Allies will be here. But we begin with escalating tensions with iran after iran targeted and destroyed a u. S. Military aircraft. Just moments ago, congressional leaders left the white house after a meeting in the situation room with President Trump and Administration Officials about iran. The bipartisan meeting comes after iran shot down a u. S. Drone overnight in the persian gulf. Video of which the pentagon released just a short time ago. Iran claims the drone was within its borders. The u. S. Says it was in International Airspace. President trump tweeted earlier today, quote, iran made a very big mistake and he repeated it this afternoon in the oval office alongside canadian Prime Minister justin trudeau. Iran made a big mistake. This drone was in International Waters clearly. We have in all documented. Its documented scientifically, not just words. And they made a very bad mistake. How will we respond . Well find out. Are you along to go to war . You will find out. Obviously, you know, we are not going to be talking too much about it. You are going to find out. They made a very big mistake. The incident comes one week after two tankers were attacked in the gulf of oman. Attacks that the u. S. Has blamed on iran. And three days after the pentagon announced it was sending additional troops and military resources to the middle east. And, yet, President Trump who said he doesnt want a war with iran downplayed the severity of those tanker attacks telling Time Magazine they were, quote, very minor. He suggested the shooting down of the u. S. Drone mightve been an accident today. I find it hard to believe it was intentional if you want to know the truth. I think that it couldve been somebody who was loose and stupid that did it. With me now halle jackson, nbc news chief White House Correspondent and Kelly Odonnell who covers the white house and capitol hill for nbc news. Its good to see you both. Halle let me start with you since that meeting just wrapped up at the white house. What did we learn about the intentions of this administration when it comes to a response to this drone attack . Reporter right. A couple of things, kasie. And i think that what is just as important as what you heard as important as what he didnt say. What we didnt hear. The president did not rule out retaliatory military action. Hallie, we have to go to the minority leader, Chuck Schumer who is speaking live now at the capitol. Lets listen. And not answer any questions. Now, i told the president that these conflicts have a way of escalating. The president may not intend to go to war here, but we are worried that he and the Administration May bumble into a war. We told the room that the democratic position is that congressional approval must be required before funding any conflict in iran. One of the best ways to avoid bumbling into war, a war that nobody wants is to have a robust, open debate and for congress to have a real say. We learned that lesson in the runnerup to iraq. We have an amendment supported by every democrat to the ndaa in the senate thats led by senator udol that would require congressional approval of any funding for a conflict in iran. Its supported by all of us. We are asking leader mcconnell to do the right thing and give us a vote next week on the ndaa on that amendment. Thank you. Senator, was there any al qaeda . Okay. Kelly odonnell, let me go to you on what we just heard there from senator schumer. He is of course talking about the broad defense bill that funds the entire defense department. They want to basically attach something to it that would prevent use of funds for any conflicts with iran. They are saying that the aumf thats covered our war on terror should not apply in this situation. Whats your take on what senator schumer had to say there, and also your reporting on whats gone on, on the hill aall day . Well, we just also heard from Mitch Mcconnell, the Senate Majority leader when he returned, and he described the Trump Administration as taking a measured response. He did not go into the kind of detail we just heard from democratic senator Chuck Schumer. So, clearly, it is a waitandsee approach from Mitch Mcconnell who has resisted consideration of an authorization he used military force in the past. The last one, of course, after 9 11, and that military authorization has dealt with all of the conflict in iraq and afghanistan. And today we even saw Democratic Senators who were on the floor saying a new vote needs to take place. That is something that has happened before. And it has been unlikely it is an unpopular vote to take, as you know so well, kasie, to have to put although it is a congressional requirement of authorizing war in our constitution to, there have been the circumstances used from the older 2001 aumf, the authorization to use military force, that are argued are still in effect today. So, there is definitely concern from democrats about the president s sort of approach to this, what kind of guidance and counsel hes getting. At the same time, i spoke to Lindsay Graham today who had a much more aggressive tone. And what he was saying he would encourage the president to do, and that is to have some kind of response to avoid iran taking any further steps. Case . And, hallie, apologizes for interrupting you earlier, but to pick up there where kelly left off, it does seem as though certainly Chuck Schumer came back to the capitol thinking that some sort of action here may be imminent, enough that there is some urgency to try and prevent the administration from doing it without congress saying yes. Whats your take on what weve heard coming out of this meeting . Right. And the senator notably i think said we warned the president , im paraphrasing here, not to bumble into war, if you will. I will tell you, kasie, this is not a president who, through the whole of his administration, even on his campaign, wants to get involved in foreign conflicts. That said, it is a moment where hes going to have to make a decision here on how to respond, whether to issue some kind of retaliatory strike. If so, what does that look like or not. I think critically what you heard from President Trump was a person, a commander in chief, who is trying to portray strength and defend the u. S. Military in the face of what defense officials called this unprovoked attack. But seeming to suggest a way out for iran, pinning the blame not on the entire iranian government but on maybe a misguided general, if you will. As you played at the top of your show somebody loose or stupid who made a mistake, basically got out of line, got out of bounds. There is skepticism i think in some of the expert Analyst Community that that is a possibility. But it is the president seeming to give away to say, hey, this is how we want to turn down the temperature a little bit. That doesnt necessarily preclude the option of a military strike, especially what you just heard from senator schumer there. But i do think while there are allies of the president , lindsay dram, who are taking this more aggressive tone, there are others in the president s circle who are not. Now, ambassador john bolton, the National Security adviser is not necessarily one of them. But the president addressed this saying there are not people in this administration who are pushing me in the conflict. There are people pushing in the other direction as well. Thank you both as always for your reporting. Joining me now is colorado democratic senator Michael Bennet. He is a member of the Senate Intelligence committee and a 2020 president ial candidate. Senator, lets start with your hat as a member of the United States senate, and the intelligence committee. The u. S. Intelligence, i mean, the pentagon has released footage of this drone being shot down. They say it was over International Airspace. What, in your view, is the appropriat me. But we should take this very seriously. I mean, i think the likelihood that this is a mistake is remote. Iran knows how to provoke the rest of the world. They know how to provoke us. They are malevolent actors in that region. It is absolutely the case. And its the reason why i so much regret how the president is approaching this recklessly. I mean, he should never have torn up the iran deal to begin with, which was the Nuclear Agreement that president obama reached with iran. Now we are contending both his blowing up, the next day saying that he doesnt want regime change in iran. He is sending mixed signals to the whole region. So i think its very important for us to get the intelligence, to figure out what actually happened and then respond in a way that protects the National Security interests. What does that mean to you, though . Does that mean a military response . This seems if this was intentional, a military action. I dont want to say what i think it specifically is, but i think that we need to take countermeasures when Something Like this happens. Can you give us any more insight into countermeasures . Nope. Lets see where the intelligence leads us. How would president bennett handled this . He would have not blown up the nuclear deal to begin with and jeopardize the alliance that we built to keep Irans Nuclear program in a box. Now we have a situation where they are doing all the stuff iran does from yemen through southern iraq into syria and into southern lebanon. And funding proxies and terrorizing the region and potentially terrorizing us and has the potential now to back backstop it. They said earlier this week that they are going to start enriching uranium. Everybody said iran was a year away from breaking out to a Nuclear Weapon, the israelis, the u. S. , the chinese. Now what does the Trump Administration say they want . They want to get away from where iran is a year away from breaking out to a Nuclear Weapon it. Doesnt make any sense. I think we need to be a lot less reckless than he is. Im glad you raised the question of the enrichment of uranium. Lindsay graham who has often been on the side of advocating for stronger measures, said he gave the president on some advice about what to do on that particular topic. Take a look. So i talked to the president this morning. You need to tell the iranians that if they increase their Enrichment Program for uranium, that would be a provocative act toward the United States and israel, and all bets are off. Do you agree with senator graham . I think it would be a provocative act. But i think we have put the because of what donald trump has done, we have put the iranians in the drivers seat to decide how to provoke us. When we had the deal, which iran was complying with, and every Intelligence Agency in the world said they were complying with it, our allies said they were complying with it, we had agreement that they were behaving in a way which was moving them away from a Nuclear Weapon. When i voted for that deal, we didnt know whether iran would comply. By the time donald trump blew up the deal, we knew they were complying. So, lindsay can say what lindsay says, and the iranians will provoke us because thats what they do. But we need to be very careful that this doesnt escalate into something beyond our control. All right. So, weve spoken to you now to the extent we can, as the senator who serves on the intelligence committee. But i want to now talk to president ial candidate bennett more directly and of course the big Campaign Story today is surrounding joe biden, 2020 democrats are continuing to pile on him for comments that he made about working with segregationist lawmakers when he was in the senate. Why on earth would a democrat speak nostalgically of working with a segregationist . A guy working to be the head of our party, which is a significantly diverse and wonderous party doesnt understand or cant even knowledge that he made a mistake. I dont think that you should be bragging about working on a bipartisan basis with segregationist. I think as hes probably seen today, itd be best if he used different examples. The senators that he is speaking of with such adoration are individuals who made and built their reputation on segregation. The ku klux klan celebrated the election of one of them. So this is a very serious matter. In response, joe biden is not backing down. How does it feel that your democratic rivals are implicitly saying that you have issues talking about race . They know better. Theres not a racist bone in my body. Ive been involved in civil rights my whole career, period, period, period. Senator, should joe biden have made these remarks . Well, he should never have made these remarks, and he should never have said that cory booker should apologize to him. Its ridiculous. The other problem here is that he keeps saying that if Donald Trumps not president anymore that everything will kind of go back to normal, and we are just going to be able to Work Together in a bipartisan way, ignoring the incredible structural problems that face us as a national government. Weve had Supreme Court decisions like Citizens United that have captured washington and separated from the American People, decisions like shelby from the Supreme Court that have made it difficult for people to exercise their right to vote and the gerrymandering that the politicians themselves have done. These are structural problems that we have to address, i think, in order to get washington to Work Together. This isnt like the good old days where if everybody could just get along wed be able to move forward it. Just isnt built that way anymore. So is this a sign of joe biden being out of time with the times . I think he is out of time with the times at least when it comes to how this place works. But when they were in the white house, unfortunately for the last six years of the obama administration, that is when the Tea Party Really locked down the congress. And a minority of a minority tirinized the Democratic Party and immobilized the american government. Thats where we are sitting right now. By the way, that all happened before donald trump got here, and Mitch Mcconnell has been the brains behind all of that. We the American People have to find a way to close over that or beat that if we are going to make any progress. Thats why we havent made progress on health care. Thats why we havent made progress on reforming our democracy. You know, because Mitch Mcconnell, the chances of him doing that are no i mean, are less than his retiring to berkeley. [ laughter ] i dont think hes going to do that. I would be surprised. I would be very surprised. He would go there if he thought he could get more judges. Thats the one reason he would go. But in all seriousness, this is what we are contending with. And this is the American Peoples experiment in selfgovernment. This isnt Michael Bennets or casey hunts. Its the American People. Weve got to find a way to get it back and make it work. And in order to do that, we have to respond to the structural problems, the money thats in our politics, the gerrymandering of our politics. You have introduced legislation aimed at this. I have. I am a little surprised to hear you say that, you know, essentially the era of potential civility is over, as youve been somebody whos been a big advocate for that. And i am because i believe heres what i believe. I dont think i own the monopoly on wisdom, and i dont think Lindsay Graham has monopoly on wisdom. But we have been sent here on behalf of South Carolina and colorado. The founders created a system not based on the idea that we would agree with me other but based on the idea that we would disagree with each other, and out of those disagreements we would get more durable and more Imaginative Solutions than if you were just the king and got to decide everything or if lindsay were the king, or i were the king. Thats how its supposed to work, and it doesnt work that way anymore. That we do have to find a way to bring back. I represent a state thats a third republican, a third democratic and a third independent. And i believe i owe representation to everybody that i work for, whether they voted for me or whether they didnt. And most of them think that we should be figuring out a way to Work Together. I just dont think its a matter of personality. I think its a matter of structural assault on our democracy, a structural assault on the right of people to vote in this democracy, a structural now a trumpian assault on the rule of law. All of that stuff has to be contended with i think if we are going to make progress in this democracy. When we are dealing with stuff like iran and we are dealing with stuff like china, t