as far as its military posture, have to go to a war footing. folks who are in that baghdad embassy are going to be in an incredibly delicate position to say the least. and iran will go almost immediately to a war footing. so, you know, however you want to put it, the doomsday clock has ticked another step towards midnight and it certainly looks as though the u.s. is headed towards a wider conflict in the middle east. >> cal perry has just handed it to you with now what? >> well, i wish i knew what all the now whats were. i quite agree with what andrea and cal have said. there will be terrible, terrible reprisals. they will likely happen in the middle east but they can happen anywhere in the world. and as both of these journalists have pointed out, we have people all over the world that could become targets. and of course our military in iraq are targets. our embassy in baghdad is a target. lebanon is a likely place to be targeted. in a situation like this, lawrence, what usually happens is if there's a small group in the white house with all of the pentagon, the intelligence community, the state department meeting very quietly, they send out a classified note or briefing to key embassies to have a regional security meeting to get ready to figure out how they're going to defend themselves, whether there are authorized departures so families can leave embassies. an enormous amount of work goes in to make sure that we are steady and ready when such an action has taken. qassim soleimani is a ruthless, ruthless killer. there's no doubt about that. nobody weeps that he is gone as a person and what he did and the terror he brought about in the world. but that said, the obama administration at least to my knowledge did not go after him and target him because we understood what the consequences were. we were in the midst of diplomacy. we hoped that we would find a peaceful path, understanding that there were many issues in iran that still had to be addressed besides their nuclear program. and we had the sanctions, the tenacity, the alliances to do it. so, i think tonight the immediate concern for all of us is what both andrea and cal have said and that is the reprisals, where and how are they going to happen? they will be asymmetrical. it doesn't matter where our troops are. they can be targets. qassim soleimani had deputies. they know how to do what he did even though he was this unbelievably unique countermilitary strategist. but we are at a very, very es kala toir moment here which can lead us into a wider war. i hope we do not go there. i pray with all of my heart that the trump administration has a plan and a strategy. but all i've seen to date in the iran policy is one-off actions. and this one-off action can have unbelievably horrific consequences. >> brice, given what we've just heard from wendy sherman, there comes the question of why. we understand the reasons not to do this as just outlined by ambassador sherman, the reasons why the obama administration did not take an action like this and presumably with the resources that they had could have. what is the why for the trump administration when you read the department of defense statement tonight, it seems to be because of what they expected general soleimani to do next. they say general soleimani was actively developing plans to attack american diplomats and service members in iraq and throughout the region. now, that's the trump administration asking us and the world to believe them about that point. >> well, certainly lawrence i think it's true what others have said, that no one should be shedding tears for qassim soleimani. he was in fact responsible for -- he had american blood on his hands, indirectly so but american blood nonetheless in conflicts throughout the region from syria to iraq to elsewhere. but at the same time, i think the fact as ambassador sherman said that the consequences of this could be unbelievable -- look, my concern throughout this had always been that a conflict with iran would start not with a bang but with a wimper, a wimper that was the result of any number of tit for tat escalations and retaliations derived from this so-called maximum pressure strategy that the trump administration has moupted against iran since may of 2018. tonight i think we heard that bang and it was a very loud one. it is impossible to overstate the level of prominence, the authority figure that qassim soleimani was within iranian society. he was a military figure. he was a security figure. he was a political figure. he was a cultural figure. unlike osama bin laden, unlike baghdadi, he was not someone homeless with a country who would weep for him. this was a revered figure in iran and i think we have to consider all the possibilities for retaliation and i hope the trump administration has done so. ambassador sherman mentioned a few theaters. i think back to a case in 2011 when individuals were arrested in the united states for a plot to attack the saudi ambassador at a washington, d.c. restaurant just across town from where i am now. this is a plot that had links to the quds force that qassim soleimani oversaw at the time. so, it is certainly true to say our diplomats and service members in iraq, americans in syria, americans in lebanon, americans throughout the region will be under increased threat. my concern more so is that americans here at home will also be under increased threat as a result of what happened tonight. >> daniel, your reaction to where this story stands at this hour? >> well, first of all, i'm thinking about the americans who are serving overseas right now who are facing incredible danger of retaliation. and i'm hoping that the trump administration, as folks have said, have a real plan to deal with that. this is a brutal thug with blood on his hands all across the middle east, in his own country, peaceful protesters in iraq. so, again, no tears for qassim soleimani. the question is what now? and america and iran have been on a kind of slow-boiling collision course stuck in between war and peace ever since trump walked away from the iran deal. and the question now is really where do we go? we seem to have entered a whole new phase of this conflict marked by serious escalation and a risk of kind of spiraling into retaliation and more bloodshed. i still don't think that iran wants to go to full-fledged war with america, but i think they're backed into a corner where they're going to have to find some way to respond and inflict pain. and that could lead both sides into further escalations that neither side wants and that's a dangerous place to be. what concerns me most is i don't see a way back from it. it is a good thing that qassim soleimani is dead. the question is where the middle east goes from here and where america and iran can go. >> andrea mitchell, where does the story go from here? tell us how to cover this story and the questions we should be asking? >> all the questions that you are asking and the expert that is you have around you, lawrence, because we're all caught between knowing his history, his history of terror and oppression against his own people. but the fact is at recent stages he was the most popular political figure in iran because of iranian popular reaction against the so-called moderates -- and i use that phrase very, very carefully -- against rohanny and others who blessed the deal. they were blamed because the iranians had signed on to a deal they didn't like. it was a compromise that neither side was satisfied with as wendy knows better than any of us. it was a compromise that was a first step to try to limit for at least ten years and for longer than that in terms of the fuel supply lines to limit production of nuclear weapons material to permit space for diplomacy to get to the delivery systems, the blallistic missile, and the other things never contemplated to be covered. it was not signed off on by the senate because the obama administration knew they could not get confirmation in the senate so it was not a treaty. but it was an agreement signed by the united states and by the other six powers ratified by the united nations. and the fact that we walked away from it was such a dramatic departure from diplomacy, from agreed-upon deals that it marked a real departure and an end of diplomacy with iran. there's no way to protect our forces adequate overseas because individual americans will be targeted, individual intelligence operatives as well as u.s. uniform military. and diplomats as well as others as well as american interests. i mean, iran through hezbollah has been active in south america, in argentina years ago when we covered those attacks against jewish community groups in south america. so, there's no telling what will happen to israel. and it is interesting that saudi arabia, iran's adversary has recently been having back channel talks to try to reach accord with iran because they felt after the u.s. did not really support them following the iranian-backed attacks against the largest saudi oil field with half of their oil supply for weeks knocked out, that they could no longer rely on america, their closest ally in the west. so, there are so many ramifications diplomatically, militarily in the war on terror. and as both ned and wendy have pointed out, we do not know that the usual steps to protect american interests overseas and american diplomats have been taking. >> ambassador wendy sherman, you helped negotiate and put in place the iran nuclear agreement with the united states and other countries that prevented iran from developing a nuclear weapon. where would you put that, the iran nuclear deal, if say you were part of editing tomorrow's page one "new york times" story about these events tonight? >> i think some of those things have even been said in the last couple of days after the attack on the u.s. embassy in baghdad. and that is that in my view, very painfully, it is president trump's withdrawal from the iran nuclear agreement that started a series of steps that have led us to this day. now, that doesn't mean iran is not responsible for taking steps to counter steps we have taken. iran does bare enormous responsibility. but none the less, there seem to be a set of one-off actions as i said earlier without a coherent strategy. the president, i think, believed that the iran nuclear deal should have dealt with all of the problems in iran, the state sponsorship of terrorism, the unlawful detention of american citizens which goes on even today. and those americans who are held in evan prison today, i also have great concern for under these circumstances. they're not getting out any time soon. iran's human rights abuses, iran's malign behavior in the region and all over the world, all of these things, ballistic missile program, all of these things are of great concern. but you cannot deal with all of these issues in one negotiation. otherwise you just end up with a mediocre middle on everything. iran would say okay, i'll have a few less centrifuges, but i want some more missiles. or i will agree to maybe not give hezbollah so much money, but then i want this kind of nuclear technology. so, you don't end up really solving any problem because it's a negotiation. so, president obama thought he first had to get rid of the potential for a nuclear weapon because if iran had a nuclear weapon -- imagine if we are where we are today and they could project power of a nuclear power into the middle east, how our deterrent would be so nearly impossible. so, i think that president trump walking away without a strategy basically hoping that maximum pressure would either incite a riot that would overthrow the regime or that iran would be brought to its knees was without an understanding of the consequences. we saw the other day that the president should have known that if in fact we took the retaliatory action we did in response to americans being killed, by taking a strike on kh, on kataeb hezbollah, that we should talk to the iraq government and it doesn't appear that we did any of those things to get ready for that retaliatory attack which makes me nervous about whether there is a plan to deal with what is to come in the days ahead. iran will be smart about it. they will react but they will do it as we would, at a time and place of their choosing. and that means we have to be prepared everywhere. >> joining us by phone from west palm beach is hallie jackson. what are you learning from the white house tonight and have you heard anything from the white house about plans to deal with retaliation? >> yeah. so, it's an interesting question, lawrence. we've been doing a lot of reporting for the sources in west palm and washington. i can tell you president trump was at mar-a-lago tonight. our team is confirming he spoke with his national security adviser and robert o'brien. tonight i'm told by one source that o'brien is at mar-a-lago with the president or had been earlier this evening at mar-a-lago with the president, not surprising given the enormity of what's at stake. the president was largely most of the day off twitter which has been somewhat unusual over the holiday break. he's been particularly vocal about the impeachment proceedings against him. we did not see much of that after about 9:00 this morning. he spent about 5 hours plus at his golf club and returned back to mar-a-lago where he's been since about 3:30 this afternoon. that is what we know about the president's activities. the bhowhite house is leaning o this statement you have been reporting from mark esper, confirming that the death of soleimani, the question as your guests and analysts put it is what happens next with iran. how does the u.s. essentially disentangle itself or not from this escalation that has occurred tonight. the president -- keep in mind, the activities this week, just 48 hours ago was standing at the steps here in palm beach telling reporters, telling americans, telling the world that he believed that peace with iran would be the better solution essentially, telling people that he did not want war with iran if that is exactly the concern from experts we've been talking about, that is what the u.s. is stepping into potentially here. the other piece of this that we're watching is not just what happens with the president tomorrow. by the way, it's not clear what his schedule will be. typically we know sometime in the evening what the president's going to be doing the next day. i can't share that with you right now because we don't know. he has been set to visit a church for an evangelical sort of rally or event with evangelicals who support him. so, it wouldn't be surprising if we did see the president tomorrow. i would imagine he would want to speak about this now that the defense secretary confirmed it. you also have what's happening in congress and how capitol hill is going to respond to this. we have seen some of this tonight. its bifurcated along party lines. you have conservatives coming out supporting the actions here of killing this terrorist as they put it, senator sass calling soleimani, forgive my french, but an evil bastard. you have people on the other hand very concerned that they took the action without seeking congressional approval. that's what you're going to see play out on the capitol hill side of this. >> thank you very much for joining us. really appreciate that. i want to go to cal perry. cal, the question comes up -- i would also like to ask the control room to go back to the photographs we have of the scene tonight. that's some of what -- that's what you were seeing before. that is at baghdad airport. that is where this missile strike occurred. and cal, it raises the question of what was general soleimani doing there? why would someone that high-ranking, a military officer, that valuable, be in the line of fire tonight? >> well, i think it speaks to who he was as a figure in iran when i tell you that he did this fairly frequently, that he would visit the front lines. he would visit the battlefields both in syria and in iraq. and that his photo would then be circulated across iranian media and across the country. interesting to note it was his name being spray painted on the outer walls of the u.s. embassy during those protests. our bureau chief just handed me this. the former head of the irgc is vowing strong revenge against the united states. so, we're starting to get some reaction now from iran. when you look at this from the iranian perspective, when we talk about why perhaps obama never followed through and did something like this to soleimani -- and keep in mind it was widely understood across the region that qassim soleimani is somebody you don't touch because of the repercussions. i can't think of anybody else in that category, maybe the secretary general of hezbollah, but the reason you don't do that is because of that strong response. but also because of what it does politically in iran. it strengthens those who are radical and those who speak out against the u.s. it lends weight to those who want to develop nuclear weapons in iran to protect iran from what they would consider a rogue state in the united states. that is how this is going to be viewed in iran and in parts of syria and in parts of iraq and in parts of lebanon. and keep in mind we're talking about a region that continues to sort of lie on a knife's edge, especially when you look at lebanon and when you talk about the places that we could see a reaction, lebanon has to be the top of that list where hezbollah is very strong in the south and could retaliate in some way against israel. and it raises the question -- and i know this is a string of questions -- of what the president knew, when he knew it, and how the u.s. prepared for this? what did the israelis know? were they a part of this? what was the talk amongst allies if there was any talk? certainly a figure of this stature makes you wonder not only how the decision was made but as everybody is saying not only what happens now but in what way was the u.s. military prepared, in what way was the u.s. state department prepared? this is going to have ramifications on countries not in the region. this is going to have ramifications on the global economy this morning, lawrence. >> ned price, again to this question of soleimani putting himself in the line of fire this, we never see an american commander of that high rank -- this is equivalent in effect to a cabinet level position, joint chiefs of staff officer. this is just an extraordinarily high level. but soleimani himself had to know, general soleimani had to know the kind of chance he was taking by being in baghdad and being in the baghdad airport. >> well, it's possible, lawrence. but at the same time this is something that general soleimani had done for quite some time, frankly. and he had this aura of invincibility around him. he was quite often in iraq. he's quite often in syria. he's quite often elsewhere, even traveling in some cases as far as russia. this was not a stateless terrorist as bin laden or baghdadi. this was a powerful military and security figure within iranian life, probably the second most powerful person in iranian society to. your question, we've been talking about this question of why. i think we also need to raise the question of how this was done. and i would flag two things. number one, this was done in iraq. and that is significant, i think, because it really puts on a knife's edge and potentially even has the potential to eliminate the partnership that we have enjoyed with the iraqi government for some time, a partnership that was of course predicated on the initial disastrous decision in 2003 but that successive administrations have found the degree of success working with iraqi authorities against collective challenges, chiefly the challenge of counterterrorism and combatting isis. i think the operation tonight on sovereign iraqi soil really calls into question whether we will have a partner in baghdad going forward. but second we are already seeing the trump administration essentially crowing about this. the department of defense has issued this statement saying very explicitly that president trump ordered this operation himself. look, the chances of retaliation on the part of the quds force, on the part of other iranian proxies are profoundly high and i don't think we're going to get away without some sort of retaliation. at the same time, if the administration had taken a different approach, even if they had already -- even if they had decided to undertake this operation but had done so in a way that was quieter, in a way that was perhaps more discreet, leaving open questions and even the idea of plausible deniability, this is a region where bad things happen to bad people. instead of taking that route, trump has decided to really take a victory lap, tweeting the strange american flag tweet, having the defense department say it was him who ordered the strike. i think that puts more of a target on americans both in the region and further in the field to include the united states where we know the quds force in the past has had associates and some degree of operational capability. >> hallie jackson when she was just with us talked about the president this week saying that he was interested in peace with iran. we have video of that, of what hallie was referring to. let's watch that. >> i don't think that would bay good idea for iran. it wouldn't last very long. do i want to? no. i want to have peace. i like peace. and iran should want peace more than anybody. so, i don't see that happening. no, i don't think iran would want that to happen. >> that was the president tuesday night on new year's eve. here we are thursday night. daniel, couple things to react but let's react to the last thing the president said. he doesn't want a war with iran, but he said war with iran would go very quickly. i guess he means it would go quicker than war with iraq. >> that's exactly it. america is the most powerful military in the world. we have the most powerful conventional military. we're stronger than iran. they are experts at unconventional warfare. it's not clear where that kind of a war would end. it would be incredibly destructive for both sides. and trump is right that conventionally we're superior but they have ways to make america feel pain and there are better ways to handle this problem than reaching the precipice of war with iran. and i think the iran nuclear deal showed that. the kind of violence we may see in the days ahead is deeply troubling. i hope -- i agree with president trump. i prefer peace. i just don't see that he's put us on a path to deescalate this conflict. it's good to get rid of bad people, but it's bad to have the region on the brink of war. >> joining our discussion, jonathan altar, columnist for "the daily beast." here's president trump who ran on i was against the war in iraq, i'm going to get everybody out there. he's increased the number of troops in the region, specifically in iraq and certainly increased the tensions, to put it mildly, in iraq tonight. >> you know, when he said it wouldn't last very long -- >> war with iran wouldn't last long. >> do you know what that reminded me of, lawrence? in 1914, both the germans and the french thought that this little fight between them was going to last for a couple of weeks. it was kicked off by an assassination of the archduke franz ferdinand. it was called world war i. people don't know how wars end. it's much easier to start a war than to end one. and this was an act of war. i mean maybe the predicate made it necessary. we don't know all the details yet. but the only comparison to this in all of american history was after pearl harbor, president roosevelt ordered the assassination of general yamamoto who was the architect of pearl harbor in retaliation for that. but that was in 1942. that was in the middle of the war. so, this -- what the united states did tonight, i think it will be understandable for the iranians to react to it as an act of war. the question is how hardened are our targets around the world? and i think the answer is not hardened enough. look at the $750 million embassy that we have in baghdad. they were able on december 26th to breach the wall of that unbelievably fortified embassy. now, think of all of our other embassies around the world and what the folks who work there are thinking about tonight. >> yeah, all of which are generally less fortified. >> much less. >> i want to bring you back into this. going off the point that president trump made on new year's eve where he said it would go very quickly and he's talking about, of course, full scale war with iran. if that were to occur, it would go very quickly. it's reminding people of different things iechlts reminding me of a moment on "meet the press" when the vice president of the united states said to him that the american troops would be greeted as liberators in iraq and in baghdad meaning that was his way, that was dig cheney's way of saying it will go very quickly. we are still with guns drawn patrolling iraq. >> and i'm glad you brought it back to iraq because one of my deepest concerns tonight is how this will be viewed in iraq, where there is so much shia influence, so much iranian influence, where the u.s. embassy is so close to where iranian militias, iranian-backed militias, and the attacks that the u.s. retaliated against killed 25 iraqis. they were iranian sympathizers, iranian supporters. but there was furry in iraq. all those protests, weeks and weeks of protests we've seen over the months in fact against iran and other interests in iraq changed almost overnight after those weekend attacks because it was considered disproportionate because iraqis died because there was no warning. we warned other leaders in the region but there was no warning to the iraqi leaders. that was probably considered because of military security. but the fact was that iranian -- iraqi nationalism has arisen against america over this in the last couple of days. we've seen anti-americanism run rampant in iraq. and no longer are we considered liberators at all with all the ups and downs and our terrible experience in iraq which you remind us of with that dig chaney interview with tim russert. the fact is in the days since the strikes where an american contractor tragically died and there was reason to retaliate but the way we retaliated really enraged the iraqi leaders. when the defense secretary said to me they reacted too slowly, that was a signal -- we've also heard from other u.s. officials that i've been told that there was no way that the militias -- they're not protester. they are militants. they are rioters. they could not have gotten into the green zone that close to the embassy walls if there was not some compliance from the iraqi security that is so heavily embedded with iranians and with iranian supporters. the iranian influence -- the iraqi government is torn between the u.s. and tehran and tehran is its neighbor next door and we're not going to win that battle. >> we're going to have to squeeze in a quick break right here. everyone's going to stay with us. when we return we're going to be joined by presidential candidate senator corey booker and get his reaction to the developments tonight. his reaction to the developments tonight. aleve it. aleve is proven stronger and longer on pain than tylenol. when pain happens, aleve it. all day strong. our 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abroad by killing qassim soleimani, the head of the iranian revolutionary guard coquds forc. joining us now is corey booker. he is a member of the senate foreign relations committee. i want to get your reaction to this development from iraq tonight, the killing of the top iranian general at baghdad airport. >> well, first let's be clear, soleimani has american blood on his hands. he has been involved and ordered attacks that cost american lives and wounded many other soldiers. this is somebody who is a bad person. but we also have to look at the larger strategic situation in that area. we have a president who has had really a failure in his iranian policy, whose had no larger strategic plan, and has made that region less stable and less safe not only for americans but for other country whether it's our ally israel, whether it's the fact that hezbollah has a new better-armed and syria has become a super highway for arming those terrorists, whether it's a situation in the gulf, situation in yemen, and more. so, this is something that facts are still unfolding. we have a lot more to have to understand whether this met the standards for the authorization of military force. what was the involvement with iraqis in terms of their strategic objectives, and what will the following days be like for the safety and security and the strength of our overall situation right now with iran? >> if the iran deal, iran nuclear deal issued by president obama and wendy sherman, john kerry, if that had held in place, if president trump had not tampered with it, where would we be tonight? >> first of all, the president's america first policy is really isolated america alone. we turned our backs in having standing firmly with our allies in a strategy with iran and pulled out of that deal. and now iran has been doing more things to disable that region as well as now violating the original plans, the original part of that deal by heading more quickly towards a nuclear weapon. so, clearly that was a bad decision and has destabilized the region and has alienated us more so from critical allies we would need in a diplomatic fashion to reduce tensions in that area. and this again goes to the fact that this president has no strategic plan for that area. has destabilized it, made it less safe, and made it harder for us to come to diplomatic conclusions that won't necessitate what it seems like he's going towards is more and more military conflict. >> now, if the iran nuclear deal stayed in place and we never got to this point which may be the case, this wouldn't have -- this wouldn't come up. but it is now in front of us as a presidential decision. and i want to put the presidential decision to you. and it's in the first -- it's in the second sentence of the defense department's statement tonight. they said this. general soleimani was actively developing plans to attack american diplomats and service members in iraq and throughout the region. how would you make the presidential decision about what to do about that if that's accurate and if you were accurately presented with information that said general soleimani was actively developing plans to attack american diplomats? what would you need to make a presidential decision about what to do here and what would that decision be? >> let's have no, no unclarity about this. let's be resolute and clear. if there are imminent attacks on the united states of america, the president of the united states has a obligation to defend this nation whether it's here at home or our troops abroad. these are statements coming from the trump white house. there's a lot more facts that have to come out to see if indeed this president who already has done things that have undermined what people on both sides of the political aisle in the senate have said do not constitute use of military force. our involvement in yemen, bipartisan rebuke of that, attacks on the assad regime. there are many of us in the senate have said clearly that did not amount to having authorization ofs you of military force. there's no question about it. presidents have to be resolute and strong in defending this nation. this is a president that again has made this country less safe because of his lack of strategy and doing foreign policy by impulse, by tweet, against even his generals and advisers who many of them are finding out about his policy decisions from his social media. this is not a way to run american foreign policy and not a way to create safety, not to mention peace in that region. >> i want to ask you about the president's new year's eve comment. we ran it earlier on video in the show, what he said on new year's eve about war with iran. he was asked about that by a reporter who said do you foresee going to war with iran. he said i don't think that would be a good idea for iran. i like peace. his final line was it would go very quickly. what is your reaction to that? >> look where we are right now in iraq and afghanistan. this is a president who has had now years of being a president at war, and he has not ended them very quickly. this is a president who claims to know more about military issues than his own generals. this is a president that has shone, in my opinion, from the situation in the middle east and the situation in countries like el salvador and honduras to be an ultimate failure when it comes to national policy. he used national security waivers to put tariffs on our canadian neighbors. i have grave concerns about the safety of this nation and our ability to stand with allies to meet this challenge whether it's nuclear proliferation in north korea or iran or the greatest threat we see over the next 20 plus years which is climate change. he pulls out of international agreements. the middle east we have seen is not going to be solved. as we know in afghanistan with the afghan papers coming out, we are not going to solve these problems as our own generals are saying with the united states military. there must be diplomatic solutions. when we had a clear diplomatic plan with the iran antinuclear deal with multiple nations from china to russia to allies, this is a president who turned his back on that and now we're seeing the consequences of more instability and more violence. >> i have to ask you about impeachment. senator schumer had a conference call with all of you democratic members of the senate on the last day of the year, i think the afternoon of new year's eve. he apparently told you where he was strategically, where he is going forward. he intends to make a speech as he told you democratic senators on tuesday tomorrow on the senate floor, presumably after mitch mcconnell makes a speech on the senate floor about what to expect in the impeachment trial or where their two positions are at the moment in the impeachment trial. what do you expect to hear from senator schumer tomorrow? >> you know, in the short strokes, i'm not sure how this is going to play out. i know in the longer term this is a trial that will come to the united states senate. but clearly there's something wrong here and most americans know that. we have a serious accusations, but the relevant witnesses have never come before congress because this president hasn't allowed them to do. we could clear this up real quick if people like the chief of staff who was in the room when this happened swear under oath he'll tell the truth and tell the american people what happened. i don't know what they're afraid of but they don't want to let relevant witnesses come in to shine a light on whether the president is exonerated or frankly what's more likely to happen because all the people around him knew what he was doing was wrong try to cover it up or try to get him to change his mind. so, it's time we had the relevant witnesses come to the united states senate. all of us should want the truth to come out. why are they preventing the truth being presented to the american people? these folks should testify in the senate in a trial, and i know that's what nancy pelosi and chuck schumer are trying to achieve. >> presidential candidate senator corey booker, thank you very much for joining us tonight. i really appreciate it. >> thank you for having me. >> our panel is back with us. and ambassador wendy sherman, having worked on the iran nuclear deal that contained, i believe, a hope beyond just control of nuclear weapons but a path, an opening to generally better relations with iran, if that had gone the way you hoped it would go, where would we be now, three, four years later after negotiating that deal? >> i would hope we would be in a very much better place than we are today. it would have at least as i think cal said earlier opened a channel of communication that it will allow us to take care and deal with very difficult situations that happened after the deal when american sailors were taken by iran. john kerry, secretary of state was able to pick up the phone and talk to foreign minister and get our sailors back within 24 hours. it became a sort of hotline ability to deal with very difficult situations and we still had plenty of sanctions in place to deal with all the other nefarious behavior of o-iran. i would hope we get back there someday. tonight i'm rather skeptical. >> cal perry, it seems there's no hotline to anyone in iran now. >> no. and i think it's worth mentioning we are of course mindful of u.s. troops in the field. but as the sun comes up in iran, it is 7:00 a.m. there now, it is worth remembering that millions of people in iran and syria and lebanon and you israel are waking up this morning very, very scared in a region that seems to be one step closer to another war, lawrence. >> daniel, what do you expect to see in news coverage, what we will see in iran tomorrow? >> i think you'll see qassim soleimani treated as a murderar and treated as a hero of his country which is not how we see this. inside iran and across the region and in iraq where the iraqis are just caught in between america and iran and feeling trampled under these big dogs at the moment. you can expect iran to try to use this for propaganda value everywhere. >> and one thing we are sure of is that this president won't be handling the aftermath of this publicly the way any other president would. >> right. i think that's what's maybe most frightening about it. let's assume for a minute that he was at the baghdad airport and deserved this, okay? let's just stipulate that. let's say maybe it was the right decision to take him out. but you have in that case right decision/wrong commander in chief. so, you need somebody at the helm who can navigate skillfully a an extraordinarily complex set of events that he has now set in motion. and i personally have no confidence that this particular commander in chief can do that. so, we have, like, a guy who is driving down the highway, you know, at 100-miles-an-hour going through the guardrails -- he was going through guardrails here in the united states. now he's going through guardrails internationally, and we do not know what the wreckage is going to be. >> andrea mitchell, what are you looking at as the next stage of this story? >> well, there's going to be a lot of claiming of credit for this. the president with his flag tweet has certainly made this a u.s. versus iran event, if it weren't already, from the claim of responsibility for this as a defensive act, they say. interestingly, israel had many opportunities to take soleimani out and did not for fear of retaliation, for fear of what a cultural figure he was throughout the middle east. so, i fear retaliation. and as others have suggested at the time and place of iran's choosing which could even reach over the waters to the united states. grave concerns that there is no plan, that there's no policy, that this is another one-off act perhaps well-justified by soleimani's career of murder and terrorism, but one that has not been well-thought and well-planned. >> wendy, on that point that andrea just mentioned that israel certainly had the capacity to do this, they chose not to, israel is a bold actor in the region, they're not timid about making the decisions they make. review for us quickly just the case against taking out this general this way. >> the case begins taking him out is because of the retaliation because of how he is seen in the middle east. he's not loved by all the iranian people, but among the politicians in iran, he is a cult figure and he's used to really pull the country together. this will increase the nationalism, and it will increase the retaliation. >> that is our last word for this hour. i want to thank you all. andrea mitchell, wendy sherman, daniel, ned, cal, thank you all for guiding us through this breaking news event tonight. really appreciate it. it >> the trump administration kills a top iranian general after strife outside the u.s. embassy in baghdad this as more troops are on their way. we have the latest. and more than two weeks after the house impeached president trump, the senate leaders prepare to square off and democrats hammer away at new reports accusing the white house of a cover up. plus the presidential race gets more volatile as deadlines close and voting is weeks away as "the 11th hour" gets under way on this thursday night. >> good evening. day 1078 of the trump administration. and tonight this president is facing rapidly increasing pressure both at home and overseas. the president has been spending his last few days at his resort in florida, his administration has been preparing for impeachment trial in the senate. but it turns out the trump white house has also been working on a military strike against a prominent iranian leader. defense department tonight has confirmed that the iranian general suleimani. he may not be familiar to many he was the head of the kuds force and the general and an iraqi militia leader among several who died in a drone strike. the defense department said the president took defensive action to protect u.s. personnel overseas adding this quote, general soleimani was actively developing plans to attack american diplomats throughout the region. his quds force were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of american and the coalition services. tensionsis

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