mohyeldin. a lot to break down. two explosive reports that get to the heart of the concerns over president trump and how he deals with russia. is he vladimir putin's pawn? this as the president phase day 23 of his shutdown with plenty of tweets but without any apparent plan on how to end things outside of just, give me what i want. i'll talk to history-making congresswoman, how she'd like to see things resolved. plus, secretary of state mike pompeo continuing a crucial and controversial middle east tour expected to meet with the saudi arabia crown prince 100 days after the death of jamal khashog khashoggi. a live report from nbc's andrea mitchell from the region. that is coming up within the hour. we begin with two major reports rocking donald trump's presidency this evening. first, the very latest from the "washington post." the president hid details of

conversations of him with the russian president when this team on five different occasions. he was asked last night on fox. >> one-on-one with other leader. nobody ever says anything about it. with putin, oh what did they talk about? we talked about very positive things. i meet with putin they make a big deal. anybody could have listened to that meeting. that meeting is open for grabs. >> meanwhile, the president forced to answer questions about the "new york times" reports on an fbi investigation whether he was working for moscow either knowingly or unwittingly? on fox the president asked if he was a russian agent. he called that question insulting. the white house responding to the report calling former fbi director james comey a disgrace partisan hack and his deputy andrew mccabe "a liar." democrats are bound to take action. house judiciary chairman jerry nadler saying in the coming weeks the committee will take steps to better understand the

president's actions and the fbi's response. here to break it down, kimberly atkins, david korn. and msnbc political contributor, and co-author of "russian roulette." ben witis, legal analyst and senior fellow at the brookings institution and a former fbi official and former u.s. attorney. all-star panel to talk about these two explosive reports. david korn, do you first in washington. the "washington post" wrote it this way. on at least one occasion the president took possession of the note of his own interpreter and instructed the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials. first of all what do you make of this behavior and how was it different than other meetings that world leaders have had with american presidents? you know washington and the white house a lot better than i do. is this out of the ordinary? >> yes. it's not just out of the ordinary. it's bizarre. usually there are meetings like this and you can see photos on

twitter now, you have two principals surrounded by officials, some taking notes, and who are listening in. very few times one-on-ones without anybody around and certainly taking notes from an interpreter, and the notes are not to record but to help the interpreter conduct the interpretation, it's really highly unusual. go back to the very quote you played earlier, when donald trump is saying, i have these meetings with putin. why do you think they would be different? or why pay attention to these meetings and not the other meetings? the pay attention to these meetings because putin attacked the united states in the 2016 election, and that's something that donald trump keeps hiding, dismissing, not coming to terms with. and that's sort of like the bottom line concern here. why does he not deal with the fact that putin attacked the united states? and you have everything else

around that and he said, what's the big deal with putin? is that he's chummy with a guy who attacked us. >> you can imagine, this drew reaction from the house intel chairman. adam schiff tweeting last year we sought to obtain the interpreter's notes or testimony from the private meeting between trump and putin. the republicans on our committee voted us down. will they join us now? shouldn't we find out whether our president is really putting "america first"? kimberly, your reaction. congress obviously didn't get the notes or testimony from the interpreter. did, a., robert mueller and, b., is it likely to happen under the democratic controlled kongcongr? >> i would put money on they have a lot of information, robert mueller, including these notes because it goes to a key issue, what, if any collaboration there was between

president trump himself and vladimir putin and other russians. i think you can believe that, and i think that congress certainly is going to fight to get this information. and it's crucial. look, on the one hand it would be a breach of normal, of norms, to try to get information from the sberinterpreter. they're supposed to be neutral folks doing their job and aiding. we've never had a situation where a president tried to keep this secret. usually this information is given to other administration officials meant to help craft national security policy and you usually don't have a president blocking that. that's what's different here. think back about this president, why would he do that? not just the fact vladimir putin attacked the u.s. elections systems. you have donald trump, someone with financial ties to russians that go back for decades. it's because you have people on his campaign who had direct

connections to russians. these are key questions that need to be investigated. robert mueller will do and that you will see democrats focused in the house on that as well very directly. >> me and hundreds, thousands of others, follow everything you write very close on twitter and the law fair blog. and you wrote about the "times" report, i believe between today's "new york times" story and other earlier material i have been sifting through and thinking about we might be in a position to revisit the relationship between the collusion and obstruction components of the mueller investigation. specifically i now believe they are far more integrated with one another than i previously understood. help us understand what you meant on that. expand on that for us. >> well, the conventional understanding of the mueller investigation was that you had had this counterintelligence

investigation. the russian interference in the 2016 issue that was under investigation by the fbi. right? and jim comey announced that investigation before congress in march of 2017. and then the president comes along in the following may and fires the fbi director, and within a few days of that, or weeks of that, we'd learned from the "washington post" that the mueller investigation, mueller since appointed, investigating whether the president obstructed justice, and that's a criminal question. obstruction of just sis a criminal inquiry. and so we've tended to think of these investigations as sort of separate. you have an underlying counterintelligence investigation on collusion, and then a secondary development of this obstruction investigation, and what i think the significance of the "new york times" story on friday is, it's

that to mueller and to the fbi it may not look that way at all. it may look like the obstruction, the effort on the president's part to remove the leadership of the fbi and potentially shut down the investigation was itself a possible form of collusion. that is, an effort to -- to encumber the investigation that, of national security matters that the fbi thought essential to investigate in a fashion that aided russia. and so i guess my point is that the two inquiries are much more tightly knitted together than the conventional understanding would lead you to think. >> greg, help us put it in proper context. how unprecedented is this that the fbi would launch a counterintelligence investigation on a sitting president? i mean what type of information

would they need to have in order to launch this investigation? what's the threshold? >> well, it's -- i read that "new york times" report and i guess my reaction was that i thought it was, both startling and not surprising. >> hmm. >> i say not surprising, because we've known for a long time that the intelligence community including the fbi had found that the russians clearly did attempt to interfere with the 2016 presidential election. in fact, they report to that effect, made public some months ago. also we've known for quite some time the special counsel was appointed in part to look into any cooperation or collusion or connection between the trump campaign, or trump organization, and russia, with respect to that attempted interference. what we've seen confirmed in this "new york times" report, according to the reporting, is that at some point during that

investigation, the fbi's investigation, the president himself became the subject of their counterintelligence effort. we don't know exactly how long that lasted, whether it continues to this day. we don't know exactly what that consisted of according to the "new york times" report. so i think -- i say that the report wasn't all that surprising, because i think that has generally been assumed by most, at least sophisticated observers, since the beginning of at least the public announcement of this investigation. >> i can't imagine any other nime our nation's history the sitting president of the united states being under investigation by the intelligence. mind-boggling. final thoughts. "times" report the fbi wasn't sure if trump was a witting or unwitting client of the russians. what would have caused red flagging for you?

>> go back to the campaign. during the campaign the russians attacked the election to cause diz order and help trump. po publicly know and reported by the media and obama eventually said it was the russians. throughout the summer and the whole campaign donald trump said it wasn't the russians. repeating, amplifying, boosting the russian moscow disinformation that we're not doing this. so there you have collusion and a cover-up and when questioned i guess if you're an fbi counterintelligence officer is, is trump just doing this completely on his own? hoping the russians cover this up just because he wants to? or is there any other reason why that might be happening? from a counterintelligence perspective, a presidential candidate mouthing russian disinformation to cover up an attack has to be incredibly troubling from the very beginning of this process. >> david korn, and thank you, and kimberly, ben, stick around

longer for us. and day 23 of the shutdown and new numbers out show trump and republicans shouldering much of the blame. how does the president get out of the mess he created? and we're going to get the thoughts on what democrats would accept in terms of a deal from historiesmaking congresswoman who will join us live. ive.hop.ht call me back! if your ex-ex- ex-boyfriend isn't a lawyer, call legalzoom and we'll connect you with an attorney. legalzoom. where life meets legal. if you have postmenopausal osteoporosis and a high risk for fracture now might not be the best time to ask yourself are my bones strong? life is full of make-or-break moments. that's why it's so important to help reduce your risk of fracture with prolia®. only prolia® is proven to help strengthen and protect bones from fracture with 1 shot every 6 months. do not take prolia® if you have low blood calcium, are pregnant, are allergic to it, or take xgeva®.

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new "washington post" abc polling shows 53% of americans are now blaming president trump and republicans for that shutdown. 29% say that democrats are at fault, but trump has gained a bit when it comes to the idea of building a wall. 42% now support building a border wall along the u.s./mexican border. that's up 8% from this time last year. though the majority still oppose a wall. this all comes as president trump is refusing to confirm whether he'd declare a national emergency to fund his long-promised border wall and meanwhile is insisting frel w i workers do not care about the shutdown. >> item of people who aren't getting their checks are letting us know we don't care. you've got to solve the crisis at the border. >> joining us now, jeanine guerrero, reporter and author of "crux: a cross-border memoir" and kimberly and ben both still

with us. your take on that sound bite we just playeds there. some 800,000 workers caught in the cross hairs, many receiving a pay stub showing zero dollars. but as you heard there, trump appears to lack any sympathy for them by claiming that they don't wear about the shutdown. what do you make of the white house's messaging on this issue to those workers? >> yeah. this hardship is no longer theoretical. these are people who now have miss add paycheck. many of whom are still working. many of whom are tanked with very important roles in terms of our national security. in terms of tsa. making sure our planes are siff. it's a real crisis, in that the president is still dug in, claiming falsely, according to federal workers i've talked to, that they are behind him and want him to keep the government closed. it's a real problem. the longer it drags on the more

it become as problem for the president, not justed president but for congress. clear from the polling that's where the blame is placed because he's the one insisting this is the fight for the wall. that it is the federal workers who should keep being unpaid while he demands this wall as opposed to backing down. lawmakers are very, are saying they don't know what the president will accept. they don't know what he will do. whether he'll declare the end to the shutdown. we don't know. >> and visited border barriers, you know it affects the immigration and illegal drugs into the country. you said the wall has done and will do pushing these into dangerous areas. >> since border fences went up in the '90s under the clinton administration, a lot of the

traffic you saw going through cities like san diego were pushed into the desert, into the ocean. that's happening more and more. as the wall expands, it significantly decreases illegal immigration in the areas it's build but not overall. you see those flows going into deadlier areas, where people, for example, die of dehydration in the desert. oh they drown in the ocean. and one thing that's really being left out of this conversation is the fact that a majority of the drugs that come into the united states that president trump has talked about as being very deadly to american citizens. those are coming through the ports of entry. that's according to department of homeland security data as well as the drug enforcement administration. every day those thing, coming through the ports of entry through, mostly in private vehicles. one of the concerning things about the shutdown is that you see cbp officials at the ports

purl purcha being furloughed, and he can't pay his bills, his mortgage and there are incidents at the border recently president trump has used to stoke fear and anger about the -- and the need for the border wall. such it's a migrants approaching the fencing in san diego and a tear gas incident, but no answers exactly what happened at the border, for example, on new year's, because public affairs for customs and border protection and immigration and customs enforcement are furloughed and not answering questions. >> ben, one of the points the president tried to argue is he wants to declare a national emergency to fund his long-promised border wall. seems he's softening. a lot of people within his other

party flagged that as cause for concern. what are some legal challenges preventing him from issues that declaration? how much of softening op this position is legally based? you know, what motivates him is always a subject i try to stay away from, just like -- it's really not something i feel qualified to address. look, the -- the proposition that you can simply declare a state of emergency and do what you want here is a very dicey one legally. for a number of reasons. mostly factual, which is, there is evidently not a state of emergency. there's just no emergency on the border, and so a court would look -- probably somewhat askance at such a claim. moreover, the idea that this is an emergency to the extent there even is one that is a military

emergency rather than a civilian emergency is really even harder to justify, and so i have no doubt that the president's lawyers as they have studied this have impressed upon them that, look, you can stand up, and you can make the declaration, but we really can't promise you that an injunction wouldn't impede that right away, and so you, it could end up being very humiliating for the president if say he declares that the government reopens without the border wall funding and then the courts say, forget about it, sir. there's a lot of things on the border, but one of them isn't a national emergency. >> so let me play this four. this is senator lindsey graham, now suggesting in fact the legislative path to ending this is a dead end. watch. >> before he pulls the plug on the legislative option, and i think we're almost there, i would urge him to open up the

government for a short period of time. like three weeks. before he pulls the plug. see if we can get a deal. if we can't at the end of three weeks, all bets of off. see if you can do it by himself through the emergency powers. that's my recommendation, but i think the legislative path is just about shut oun. >> there a compromise for a deal on daca or something else acceptable to immigration activists? or is the opposition to the wall too strong for any compromise for democrats? >> i think it's definitely a possibility there's could be a compromise. the main issue, the fact democrats are very much opposed to the fact of the wall because of the fact it's been showing border barrier, not the most effective way to increase border security. as i said before, the ports of entry are really a weak point that is not currently considered by the administration.

we need more personnel at the points of entry according to customs and border protection i spoke to. here in san diego one of the most fortified but you see drugs going underground, through tunnels. we have one of the greatest number of tunnels underneath the fencing and, again, those weak points at the ports of entry that could potentially be considered as a compromise. >> kimberly, quickly. how do you explain the poll or statistic we showed that 8% more americans support the wall this year than last year, with everything that's happened? everything jean outlined. that the bears don't impact the illegal flow of drugs but push them to more dangerous parts of the border. >> it's a point because the president pushed this wall inclosingly. in the meeting where nancy pelosi and chuck schumer were in the white house and president trump brought the cameras in he

said the word "wall" 450 ti tim. as he moves forward, keeping the focus of other areas certainly off the democratic agenda. pushing that and it's having an effect. >> seems like it. thank you all very much. appreciate your time. coming up, the two explosive reports this weekend raising new questions about the relationship between president donald trump and his autocratic pal president vladimir putin. joining me live, asking about what she thinks democrats need to do about this president right now. now. no more excuses with cologuard. we all make excuses for the things we don't want to do. but when it comes to colon cancer screening... i'm not doin' that.

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all right. two big stories we're following today. latest news involving president trump and russia. the "washington post" reporting that the president has gone to great lengths to conceal details of his conversations with russian president vladimir putin, even from officials of his own administration that claim the president has denied, and it comes in the wake of a "new york times" report that the fbi started a counterintelligence investigation of the president after he fired fbi director james comey. there is also what is now the longest government shutdown in u.s. history.

the president maintaining that he's willing to talk to democrats, but still insisting on a border wall, that it has to be part of any potential deal. it's a lot to face if you're one of the new members of congress. diverse and energized group already making waves. alexandra zanalexandria ocasioo also a change in the 181-year-old rule against wearing head gear on the floor of the house. congress hmong ilhan omar makes her debut on the show. thanks for joining us. >> i wanted to start with the president and some of these reports we've been talking about

today. obviously making headlines. russia. i know it's only your first week but from everything you've seen and read do you believe this president has worked for russia's interest in opposition to america's? >> this just adds to the mounting evidence that this president has engaged in criminal activities that-types all the laws we have in place. we already know there has been incredible evidence that this president has made attempts to obstruct the russia investigation. so i am not surprised, but i am excited, relieved, of the opportunity of having democrats in the majority for them to have the opportunity to investigate the executive branch and make sure that we are following this

new development and taking action. >> yes. some of your colleagues including rashida tlaib has gone as far as calling for impeachment of the president. what are your thoughts whether or not you support that call? not necessarily in the colorful language she used but do you support the call for the impeachment of president trump at this stage? >> my sister and colleague rashida tlaib is certainly a little bit more colorful than i am, and more passionate, but i do know that there has been incredible evidence that makes us to believe that impeachment is inevitable, and i have said over and over again that we don't really need to start a process. that process is starting itself. and everything that we have seen from the day that this president has gotten inaugurated to today

tells us that this president's not going to be able to finish his term. >> do you believe that should happen before the mueller investigation concludes its findings or after? >> we have to really do our due diligence. so it is important for us to look into what that investigation produces. and make sure that we are really caring for the health and the well-being of this nation, and so we must follow due process. >> let me turn now to another important story. one affecting hundreds of thousands of americans. the government shutdown. in a recent interview you said that the government shouldn't be shut down over what you called trump's "fantasy wall." i'm curious to get your thoughts on what you would accept as a possible deal to reopen the government? is there anything that would include money for a wall? do you think it's worth trying to expand the conversation to address issues like daca? would you accept a barrier and a

wall of sorts in exchange for daca? >> so friday marked the longest shutdown of our nation's history, and, you know, hundreds of thousands of federal employees got a paycheck that had a zero on it. and so this manufactured crisis that has been designed to really distract us from the destruction and the criminality of this administration is one that seems like a bizarrely written script from "house of cards." the only difference is that this president and this administration is not as creative or strategic or entertaining as frank underwood. so i know that the democrats are interested in doing the job of making the government function. we spent the last week producing

legislation, passing it on the house floor and sending it to the republican majority in the senate to reopen our government. what is not negotiable for us is continuing holding the american people hostage for a wall. we are willing after the government is the reopened to come to the table and to discuss policies that are going to make our country safer, that is going to lead to having an immigration policy that is humane and just, but at this moment we have to stay focused. we are hearing from americans across this country. whether it is in my district in the fifth or it is in d.c. we know that right now there are going to it be 38 million americans who are struggling with food insecurity, because they won't have access to food

stamps. we know that the longer the shutdown continues our federal courts are going to run out of money. our federal prison guards are going to run out of money. other law enforcement officials in charge of keeping our country safe are going to need money to continue to do that. so right now there is no crisis, but soon there will be a crisis in this country that is caused by this president if we do not pressure the republican majority senate and this president and sign the bills we sent to reopen the government. >> final thoughts on one other bill that made-the-way through the senate on the senate agenda including provisions supporting state effort to force some companies and people to pledge to oppose efforts to boycott the state of israel. i know after your election you came out in support of boycott

efforts but had critics who say you were vague about that during the election. how do you respond to your critics and how would you vote if that bill made its way to the courts right now? >> i was not vague about that issue. i actually did get an opportunity to vote on a vegs of th verse of that bill and i voted no. it is unconstitutional. one of the strongest ideals of this nation is that people have an ability to freely express themselves, and i really have strong belief in the first amendment. i know that so many of the progresses that this nation has achieved came about because people were willing to speak up and ask for change, and so we cannot here in the united states say to people that they can't raise their voice, that they can't use the resources that

they have to oppose oppression wherever it might exist. >> all right. minnesota congresswoman ilhan omar, thank you for your time. hope it's not the last time you join us on this program. >> looking forward to coming back. thank you. >> thank you. coming up, real people, real consequences. the impact of the shutdown on workers across the country in a special edition of "we said they said." i'm really into this car,

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doing things differently. usually focus on the national media is covering a story. this week staying closer to home and looking how the government shutdown is affecting americans across our country. begin in cape canaveral, florida, one employee starting to worry how he will afford his wife's medical expenses. >> she's on a lot of medication and most of the time it's pretty expensive. so if i don't get back to work soon won't be able to have no insurance, and the expense of paying all that out of your pocket expense for the medication. >> and in indianapolis, another worker looking at ways to tie in her family's budget. >> have to make sure he has enough money to get to work. we have to make sure we have enough money to feed our an ma'animals and ourselves.

>> and the calling for an end to the shutdown. >> i just want to work. i just bought a brand new car and it's very frustrating. i don't know how i'm going to survive. please, open the government back up. thank you. >> in boone, iowa, one furloughed employee explains how far-reaching this shutdown is. >> 800,000 federal employees, that's just the 800,000 who work. how many wives, husbands, spouses, children, parents, how many people are associated with that 800,000 employees? >> and in boulder, colorado, how the shutdown affects far more people than those furloughed or working without pay. >> putting a new beer in the market, you need to get that label approved. right now they're not processing labels. not affecting beers currently in the market. a spring or summer seasonal coming up, that beer my not be able to go to the marketplace

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qatar and all eyes on an expected meeting with the saudi crown prince mohammed bin salman. andrea mitchell is traveling with the secretary of state and joins us live now from saudi arabia from riyadh. andrea good to have you with us. first let's talk about any indication whether this meeting will take place? are we expecting the secretary to press the crown prince on his role in the killing of jamal khashoggi? >> reporter: well, i think that the meeting will take place. we think that it will be tomorrow. most likely tomorrow morning but not confirmed yet so things could change. as to whether he will press him about khashoggi, he said he will bring up the issue, but he and the president have not bought into a universally accepted assessment by all of u.s. intelligence that mohamed bin salman, brown prince, you've

covered him. for all the reforms and economic plans he has and alliance with donald trump and particularly jared kushner, the president's son-in-law, that he was responsible. that he knew before, during and after the killing. they don't have the smoking gun. they don't have an intercept that says, kill khashoggi, but because of his relationship with all of the people in this killing party, especially one of his closest aides with whom he is still reportedly in close touch, this person -- they know of well that has traveled with him and gone with him to the united states and other foreign capitals and is not really under house arrest, according to a lot of intelligence sources. so it does seem that they have not really responded. certainly they've not responded to the world's dismay over this. president trump keeps giving them a pass. pompeo is trying to walk a fine line here, because the president's posture, and he's not been partially critical of

the crown prince but has been critical of saudi responsibility. >> andrea, let me asking about another topic that cast a large shad o our allies, and that is the secretary of state's messaging on syria, for all of our allies in the region. it doesn't seem that the administration has been all on the same page when it comes to reassuring our kurdish allies about what we're doing in syria and more importantly, what actually the way forward for us is in syria. what is the secretary of state saying to our allies in the region to assure them about that withdrawal. >> well, what he is saying is that united states is withdrawing, so he's not contradicting the president's rapid withdrawal. the president said it would be one month and later in december he said it would be up to four months. we see the early signs of some equipment, perhaps contractors coming out, but not the troops themselves. but what he has not explained and what no u.s. official has explained is how they can meet

their commitment to stay and make sure that iranian boots are out of syria without u.s. troops on the ground. and without protecting the best fighters in the field, the syrian kurds, whom we train, whom we assisted for our proxies there. so it does not add up. and he won't get a lot of arguments in parts of the region, because he's against -- so fiercely against iran, who is a common adversary, especially here in riyadh. but it does not make sense to a lot of other allies, and there are real concerns in jordan and certainly in turkey. >> nbc news chief foreign affairs correspondent, andrea mitchell, i appreciate you staying up late for us. i know you have an early start tomorrow morning, as well. thank you. joining me onset, "new york times" foreign correspondent and msnbc contributor and former white house senior director at state department, senior adviser. let me begin on the last point we were talking about with syria.

the u.s. seems to be sending mixed messaging about what is happening. john bolton going to israel and turkey. mike pompeo going to the gulf countries, trying assure them everything will happen in an orderly fashion. it doesn't seem this administration is clear on what exactly it's going to do in syria, does it? >> i would back that up further. right before president trump's tweet announcing this pullout, our allies were being reassured we were going to be there for the long haul. this is how they were planning the future months, based on what bolton's office had said. then there was a tweet and then the 30-day -- the 30-day idea. then another messaging saying no, we're going to have a slow pullout. and now all of the confusion we're seeing between pompeo and bolton. it seems to me it's the commander-in-chief who holds the reins here. and so that seems to be the most important message that is being sent to the world. and that message is that we are pulling out. the time line being unclear. >> let me get your thoughts on that, as well.

you had the secretary of state -- excuse me, you had the president make that announcement he's withdrawing from syria, invoking our veterans, even those who have lost their lives. it's one thing to say we entered the syria war illegally, it's another thing the way the u.s. is withdrawing now. are allies in the region going to have to go it alone? we have seen gulf countries starting to re-establish relationships, diplomatic relationships, with the syrian government. >> and that's what's problematic, because under president obama, there was a very strong effort to bring the international community together in negotiations against the assad regime, backed up by russia. and now it's making it very challenging for our allies to maintain the line against a dictator like assad. on top of that, russia and with all the collusion conversations we're having here in the united states, allies are very concerned about the united states being engaged internationally in favor of democracy and freedom of rights,

freedom of religion, freedom of the press. when we have perception of being so closely allied with the kremlin. on top of that, a speech given by the secretary of state recently that doesn't really lay out a sense of strategy or purpose or foreign policy rooted in american values and principles. it seems that all of our foreign policy towards the middle east right now is rooted in what's of interest, whether financial or personal, to donald trump. >> this administration has made iran a focal point of its policy in the region. there has been some talk, and i'm sure you saw the "wall street journal" report, that john bolton asked the pentagon to draw up a strike plan against iran following an attack on the green zone. >> sure. >> by an iranian-backed militia in iraq. how much of iran has become a focal point for this administration to try and carry out some operation. are they looking for an excuse? >> i think this is something that is very important to bolton. bolton came in with this

particular policy idea towards iran. i would make one caveat on the "wall street journal" article regarding the september 6 and 7 mortar strikes that came close to the u.s. embassy. to date, we're not sure which unit within the iraqi landscape carried this out. it's not abnormal when we believe that a foreign adversary has carried out a strike against one of our assets to begin looking at possible strike options. remember benghazi. in benghazi, we were -- the u.s. government was accused of having acted much too slowly. >> do you think they're simply just looking for an excuse overall when you look at all of the big picture policy towards iran? >> i don't know about that. >> okay. >> but regarding the mortar strike, i think that was not an unusual move for them to look for. >> your final thought about this. are we revisiting 2003 with a drummed up excuse to possibly do something against iran? >> i think so. that's john bolton.

if he's truly in charge of foreign policy, he has come in strongly demanding regime change in iraq. he tried to make that happen. we know how that turned out. and now he's doing the same with iran. that's part of why the united states under donald trump and john bolton has maintained such a strong, hard line alliance with the saudis, because they will be their key ally against iran in the region. >> we know john bolton has promised regime change as well as rudy guiliani. thank you both for your time. we'll be right back. your time we'll be right back. burning of diabetic nerve pain these feet raised a bouncing boy and climbed the ladder in the hardware business. but i couldn't bear my diabetic nerve pain any longer. so i talked to my doctor and he prescribed lyrica. lyrica may cause serious allergic reactions, suicidal thoughts or actions. tell your doctor right away if you have these, new or worse depression, unusual changes in mood or behavior, swelling, trouble breathing, rash, hives, blisters, muscle pain with fever, tired feeling, or blurry vision. common side effects: dizziness, sleepiness, weight gain, swelling of hands, legs, and feet. don't drink alcohol while taking lyrica. don't drive or use machinery until you

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all right. that will do it for me this week. join me back here next sunday at 4:00 p.m. reach out on social media at any time throughout the week. i'll hand it over now to reverend al sharpton and "politics nation." good evening, and welcome to "politics nation." tonight's lead, as most americans prep for the workweek ahead, more than 800,000 federal workers are wondering how they'll pay rent, buy food and stay warm. but as the longest government shutdown in american history heads into its fourth week, with no end in sight, president trump is adamant that congressional democrats are to blame, because they won't fund his border barrier. the