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Brangham theyre still searching tonight for the man behind the latest terror in turkey. He left 39 dead and nearly 70 wounded, and a claim of responsibility came today, even as police said theyre getting closer to identifying the suspect. Its the clearest look yet at the alleged gunman who attacked the reina club early new years morning. Turkish Officials Say the unnamed suspect rained bullets and explosives on holiday revelers. The deputy Prime Minister said the investigation is progressing. translated information about the fingerprints and basic appearance of the terrorist have been found. We hope that we will find not only the terrorist but also his connections and those who gave m support inside and outside the club. Brangham hours earlier, the Islamic State group claimed responsibility, and called the gunman a heroic soldier of the caliphate. The statement said the blood of muslims that is being shed by turkeys air strikes and artillery shelling will turn into fire on its territories. Turkey has been a key member of the air campaign against isis and has sent troops into syria in part to fight the group. Still, turkeys military vowed to continue strikes on Islamic State fighters. And, it released new footage of air raids on isis positions in syria. Meanwhile, in istanbul, survivors of the nightclub attack painted a more detailed picture of the mayhem that occurred early sunday. translated as soon as he entered the club he started firing and he didnt stop. He fired nonstop for 20 minutes at least. We thought that there were several of them because it just didnt stop. Brangham the site is a popular attraction for tourists, and the majority of the victims were foreignborn. One american citizen was wounded in the attack but returned home today. It was the latest in a string of bloody incidents and security lapses to take place on turkish soil. Just two weeks ago, a gunman assassinated the russian ambassador. And in june, three suicide bombers struck istanbuls ataturk airport, killing 45 people. That attack was also blamed on isis. In the days other news, the new year is off to a deadly start in iraq. A suicide bomber detonated a truck bomb today at a busy baghdad market, killing at least 36 people. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility. The bomber pretended to be looking to hire day laborers and then set off the explosion. In addition to the dead, 52 people were wounded. Later, appearing with the visiting president of france, iraqi Prime MinisterHaider Al Abadi vowed to beat isis. translated i ask the Security Forces and the iraqi people to be alert, the terrorists are again attacking he civilians. I promise the iraqi people and the french president and all the countries suffering attacks by the Islamic State group that we are fighting to finish them. Brangham this was the third attack claimed by isis in as many days in and around baghdad. 60 miles to the north, in samarra, gunmen wearing suicide vests attacked police stations late today, killing at least seven officers. In brazil, a riot at a prison left at least 60 inmates dead. There were chaotic scenes outside the prison in northern amazonas state as the killings erupted inside. Authorities said several of the inmates were beheaded or dismembered. Others escaped. Officials blamed a fight between members of two crime gangs for the attacks. Back in this country, 2016 ended as one of the most violent years ever in chicago. The city saw 762 homicides, the most in two decades. Thats more than new york and los angeles combined. And, there were 1,100 more shooting incidents in 2016 than the year before. President elect trump tweeted his reaction to these numbers, saying if mayor rahm emanuel cant do it, he must ask for federal help in another series of tweets, the president elect also dismissed those who questioned whether hed win last fall. Trump said he thought hed easily get more than the 270 electoral votes needed. He ended up with 304. Hillary clinton won the popular vote by nearly 2. 9 million. Also today, trump Spokesman Sean Spicer played down findings about russian hacking. He told fox news there is zero evidence that they influenced the election. Still to come on the newshour, turkeys struggle to stop an onslaught of terror attacks. A new year and a new president. Looking ahead to politics in 2017. Plus, looking back on the president s effort to conserve millions of acres of land and water. Brangham we return to turkey and this weekends deadly attack in istanbul. Whats behind that terror incident and the recent string of attacks that have taken place in that country over the past year. We drill down on the terror in turkey with bulent aliriza, who directs the turkey project at the center for strategic and international studies. Welcome. I. S. I. S. Has claimed responsibility for this latest attack on new years eve. Do you think the evidence will point that theyre the perpetrators . We have a statement by i. S. I. S. That in fact it was responsible for this outrage in istanbul. Its actually the first time i. S. I. S. Claimed responsibility for terrorist acts in turkey, although a number of act of terrorism have been attributed to i. S. I. S. The method of operation by the gunman, apparently a single gunman involved, very much suggests this is i. S. I. S. And, as i said, there is a statement by i. S. I. S. That it did it. Also, its important to note on november 2 soon after the assault on mosul began, baghdady, the leaders of i. S. I. S. , made a Statement Part of which was devoted to turkey in which he asked his followers to move against turkey because turkey had become, as he called it, an appos at a time state and aappostate state. Brangham for those who havent followed so closely, can you explain the twofront attack on turkey . Turkey has been grappling with kurdish separatist terrorism all the way back to 1984. There have been efforts to solve the problem, the kurdish problem within turkey, but they essentially collapsed in 2015. Since then, turkey has been reengaged in fighting against the p. K. K. , and more recently its been challenged by i. S. I. S. Either of these challenges would be daunting for any state around the world, the scourge of terrorism bedevils the entire world, but for a country to have to fight two very potent terrorist organizations within its borders, within its capital city, within its most important city istanbul, the way its been forced to during the past 14, 18 months, is frankly very, very difficult. Brangham how has erdogan been responding to these attacks thus far . Well, he and his ministers have been saying the Security Forces will actually defeat terrorism. Thats a daunting task for any state around the world. Even the u. S. , with all the effort that is made to deal with terrorism, has not gotten to the position where it says the terrorist threat to the u. S. Is over. Now, in turkeys case, the fact that its to the north of two ongoing wars in syria and iraq, where some of the terrorists who are actually also intent on harming turkey, are active, makes it so much more difficult for turkey to try to solve the problem within its borders, given the fact, as i said, that it comes from without. Brangham erdogan is going through this lengthyhpurge of officers up and down the government he argues were involved in this recent coup attempt. How does that complicate their fight against terrorism within their own borders . It complicates it immensely because tweelg dealing with the two threats was difficult enough, then a failed coup attempt on july 15th. The government moved against the followers of the religious anything that was involved in this. Brangham the religious figure in the u. S. Erdogan argues was behind the coup. And turkey asked for his extradition and it has not happened and thats why there is tension between ankara and washington, currently. There has been a purge. The attention of the government has been directed at rooting out of the system it believes to be involved or is somehow implicated. All are simple thect to the coup. Parallel to that, you have the twin threats, the unprecedented twin threats from i. S. I. S. And the p. K. K. , and that is taxing the capabilities of the turkish state. Brangham turkey is also involved in some of the cease fire going on in syria. Is there any sense that you have that if things were to calm down and the the cease fire were to hold, that that might ease pressure on turkey . It could, but the turkish position which is now coordinated with russia is predicated on turkeys ability to persuade the opposition fighters, many of whom turkey has been backing for the past five years, to essentially lay down their guns and to accept Bashar Alassad as, at least for the foreseeable future, as the president of syria, and that clearly will be difficult for some of the opposition groups to accept, and the ability of turkey and russia to actually hold the cease fire and bring lasting peace to syria is something that i have great doubts about. Brangham quickly, we obviously have a new administration coming in. Do you think the Trump Administration will change the calculus for him . There will be a different emphasis once the president elect takes office. There has been tension between president erdogan and obama. The u. S. Turkish relationship has been difficult. There is hope with the new administration but its unclear the way the new administration will go with turkey or the rest of the world. Brangham bulent aliriza, thank you for being here. Thank you. Brangham the new Congress Starts work this week, and republicans will have majorities in the house and senate. And very soon theyll have a republican president. So whats high on the g. O. P. s agenda . Its politics monday, im joined as always by amy walter of the Cook Political Report and tamara keith of npr. And this week they are joined by our own lisa desjardins. Happy new year, welcome to you all. Happy new year. Brangham lisa, what is high on the g. O. P. s list . Dismantling the eight years of the Obama Presidency and will start right away with actions that lead toward the repeal to have the Affordable Care act. Its complicated. In tend, a threestep process, but theyll start with the process this week with votes tuesday, wednesday, and set up a process where they can start immediately rolling back some obama relations. Think about the environment in particular. Then there will be potentially a drawnout fight over some of these cabinet nominees. Brangham how will that look . No one even quite knows. Ever since the obamacare passed, republicans campaigned on dismantling it. Yet here we are with the Republican Congress about to come in, the republican president about to come in. They have a dismantling plan but not a how to replace it plan. The repeal part, not the replace part down, which is where all of the real action, when lisa talks about how complicated it is, in replacing it. Ill tell you in talking with voters, even post election, im sure you saw this during campaign, the frustration that voters have about obamacare especially in the last week before the election when notices went out that their premiums were rising is cost. Very simply. I think for republicans, the danger is that, at the end of the day, if they repeal this and do not replace it with something that helps to bring costs down, that they are then going to get blamed for not fixing something that they also didnt feel particularly good about what obama did to it. Brangham right. And Something Like 43 of americans actually support the Affordable Care act. Now, thats obviously not a majority of americans, but thats 43 of people who you really dont want to upset. Also, there are Something Like 20 Million People who have gotten Health Insurance as a result of the Affordable Care act. There are people who have gotten expanded medicaid, even in republican states, and youve seen some republican senators say things like, well, lets not rush to do that just yet, you know, we need to find something for these people whove gotten Health Coverage who didnt have it. The most unpopular parts of obamacare also come with popular parts of the law that arent necessarily advertised as part of the Affordable Care act or things that people realize are part of it, and repeal gets rid of all those things, which is why there is a lot of fuzzness about replace or whether they would phase in the repeal or the idea they could be pushed back pas past the next president ial election. Election. Brangham and they could repeal it on paper. There are three steps. In this whole conversation, its the time continuum problem with how they do this because there are people who want the repeal to happen right away. The truth is the system like obamacare or any Healthcare System tames a lot of time, and many republicans say we want to take our time figuring out the replacement. Many other republicans say, no, we have to do it in this first year for a couple of reasons, one is the pressure on them and, second, they know, the first year of the new president is one of the only times in recent history that you can get anything done. Brangham lets move to trumps nominees. Hes put forward almost all his nominees for cabinet positions. Democrats will have to pick which fights they want here. Who do you think will stand out as a place for democrats to hold ground . They will pick on everybody, with the democratic leadership saying well pick eight people and spend all our time and energy poking at them look, they dont have the votes to deny his cabinet picks. What they can do is try to slowwalk the process, make it painful. The question is is there some sort of backlash to that. Is the American Public going to be interested in seeing a food fight on capitol hill when they said what we voted for was to see Congress Move ahead, the American Public is tired of watching the dysfunction in washington. At the same time, you have a bunch of democrats who no longer have any leadership position, they dont control the house or congress, totally in the wilderness without an obvious leader, they need to have something to cling to and to give to their base to fire them up and keep them motivated. These fights could be very good for the base. They could make the base feel good. You have somebody like Steve Mnuchin for treasury who headed a bank, helped take over a bank that had failed, and that bank ultimately foreclosed on thousands of homes. Lots of banks were foreclosing on thousands of peoples homes. Brangham right. Ut you have the potential for Senate Democrats to bring out people who lost their homes because of that bank that he headed. They can make it very painful. Democrats can use this to pry to poke some holes in the idea of a donald trump as populist. Thats why they are particularly interested in these very, very wealthy people that trump has nominated. Brangham billionaires. Yes. The democrats are pushing to get tax returns for all these nominees. They probably wont get them. Thats not a requirement and wasnt required to have the obama nominees, republicans like to point out. So democrats are holding these nominees to a hiring standard than the obama nominees. But these are billionaires, they say, complicated financial dialings. Rex tillerson, nominee for secretary of state, we want to know his exact relationship with russia. The question, like amy is saying, how many of these battles do they pick, what do they use with the public where a new president with the wind at his back is coming in by choosing now eight of these battles. Brangham but you dont think anyone will be derailed . No, but tom price is somebody to watch because the wall street journal reported he invested in healthcare stocks while writing healthcare law. Thats something to watch. Lisa raise as good point which is there is always something unexpected, surprises. We can recall 1992 and the socalled nanny problem. His outbreak of nanny problems. And remember this was a president elect who wasnt necessarily expecting to win, and people around him not necessarily expecting him h to win. A lot of these people have been moved quickly through this process. Maybe not a whole lot of vetting had been done early enough, and when the vetting comes out in public, it is a lot messier. Question . One of the things trump talked about soon after the election was he wanted to put forward a big Infrastructure Spending plan, and president obama tried the same thing right after he was elected and the g. O. P. Had no appetite for it at the time. Do you think, tam, that there is going to be a change of heart now, now that its trump in the drivers seat and he wants to spend a lot of money, are they interested . Not necessarily. Just because donald trump campaigned on it doesnt mean hes going to get open arms from congress. Even Mitch Mcconnell said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa you know, this is not a frontburner issue for a lot of republicans in congress. Its