Mcconnell to holdry an impeachmt trial versus dismissing the case. Very unusual the leader of the senate, Mitch Mcconnell, has signed onto a resolution to dismiss the case. Dismissing is a coverup. Dismissing is a coverup. Booker exits. The democratic field has a major diversity gap after failing to make tomorrows debate stage. Now, i commit myself to the work. I cant wait to get back on the campaign trail and campaign as hard as i can for whoever is the eventual nominee and for candidates up and down the ballot. For now, i want to say thank you. We start with this breaking news from the royal family who have been holding a summit at the queens estate about the duke and duchess of sussex. Sir simmons, i know you just flew in this morning. What is going on . Keir simmons. We are learning the royal familye summit has now broken and a statement from the queen has been released. It looks as if kind of a Holding Pattern but headline the royal family have agreed the succe two will be able to spend time in canada. These are complex matters for my family to resolve and there is more work to be done. Her majesty says, there is a final decision to be reached in the coming days. The statement from the queen describes the conversation today as constructive discussions on the future of my grandson and his family. Goes on to say, andrea, the queen and her family, the royal family are entirely supportive of harry and meghans desire to create a new life as a young family. This is interesting. We would have preferred them to remain fulltime working memberi of the royal family. We respect and understand their wish to live a more independent life as a family, while remaining as a valued part of my family. She also says they have made clear they dont want to be reliant on public funds which means they dont want to rely on the british taxpayer, one of the crucial questions. I think the royal family would have felt they needed to make some statement after this unprecedented meeting with prince harry, Prince Charles, Prince William and the queen. There clearly is an awful lot more to be figured out here, what the queen is saying. As youre reading through the statement, there are clear signals here. Public funds is a big issue because the british taxpayers, means they will no longer rely on british taxpayers. Will they have security and who will pay for that . He does get 6 million, translated from pounds from Prince Charles funds and has a big inheritance from Princess Diana. They will be well off. The question, i guess, one of the bigs, issues with Princess Dianas terrible disaster, fatal crash, was she did not have British Security or she would have never been in that situation. Will they have security when they spend their time in canada, part of the commonwealth. Will they be getting without taxpayer money will there be restrictions and what restrictions will there be on their independent endeavors, in other words, what kind of commercial activities can they undertake becauseey there were some possible commercial activities thatsi might not hav fit with the royal brand, if you will. I would be amazed, honestly, if the if harry and meghan are not given some kind of security. The point you make is a good one, what happened with Princess Diana. A the queen has a long memory and doing this a long time, what happened with Princess Diana in that fatal car crash in paris, she no longer had security and people said that might not have happened if she did have security. Thats one aspect. I cant image the royal family agreeing for harry and meghan to go off for some type of protection. But where this money is spent on their new life, that is a really difficult one because of course the british taxpayer wants to know theyre getting value for money. Its not going to look good if harry and meghan are seen to be off having a good time at the expense of the british taxpayer. That is a difficult issue. Theyre still clearly trying to figure out is how you deal with the prospect of harry and meghan doing some kind of commercial deals,ia maybe meghan going bac to work as an actress or in fashion, how you deal with that, if it has implications for the royal brand, if you like. One final point, very important, too, harry and meghan have been on them of being quite political, friends with the obamas, their network of hollywood stars and other very famous people, particularly here in the u. S. Are often outspoken politically. That again has potential to cause problems for the royal family. What you cant have is a royal court in north america headed by harry and meghan as a rival to the royal court in london. These are the kind of things it doesnt take a day to work through and thats why this statement is clear theres a lot to do and havent figured it all out yet. There is a lot of reporting to be done what emotionally is connected to a lot of americans whether lived through the diana tragedy and their growing up and even those people in america who knew harry personally, and william a bit, and certainly knew diana, because she was traveling here so often is the relationship between the brothers. We will hear from you throughout the day and nightly news. Thank you so much. You bet. President Trumps NationalSecurity Team struggling to explain the evolving story on the socalled imminent threat that led to the killing of uranium general qassem soleimani. And a startling break from the president and security cabinet, defense secretary mark esberg disagreeing on the interview in face the nation. I can reveal i believe it would have been four embassies and ifo think probably baghdad already started. He didnt say a specific piece of evidence. I didnt see one with regard to four embassies. What im saying i shared the president s view, my expectation, they will go after our embassies. Joining me now, kristen, mark crowley and president obamas National SecurityCouncil Representative and also a former senator. Thank you all very much. Kristen, first to you. The president and iran. The evolving explanation and justification for the strike against soleimani, the fact iran isac also back on its heels aft the admission, the belated admission they were responsible for the accidental strike of the airliner. E right. Its been a political problem for the president as he deals with the Foreign Policy crisis as t relates to iran, the administration has been criticized for these shifting explanations why it was necessary to take out irans top general, soleimani. President trump initially saying it was because he posed an imminent threat, in recent days, giving more details what that threat looked like and remarkable details over the weekend of his cabinet member that didnt appear to back him up completely. Be whether or not terrorist soleimani was imminent, noting he spelled it with an e and then changed it or not and was my team in agreement. The answer to both is a strong yes. It doesnt really matter because of his horrible past. Really, andrea, in this tweet again putting the focus on his past. Thats something President Trump did last week from the white house when he addressed those strikes iran launched. This is yet another shifting explanation and will only add more pressure on the administration to declassify the intelligence behind the president s decision. The administration said theyre not prepared to do that because they dont want to risk exposing sources. We should point out all this comes as our colleague, carol lee, found out the president actually gave the green light to takee outsole sole seven month ago but only if an american were to be killed and he wanted to be the one to make the phone call. That new explanation raises questions yet again how imminent this threat really may have been. Lets share Richard Engels reporting this morning because some of us were told thursday night after confirmation the pentagon had taken outsole sole, the retaliatory air strike following that was in fact deliberately missed by american troops. What Richard Engel discovered when going to one of those air bases that had been hit, that was not the case. Our information had come from within the administration. Take a look what richard reported today. Reporter you can see, these were containers that had beds and airconditioning units where people were living at the time. One was knocked out, then the next andou the next, all completely destroyed by the blast waves and then incinerated in the fire. Take one more look here. If there had been dozens of american troops living here and they hadnt got the notice that they did, there had been a mass casualty event on this base, i think wed be in a very very different situation right now than we are. Michael crowley, its pretty extraordinary, the consequence of events. The reporting of the New York Times yesterday that gina haspel, along with pompeo were pushing hard in the retaliation for taking outsole sole rather. For taking out soleimani, rather. Thats right. Its becoming more and more clear soleimani was on the hit list in key figures of the administration a long time, even if the actual final authorization didnt come until after the contractor was killed innt iraq, now a couple weeks a or just under that. Something thats gone overlooked, mike pompeo actually sent a letter to soleimani when he was cia director in 2017 essentially saying you will be held directly responsible for any americans deaths i think was a form of a threat. They had been looking at soleimani a long time and were starting to see a picture that emerges that is a campaign that brings President Trump on board with this. As the excellent reporting by nbc showed, this was on the president s desk months ago, didnt quite get over the finish linee and didnt get it there t we saw what happened in the killing of this iranian leader. The u. S. Certainly had eyes on soleimani. Theres plenty of intelligence. The fact the president had not struck when the drone struck and not retaliated for others. In fact, my sources among the persian gulf countries theyre happy soleimani was taken down because they felt President Trump had displayed weakness similar to what they viewed as president obamas weakness intelligence syria. We heard from the president s defenders they had to take this strike to deter deterrence. It was the president that let it slip byha not acting in the aftermath of this provocation. As summarized this morning, the intelligence doesnt matter. The intelligence is the differencein between a lawful a unlawful operation and one appropriate versus profoundly reckless. We have seen this president feel free to disregard intelligence when it doesnt suit his prerogatives, whether russia, north korea or others. This is something different, the president appearing to fabricate out of whole cloth intelligence that didnt exist and were hearing the defense secretary fess up to that. The president has told 15,000 lies during this is presidency and not one more dangerous than this, the lie between war and peace and raises why the administration felt it was necessary to undertake this operation in the first place, if it wasnt for selfdefense, increasing disguised as the president wanting to appear tough and silence his critics and stymie benghazi. I want to go to iran because the tensions throughout iran continue on antigovernment protests and thousands taking to thein streets following the regimes finally accepting responsibility for taking down the airlines commercial flight killing 176 people. In iran, ali, whats next for protesters and how is the government responding . Reporter hi, andrea. There were huge protests last night in iran. Even caught the authorities here off guard. They spread across the country. They turned very violent. They were met by force by the Security Apparatus in this country and lots of slogans against the government and leadership in this country. It wasnt a bloodbath like we had seen in november but still violent and a lot of arrests. There were a lot of calls for people to come out again. Weve only seen gatherings at the universities. The streets and main thoroughfares in this country arere lined with riot police. As you know, coming out and protesting in iran has a high cost for demonstrators. Tonight seems calmer and i dont think we will see the melee we saw last night. The government is in a tricky position here. They came out with very contrite statements after they got caught lying about the plane and had to admit in theha face of irrefoughtble evidence they shot it out. The fact is nobody has resigned and taken the responsibility for that plane being downed. We havent seen any public funeralbl gatherings because th havent been allowed here at the universities. They want to hold vigils for the people that were killed, and those havent been allowed. Still, a lot of pentup emotion in this country. People want answers. Were seeing very unusual things happen here, andrea, an anchor for state tv resigned today after saying she was tired of lying for 13 years on air. Theres a major Film Festival due in iran next month which happens every year. Ye all the major directors and actors meant to attend that Film Festival have t boycotted it. A lot of questions remain how the authorities in this country are going to handle this situation thats really left 80 million iranians shocked and angry s over what happened, ove the downing of the plane, firstly because there were all sorts of reasons being made by the authorities here other than a missile hit that plane. Or when the truth did finally come out, it really really took this country by shock, and there was an outpouring of grief and anger evidenced from the scenes we saw last night. We saw a very very delicate situation in this country. Its unclear how things are going forward. Again, uncertainty in iran. Thank you so much for joining us today. I want to turn to william cone, former senator from maine and former house member and former secretary of defense for president en obama. A pleasure. Lets talk about the situation in iran, first of all, and then return to the situation back home. The revolutionary guard air force acknowledged finally they had shot it down, mistakenly. Initially tried to claim it had made an improper turn toward their base but it had not. It was a commercial flight path. From my best knowledge, and these things are imperfect, from talking to iranian sources, if you will, the political the foreign ministry, the political wing, not the revolutionary guard, were not aware of that, and had been lied to. Do you see a split here in the regime as well . Youve seen incredible pictures coming out ofle iran where protesters were deliberately not walking on flags of the u. S. And israel, which had been laid down on the ground for them to march across. Theres been so many splits, the mood swing, the antiamericanism that was so virulent after the killing of soleimani, and his martyrdom to them and fury when theyve been lied to. You have this litter at population. How do you explain it . The iranians are a monolithic group and you have an even prosperous sector of the iranian population that wants truth, lived under lies so many years now. They are expected to react to a lie so blatant. To say they were tired of listening to your lies. Ay you still have very strong elements of the irgc. You have this split. S the administration believes, the split, if they maximize the pressure more it will do one of two things, bend the iranians will to the president and bring them back to the table or break the iranians. The bet now is on either bend it or break it. Thats the policy that seems to be on part of the United States. I think that tends to discount the history of the iranian people. Theyve been around 3 or 4,000 years. It seems to me theyre not going to simply succumb to what the president is demanding. To these economic demands to lift sanctions, unless the u. S. Lifts sanctions, i cant see them returning to the table. I dont either. I think there will be other players coming in, president putin and others, perhaps the chinese, saying, lets not let this get out of hand and putin being the arbiter as he was in syria, saying i can help solve this. Let me ask you as cre taitors and consumers of against. Is there a scenario initially the ayatollah might have worried about soleimanis popularity and notim entirely unhappy about hi being taken out . Is that completely fictitious . Theres always an element whether he would have been surplanted by soleimani. I dont think thats the issue. Th he could be possibly the nt president to rouhani, and he opposed the nuclear deal. We have to speculate on that. The other issue in against whether our secretary of defense would not have received the same information President Trump did about thetr four embassies. I find it unbelievable any secretary of defense would not beef reading from the same intelligence given to the president calling upon the Defense Department to take action. Isnt it clear the president was extrapolating and other members of the National Security team were trained to cover his tracks, whereas mark esper was trying to tell the truth . He committed, i think the ultimate sin and went close to the truth. It is inconceivable the secretary of defense would have seen Something Like that. Not true the secretary of defense receives less intelligence, he receives more detailedec against. If there were a threat to four, five embassies, the secretary of defense would have seen it. Ee one of the things, kristen welker, we have been reporting, we tracked every Embassy Alert that went to embassy staff, not the military, but embassy personnel. There were none, not at three or four. Theres a 1990 law that says if youre going to alert an embassy you have to alert the populous as well, the travelers, others around the region. Reporter thats one of the revelations, that is problematic for this president and this administration. Thats why, i think, you will see the pressure mount on him to give proof why he thought this was a necessary attack. Remember, members of congress, both the house and senate, were briefed last week by Sen