50 million american users, as the 11th hour gets underway on this thursday night. good evening, i m mehdi hassan in for stephanie ruhle. former president trump s legal panel is about to get more worse. one of his attorneys, evan corcoran, is about to do appear before an attorney is backing the classified documents, case as early as tomorrow. but corcoran is also involved in the other federal investigation involving trump. today, he appeared in federal court in d.c., as part of the team but subpoenaed to former vice president mike pence, these hearings focused on whether pence must testify about his dealings with trump, around january the 6th, the lawyers for trump appeared to be at odds with the former vice, nbc news puts, it they argue pence can t testify, because of executive privilege. pence argues he s immune from testifying for legal protection for lawmakers, he says he is acting for president of the senate as part of the electoral vote count, as opposed to part of t
Secretary of defense lloyd austin said President Biden ordered selfdefense drags onto facilities in Eastern Syria used by irans revolutionary guard. He added the strikes our response to attacks against u. S. Personnel in iraq and syria by iranianbacked militia groups. Joining me now on the phone to discuss, my colleague msnbc White House Correspondent peter alexander. Peter, what can you tell us about how biden order the strikes and why they were carried out today . Stephen, a first, i think we should put this in the contt of what weve been watching happen in the middle east. And as we heard from lloyd austin tonight, the u. S. Military action, these defensive strikes, if as you describe them, they do come amid the rising tensions in that region with the rising tension between israel and hamas, but also called these attacks and his words separate and distinct from the ongoing conflict between israel and hamas. They said they do not represent anything in the u. S. Approach of the confli
Militia groups. That began just over a week ago. Now, in those instances, militants used drones and rockets to attack multiple u. S. Installations in the region. The pentagon says those attacks left 21 americans with minor injuries, one u. S. Contractor died of a cardiac van. There is a precedent here. The u. S. Has launched similar airstrikes in syria, including last march, when another u. S. Contractor was killed by a Militia Drone in syria. Defense Secretary Austin described the overnights strikes as quote, selfdefense. And in his statement, called them separate and distinct from the israel hamas conflict. But of course, iran is a backer of hamas. All of it putting u. S. Forces in a delicate position, trying to protect personnel while avoiding a larger war in the middle east. As Secretary Austin put it in his statement, quote, if attacks by irans proxies against the u. S. Forces continue, we will not hesitate to take further necessary measures to protect our people. Lets go right no
because he is clearly, from where i m sitting, inciting violence against them, which is disgusting. katie bennett, thank you all for your time, we appreciate it. breaking news out of the middle east tonight, the u.s. and conducting new air strikes in syria, the pentagon says that an american contractor was killed and six other americans, including service members, or hurt in a drone strike in syria. the u.s. intelligence committee believes that the drone was of iranian origin. defense artery lloyd austin says that he on precision airstrikes tonight in response. in a statement, secretary austin says, quote, we will take all necessary measures to defend our people. coming up, ron desantis is forced to change his tune on the warm ukraine, could that have anything to do with some recent polling? not so good polling? juanita oliver and stewart stevens are here to discuss. and later in the show, the ceo of tiktok faces a grilling on capitol hill amid calls to ban the app in the united st
again, on its mind and is targeting the city again. alex? i still can t figure out why apartment buildings are targets of russian built missiles, other district error in the people there in ukraine. anyway, kelly, thank you for that. let s go to nbc s mike men leave at the white house for us. president zelenskyy says he said to meet with secretary of state anthony blinken as well as defense artery lloyd austin today. what can you tell us about this high stakes meeting? i m going to be clear about this, it has been hard for us to confirm details of this meeting. so, do you know anything? yeah, alex, i want to underscore that point. because we have to make clear that the white house, biden administration officials more broadly, have been unable to can form what s alive ski said publicly of this high delegation visiting ukraine. and there s good reason. remember, when we saw those pictures of uk prime minister boris johnson in kyiv the white house was questioned repeatedly about wheth