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Don Lemon Tonight

U.S. Targets Baghdad's Airport; U.S. Embassies on Full Alert; President Trump Ordered Strike At Baghdad Airport That Killed Senior Iranian Military Official, General Qasem Soleimani; Interview With Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) About President Trump's Order On The Strike At Baghdad's Airport; All Eyes On McConnell As Senate Returns Friday. Aired 10-11p ET

Aired January 02, 2020 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[22:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Very busy night and news continues. I want to turn things over to my friend, Victor Blackwell, and CNN TONIGHT. Victor?

This is CNN breaking news.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Victor Blackwell sitting in for Don Lemon.

Our breaking news tonight is huge. A rocket attack on the Baghdad airport kills Iran's most revered military leader and a senior official in Iraq's paramilitary forces. Now the Pentagon announced tonight that the attack was a U.S. air strike.

Here's the statement. "At the direction of the president, the U.S. military has taken decisive defensive action to protect U.S. personnel abroad by killing Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, a U.S. designated foreign terrorist organization.

Now General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region. General Soleimani and his Quds Force were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more. He orchestrated attacks on coalition bases in Iraq over the last several months including the attack on December 27th, culminating in the death and wounding of additional American and Iraqi personnel.

General Soleimani also approved the attacks on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad that took place this week. The strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans. The United States will continue to take all necessary action to protect our people and our interests wherever they are around the world."

Now this from the president a few moments ago. He tweeted just an image of an American flag. We're covering every aspect of this story from Iraq to Washington.

CNN's Arwa Damon is in Baghdad. Ryan Browne is at the Pentagon. Jim Sciutto is here in New York. Boris Sanchez is with the president in Florida. Let's start here with Jim. You've been following this all night. What are your sources telling you?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: I think Americans have to understand how significant a figure Soleimani was in Iran. Arguably, the second most powerful man in all of Iran after the supreme leader.

From the American perspective, and rightly so, a terrorist leader. Responsible for the deaths of hundreds of U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Iran shipped in highly sophisticated IEDs responsible for so many of the deaths of U.S. troops there.

In Iran, he is seen as a revered military leader. There were some in Iran who thought he might be the next leader of Iran. So, he had enormous respect and position there. That gets at both his power, in terms of orchestrating these attacks against Americans around the region, but it also gets at how Iran is going to see this and how Iran may very well react to this in terms of retaliation.

Speaking with officials who cover the region for the Pentagon tonight, a key concern are U.S. diplomats and soldiers deployed not just in Iraq but around the region.

The Quds Force that Soleimani led, it's a terrorist organization with positions and abilities and capabilities around the world. So not just U.S. diplomats and soldiers deployed in Iraq but elsewhere.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

SCIUTTO: It could be vulnerable tonight in terms of retaliation. So, hugely significant for Iran. Hugely significant for eliminating a leader responsible for enormous number of U.S. deaths but also hugely significant because we can expect as a country, as Americans, retaliation here, escalation. That should be a major concern.

BLACKWELL: And that's the point, you're going to be with us all night, that I want to come back to, that a line in the statement in which we hear that this was an intent to deter future attacks and how realistic that will be.

Let's go to Arwa now in Baghdad. What are you hearing on the ground about this shelling as it's described, how it happened, what happened, and what we know at this hour?

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Victor, it's being better described as a precision targeting of what it would seem to be from the images that we're seeing two vehicles who were hit just on the outskirts of Baghdad's International Airport.

When these reports first came out it was initially reported as being three Katusha rockets. Now we know that that convoy contained not just Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force, but also a very prominent commander here, a member of what's known as Iraq's popular mobilization force. This is a predominantly Shia paramilitary force.

The leader of Kata'ib Hezbollah, that, Victor, is the very same group that the U.S. had targeted on Sunday, and it is members of, or supporters of, this paramilitary force who were the protesters who were outside of the U.S. embassy, who were attempting to scale those walls.

[22:05:00]

I think one of the many reasons why what has unfolded is so shocking to a certain degree is that it seemed as if at least on a very temporary, perhaps, superficial level, the situation had reached a standstill in the sense that those protesters had withdrawn, they were going to be allowing the Iraqi parliament time to go through the motions that it needed to go through to begin debating a bill about the potential U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq.

This targeting of Qasem Soleimani and of the head of Kata'ib Hezbollah really puts us right now, Victor, in uncharted territory.

BLACKWELL: And let's take that now to Ryan Browne at the Pentagon. Uncharted territory, we hear from Arwa Damon. What are you hearing from your sources at the Pentagon and what they're expecting, I think what we've heard from Jim and from Arwa, there will likely be some retaliation. What are you hearing about the preparation for that?

RYAN BROWNE, CNN PENTAGON REPORTER: Well, it's interesting, Victor, I think before this strike took place, the Pentagon had been moving significant new military resources into the region.

At the time, they were saying it was because of these militia groups attempting to penetrate the outer perimeter of the embassy in Baghdad, but now those forces are also in place to respond to any potential crisis.

I mean, that included more troops and marines to the embassy, itself, but also a battalion of paratroopers to neighboring Kuwait with another brigade on standby. The U.S. had been anticipating some kind of activity by Iran for some time. The threat levels had been raised in recent weeks.

The U.S. blamed Iran for some 11 rocket attacks on U.S. bases so they've been moving a lot of forces into the region to defend against Iranian threats and, again, those forces would likely be called upon if there is any kind of retaliation.

But interesting enough earlier today, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper kind of laid out some of the rationale behind this strike without talking about the strike, itself. He said, he blamed Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for these attacks on U.S. military facilities, for the demonstrations at the embassy, and he said that the U.S. would not wait, that they would take preemptive action if they detected a threat saying the game had changed.

Now, he didn't reference the Soleimani strike specifically but it's clear now this strike very much fits in with that new strategy by the U.S.

BLACKWELL: Let's go now to Kaitlan traveling with the president, she's in Florida. Pentagon statement says this was specifically at the direction of the president. The president tweeted just an American flag moments ago. What are you hearing from the White House?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so far, that's the only thing we've heard from President Trump. He's been silent on this ever since and we just heard from the White House official who said that we should not expect any statement from them tonight, instead, they're simply referring us to this statement from the Pentagon instead.

Now, as far as what the president is doing, we know that he's at his club there behind me at Mar-a-Lago. He's been there for several hours. He briefly went to his golf course earlier today for a few hours. Where CNN cameras saw him out on the golf course. Though it's unclear who the president was with. And he returned about five o'clock Eastern Time.

Now, since then we know the president has gone to dinner, but it's unclear what his other activities have been. As far as who's around him, we know there have been several White House officials here, but one notable one is the national security adviser.

Robert O'Brien who had been here earlier briefly this week when he came down on Sunday with the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the Defense Secretary Mark Esper. That's when they talked about how they briefed the president on those strikes the United States had carried out earlier this week.

They only spoke with reporters for about three minutes and they didn't take any questions and then they got back on a flight about two hours later and left. Only being on the ground here for about three hours total.

Well, O'Brien has since returned. We know the defense secretary is not on property tonight but O'Brien is here with the president and we're essentially still waiting to see what else we hear from them while watching the reaction come in to this, seeing the president's allies praise this saying that they believe it was a measured response, it was proportionate to what the -- what Iran has done.

There are provocations over the last several months. While you're also seeing some Democrats and critics of the president come out and question this decision by the United States, which, of course, we should note in this statement, it does say this was done at the direction of President Trump.

BLACKWELL: Jim, the supporters of the president calling this a proportionate response. Everyone we've spoken with calls this a dramatic escalation. Put into context what we're hearing from the president's supporters.

SCIUTTO: Well, listen, ultimately that will be up to Iran, right? Iran is going to decide how to retaliate here. Keep in mind, Americans at home need to be prepared tonight for an escalating conflict with Iran, and arguably we've already been in that for a number of months.

Iran has attacked tankers. The Persian Gulf. It shot down a U.S. drone, you'll remember. It attacked Saudi oil facilities. It orchestrated a protest around the U.S. embassy there and attack on the U.S. embassy and the U.S. blames Iran for a strike that killed U.S. contractor --

[22:10:04]

BLACKWELL: Yes.

SCIUTTO: -- which led to air strikes against Iranian forces this past weekend. So already we've been in something of a simmering conflict with the exchange of military action. This raises it significantly in light of the fact that you have killed a senior Iranian official here who America views as a terrorist. Enormous amount of evidence, he's guilty of terrorist attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, killing hundreds.

Iran, though, views him as a significant official. In their leadership. So, they will feel the need to respond. The question is what they consider proportionate at this point.

And as I said earlier, the Quds Force that he led is expert at doling out this kind of violence and not just in the country such as Iraq against military targets, but, sadly, outside of Iraq around the region and around the world against soft targets.

And we should note that Soleimani in the past has publicly threatened attacks on the U.S. homeland as well, so a real concern is to how Iran, again, it will be up to Iran to decide what in their view they consider proportionate.

BLACKWELL: And back to you, Arwa, there in Baghdad. As Jim says that this now, the next step would be up to Iran, but what are we hearing from the Iraqis and the position that this puts them in after the death of someone who has had this profile for decades now, and what their response will be as Iran decides what comes next.

DAMON: Well, we haven't yet heard anything official from the Iraqi government, but one can just imagine that they are shocked right now and probably trying to figure out exactly how they're going to respond to this.

Remember, Baghdad and Tehran are fairly close. Whether it's economically or politically, they share a very long border. The Iranian government does have a lot of influence here, whether it's through politics or through the military.

When we talk about this popular mobilization force, which is made up of these former Shia militias who did cut their teeth, many of them, and gained their battlefield experience during the time of the U.S.- led occupation of Iraq when they were actively fighting American forces, when they were developing this sophisticated technology to create even bigger and better bombs to be able to pierce through U.S. armor, Baghdad has very often found itself in a very tenuous position especially as it ends up being stuck between Washington and Tehran. This situation that the Iraqi government is going to find itself in

right now as it tries to figure out how it's going to navigate all of this, they've never been here before. Iraq has never been here before.

The Iranians, yes. The reaction to this is going to be in their court and there is very little doubt in anyone's mind that there is going to be some sort of a reaction and the question now is, where is this reaction going to really unfold?

They do have a number of options on the table. They do have a number of very, very powerful proxies, not just here in Iraq but also in countries like Lebanon and elsewhere, and the U.S. right now, even though the president is saying this was meant to keep America safer, is going to find itself in potentially a very vulnerable position. Not to mention, of course, the effect that this is going to have on the relationship between Washington and Baghdad.

BLACKWELL: Yes. Ryan, to you at the Pentagon, the president has told his supporters at rallies, often, that the U.S. is getting out of the Middle East. Despite the numbers showing the increases across the region of additional personnel and what was announced just a couple days ago. What does this mean for military personnel there in the region?

BROWNE: Well, I think as several people have mentioned, I think the military will be bracing for some kind of response, but I think they had been braced for some time given the increased tensions, you know, earlier today, the Pentagon talked about the 11 rocket attacks on various U.S. military installations throughout Iraq, attacks that the Pentagon said was increasing in sophistication and intensity with the intent to kill.

So, from -- in some ways the U.S. military has been in a braced position for Iranian attacks for some time, moving those additional forces into the region to help bolster that response.

But, you know, again, this is definitely a step of escalation in terms of the U.S. as Jim mentions some of these Iranian provocations in the view of the United States, the attacks on the tankers, the attack on the Saudi oil facilities, the shooting down of a U.S. drone, none merited a U.S. military response, but this rocket attack that killed the American contractor, the embassy situation, you're now seeing the U.S. military directed by President Trump to carry out responses.

[22:15:03]

So, it appears that Tehran, at least, has found America's red line for military action right now.

BLACKWELL: All right. Jim staying with us as we continue the report. We got much more on the breaking news tonight. The Pentagon says President Trump ordered the strike on the Baghdad airport that killed a senior Iranian military official. Breaking news continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BLACKWELL: Back now with our breaking news out of Baghdad. The Pentagon says President Trump ordered the strike at Baghdad's airport that killed a senior Iranian military official, General Qasem Soleimani.

Joining me now, Fareed Zakaria, Jim Sciutto is back with us as well. Fareed, you're joining the conversation. First, your reaction to this breaking news tonight.

[22:19:58]

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST: Well, first of all, this is big. This is about as big of political figure in Iran as you can imagine. Leaving aside Khomeini, the supreme leader, and maybe the president, he's the most important person in Iran. He was responsible for Iran's external strategy.

The regional strategy that gave Iran this enormous, somewhat shadowy influence of countries like Lebanon, Syria, Yemen. He is the, think of the French foreign legion, if you will, he was the guy in charge of it. Much loved by the troops.

Obviously from an American point of view a very bad guy. I think the State Department estimates that he's responsible for six -- the deaths of 600 or 700 American troops. He also organized a lot of the stuff in Syria that killed lots and lots of civilians.

So, there's no question that from the point of view of getting a bad guy, this is -- this was justified morally, but it is huge politically, geopolitically, because the Iranians will probably feel that they have to respond.

It also places the Iraqi government in a very precarious position because Iraq, remember, has always had to balance its two patrons, the United States which we always think about but the Iranians who have also been very supportive of this Iraqi government and now this, in a way, explodes that, it makes them choose.

I'm reading reports, for example, that talk about there's anger in Iraq because people think Iraqi government intelligence was provided to the Americans which is almost certainly true which is what made this strike possible.

If that's the case, that suggests the government of Iraq essentially helped to kill one of Iran's most important figures and, remember, Iran is also a patron. So, this is going to get very messy very fast.

BLACKWELL: And this is going to get -- when you say very fast, we could be talking by morning we're going to see a different footing there in Iraq.

ZAKARIA: Well, I think that the Iraqis are under pressure instantly, but the Iranians typically take their time, figure out how they want to respond, but they have a lot of opportunities in the area.

The thing we have to remember is, the United States has embassies all over the world.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

ZAKARIA: Has consulates all over the world. Think of Benghazi. You know, there's places like Lebanon, I bet you U.S. embassies, consulates, are under full alert in all of these places.

And given that this is all going to get so messy so fast, you wonder what, exactly, the objective is because President Trump campaigned as the guy who wanted to get us out of the Middle East. He kept talking about how it's not worth being in there, we spend all this money, we have all these troops in there, and yet, he's the one who keeps ratcheting up the pressure.

The Iranians, following the Iran nuclear deal, tensions were actually quite manageable in the region with Iran. Trump explodes the nuclear deal, puts more pressure on the Iranians, designates the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization. Just a huge push and not surprisingly, the Iranians pushed back in the ways that they can. They shot down a drone. They attacked Saudi oil facilities.

BLACKWELL: Sure.

ZAKARIA: They attacked, you know, American contractors. And now we've escalated, so you can see it's kind of we're ratcheting up. But I'm not quite sure why for a president who said his whole objective was to get us out of --

(CROSSTALK)

BLACKWELL: Get out of the Middle East. Yes. How this fit into a larger strategy toward Iran? We were talking to in the break about the statement released from the Pentagon.

I read it at the top of the broadcast, in which they point out that they believe Soleimani had his hand in the December 27th attack, also the attack on the embassy, but that General Soleimani, as the Pentagon writes here, was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region. So, this was from their perspective preventative to save more American lives.

SCIUTTO: It appears the U.S. was acting on intelligence, if you take the statement at face value that Soleimani was already planning attacks and I think crucial to note not just in Iraq but around the region.

So, the concern, it seems, is that this was a way to prevent those attacks, you know, whether it does is another question. But I think it does get at establishing what Donald Trump's red line is for military action because we've seen the president withdraw from military action. You'll remember after the shoot-down of the drone, the planes were in the air to carry out the strikes.

BLACKWELL: He called it back. SCIUTTO: And when the president was informed of the estimated death

toll on the ground in Iran, the number was 150, at least that's the explanation he gave for that late decision, he pulled back. That did not merit military reaction.

But in this case, the line appears to be danger to U.S. personnel. Whether diplomatic or military. Because, again, the strikes over the weekend that sparked these demonstrations and the attack on the embassy was in response to the U.S. blaming Iran for an attack that killed a U.S. military contractor there.

[22:24:57]

So, this appears to be, you know, we often say, you know, what is Trump's policy, what are his measures for action like this? And that appears to be his red line here, which is information about danger to U.S. personnel. Now, of course, question is, are those personnel in the region, in Iraq and the region, safer today after this strike or less safe?

BLACKWELL: Yes.

SCIUTTO: I think we can reasonably expect a very, you know, pointed and violent Iranian retaliation.

BLACKWELL: You know, one has to wonder what Iran's allies are seeing tonight with this announcement of the death of Soleimani because there were those military exercises with Iran and China and Russia, the exercises were not significant but just the show of support and solidarity. When you see what happened, what do you think is going through Putin's mind as he sees what happened?

ZAKARIA: So, you know, the rest of the world, particularly the Europeans, the Russians and the Chinese, had been very supportive of the Iran nuclear deal, and when the United States, when the Trump administration blew up the deal, they were very upset and they tried to do things that helped the Iranians sell their oil, trade.

It didn't work because the power of the dollar is so great that if the U.S. makes it impossible for you to do business internationally, it essentially means you can't do business internationally.

But then once the Iranians were put in this box and the screws kept getting tightened and they started lashing out militarily. The harassment of ships. The attack on the drone. The attack on Saudi oil facilities, particularly. The Iranians have been losing allies. Which is to say the Europeans have turned on them somewhat.

The Russians and the Chine remain, but that's a very uneasy, and as you put it, kind of an alliance of convenience and fairly -- I wouldn't attribute too much to it.

So, I think Putin has always viewed Iran as an ally of convenience. Mostly in Syria. It doesn't mean they have deep, long, relationships, but in general, I think many of these countries are asking why are we going down a path of -- to what could be another conflagration? I mean, we've had -- we just came out of 10 years of a fairly bloody

series of civil wars in the Middle East where the United States was deeply involved. As Donald Trump, himself, keeps pointing out, trillions of dollars, thousands of American lives --

(CROSSTALK)

BLACKWELL: And he ran on getting Americans out of the Middle East.

SCIUTTO: Right.

BLACKWELL: This potentially will --

ZAKARIA: I don't -- and again, it's not clear what the objective here. Soleimani is a bad guy, there's no question.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

ZAKARIA: But we appear to be without, by the way I'd say, without congressional authorization, entering into another Middle East war.

BLACKWELL: All right. Fareed Zakaria, thank you so much. Jim Sciutto staying with us. Much more on the breaking news. The Pentagon announcing a U.S. military air strike killed Iran's top military leader in an air strike tonight. We'll have all the latest in the region.

And presidential candidate Senator Cory Booker weighs in, next.

[22:30:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: Our breaking news tonight. The Pentagon says President Trump ordered the strike at Baghdad's airport that killed a senior Iranian military official, General Qasem Soleimani. Also, we know that as the Senate is back in session in a matter of hours, Mitch McConnell is expected to speak on the Senate floor and that's as Nancy Pelosi refuses to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate without assurances about how the trial will work and whether witnesses will be called.

Joining me now to discuss, all of our news tonight, Senator and presidential candidate Cory Booker, who's on the foreign relations committee. Jim Sciutto is back with us as well. Senator, thanks for being with us as we digest this breaking news. First, your reaction before we talk about impeachment. The developments in the Middle East tonight, the Pentagon confirming this air strike.

SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, clearly, this is still an evolving story and in situations like this all the facts are very important. What we do know is that Soleimani is a person with American blood on his hands. He's plotted, planned and executed attacks on American citizens, American soldiers. He's been doing much to destabilize that region, destabilize Iraq. But we also know there's a larger challenge, strategic challenges in that region and we have a president whose failed to show any larger strategic plan and under his leadership, with his so-called maximum forces.

Iran has become a more dangerous, more influential regime in that region, whether it is undermining our efforts in Iraq, whether it is making Syria less stable and allies like Israel less secure, whether it is arming Hezbollah, even a bipartisan effort we did for rebuke on what we were doing in regards to Yemen which was a proxy war between Saudi -- the Saudis and the Iranians. We see in international shipping channels what Iran's doing.

So, this has been a deteriorating situation. A president that does not have a clear-eyed larger strategy to not only bring stabilization to that area but to make Americans more safe. So, I think we need more facts out and we need to judge this as it continues to unfold about what truly is in the best interest of the safety and security of Americans, Americans on the ground in Iraq and around the world right now who we can only expect with Iran's continuous showing of their aggressive actions that we may see more of that in the coming days, weeks or months.

BLACKWELL: Two sources, just received this, say that the key Senate staff on relevant committees, national security and appropriations, along with leadership staff, will be briefed tomorrow afternoon in a classified setting by an administration officials.

[22:35:05]

Also, it's pretty unclear right now how many members of leadership and the gang of eight have been briefed about the attack. Leader Schumer, Chuck Schumer, did not get advanced notice, sources say. And Leader McConnell's spokesman declined to comment, for instance, as well. Your reaction to -- now what we're seeing is potentially the question of how many in the national security apparatus there in the Senate and the House would have been notified of what happened tonight.

BOOKER: Look, there's a lot at play here, any time a president uses military force in this manner. There are standards which govern, laws that guide the actions of the United States president. And so we still have a lot of questions that need to be answered with this use of military force. What the consequences could be and what the appropriate consultations or involvement of Congress was.

And so I have a lot of concerns right now as this is unfolding about that standard of the use of military force and I have a lot of concerns about a president who's already shown to have no strategy for the larger challenges we have in the Middle East, especially around Iran.

BLACKWELL: Let me pull that thread a bit. You talked about your concerns. Let me ask you about your confidence. What's your degree of confidence that this attack fits into a larger coherent foreign policy approach to Iran? What we heard from the president is that he's not afraid of going to a war with Iran and it would end quickly. Also, referenced that he wanted to have a conversation with Rouhani by phone. But this seems to undermine potentially those goals.

BOOKER: You know, look, I've been to Iraq visiting with our troops and our leadership. I've been around that region multiple times. And you see military leaders sobered, no bravado, strategic in their thinking. But we have a president who clearly has shown himself to be acting by impulse, to make decisions by tweet. We've seen even, again, bipartisan voices coming out of the Senate for his conduct and his stances for, in areas like Syria.

And so right now, under this president, there has been no larger strategy. We are less safe in that region. Iran is more influential. The terrorist activities in that region from the arming of Hezbollah to even (inaudible) Israel doing strikes into Syria because of growing Iranian influence in that region, and what they've been doing, again, in Iraq. So, all of this is showing, beginning really with the president who came in, full bore, pulling us out of the Iran anti- nuclear deal where you have all of our allies were joined together in doing what, imagine if Iran was slipping quicker towards a nuclear weapon right now, what that would do with tensions and dangers in that region.

So, I do not have great confidence of this president's foreign policy, the way he's going about things, his so-called America-first policy, seems to be America isolated, America alone, and America less secure.

BLACKWELL: Our chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto here with us too, Senator.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Senator Booker, you're, of course, running for president, commander in chief. Looking at the Pentagon's statement, it appears the U.S. may have had intelligence that Soleimani was plotting attacks against U.S. personnel, not just in Iraq, but in the region, and I wonder, given the same information if you were president, would you have acted in the same way? Would you have acted to order a drone strike to take out Soleimani, the person who was planning attacks on U.S. personnel?

BOOKER: That's a couple hypotheticals on top of each other, first and foremost, clearly, the responsibility of the commander in chief is to protect Americans and American troops abroad from imminent attack. Again, as you said, quite clearly, we are going to have to learn what the facts were in this circumstance. But to divorce this situation from what's been happening there over the last few years is taking one context and not understanding its interrelation with others.

This was a bad person that was killed. Has American blood on their hands. But when you look at a larger strategy, you have to balance all of the competing interests for our safety and security that are there. And the question we have, a lot of questions that have not been answered, but, again, this should not be something that's done on impulse. It should be done in a larger strategic vision and understanding what the consequences could be in taking out this significant, assassinating someone of such a significant leadership role in Iran.

And we have to make sure that we are preparing for what might be to come. So, I have a lot of concerns about this. Facts are still coming out. We should not rush to conclusions, but I do, again, have concerns with what this president has shown to me has being wildly irresponsible policies that have endangered this nation and our military in the Middle East.

[22:40:02]

BLACKWELL: Quickly on impeachment, Senator. Sources tell CNN that Leader McConnell hasn't spoken with either Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Speaker Pelosi, about the impeachment trial. The Democrats' waiting games hasn't seem to have gotten any real effect, any fruit here. Does leader Schumer have any leverage at all? What's the way forward here on the impeachment trial?

BOOKER: Well, I have every confidence that the impeachment trial will come, and I know that leader Pelosi as well as Chuck Schumer are in conversations about doing everything we can do, and we must do, to ensure that there is a fair trial. And the majority of Americans, over 70 percent, understand that, hey, you're having a trial, you should have key relevant witnesses there, and we know people like the acting Chief of Staff, for example, have incredibly powerful information that could exonerate the president of the United States or implicate him.

And so let him come to the United States Senate along with other key witnesses. Let them swear under oath to tell the truth and let them present in front of the American people what the truth of the matter is, and actually that can help everybody get better information about just to the extent to which this president has abused his power, done things that are impeachable, and could potentially lead to better conclusions on should he be removed from office or not.

BLACKWELL: Senator Cory Booker, thanks for being with us tonight.

BOOKER: Thank you for having me.

BLACKWELL: And we'll keep bringing you all the latest on tonight's breaking news out of Baghdad.

Plus, hundreds of emails the president did not want you to see now released. What we know of the contents, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:45:00]

BLACKWELL: Our breaking news tonight, the Pentagon says President Trump ordered the strike at Baghdad's airport that killed a senior Iranian military official, and as the impeachment trial is looming, Democrats are calling revelations from previously redacted emails and documents about the freeze on aid to Ukraine a devastating blow for Republicans.

Let's bring in now Kaitlan Collins and Sara Murray. Sara, first to you. These are emails that the White House did not want the American people to see. They've now been released. What do they tell us?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, look, I mean, these were e-mails that the administration was supposed to hand over as part of a FOIA lawsuit. They handed over a very redacted versions and just security, a website, managed to get their hands on some unredacted versions and they tell us two things.

I mean, first, they make it very clear that the president was the one who decided to hold back this money and decided to release it and there's one email that really gets to that. It's on August 30th, it's from a top OMB official, Michael Duffy, to a Pentagon official and it says clear direction from POTUS to continue to hold and this email comes as the Pentagon is raising all kinds of concerns that continuing to sit on this money, this aid to Ukraine, could violate the law, that if this hold continues that the Defense Department can't ensure that it will all make it to Ukraine in time.

You know, there was another email on August 27th, this is from the comptroller at the Pentagon to Mark Esper's Chief of Staff and in it the comptroller Elaine McCusker writes, recognizing the importance of decisions space, but this situation is really unworkable made particularly difficult because OMB lawyers continue to consistently mischaracterize the process and the information we have provided. They keep repeating that this pause would not impact DOD's ability to execute on time.

So that gives you an indication of how the Pentagon felt that OMB, the Office of Management and Budget, wasn't taking their concerns seriously about the legal constraints here and, frankly, they didn't feel like OMB was representing their concerns to the rest of the administration, either.

BLACKWELL: So, of course, this is not happening in a vacuum, right? This is -- this line of revelations following what we learned from The New York Times earlier this week about the Ukraine aid saga is happening parallel to this fight, this standoff over the impeachment trial. What's the overlap here, and what kind of impact could these emails have on the impeachment case?

MURRAY: Right. I mean, it's happening at a hugely politicized time. We've already heard from a number of Democrats today, we heard from Chuck Schumer, we heard from Adam Schiff, saying that this is why the Senate trial needs to have witnesses and documents. And I want to show you this tweet from Nancy Pelosi today. She said, Trump engaged in unprecedented total obstruction of Congress hiding these emails, all other documents and his top aides from the American people. His excuse was a phony complaint about the House process. What's the excuse now? Why won't Trump and McConnell allow a fair trial?

BLACKWELL: Yes.

MURRAY: And of course, particularly interesting since Nancy Pelosi is still sitting on those articles of impeachment and has yet to transmit them to the Senate.

BLACKWELL: Kaitlan, the president has been on a tear on Twitter. He says on camera, he doesn't care about the start of the impeachment trial but his tweets tell a very different story.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, they certainly do. And so do our sources who've been speaking with the president while he's been down here for two weeks. Now, a lot of people who've seen the president, spoken with him had said, that he seemed to be in a pretty good, upbeat mood throughout these last two weeks. Out on the golf course, dining with friends, seeing them him in the buffet line at Mar-a-Lago.

But then there are others who say that the president does bring up impeachment regularly. You can see from his Twitter, he brings it up there essentially airing the same grievances that you heard from him before he left Washington to come down here to Palm Beach. But of course, this is coming at a really critical time. And as Sara was saying there, we're talking about this new information coming out over the break and s actually precisely what White House officials were worried about.

They were concerned that the longer the president was down here, the more time there is for outside influence on him which they worried would affect what he wanted to see in the impeachment trial, the kind of strategy they'd been trying to hone before he came down here and outside influence from other officials like that, but also they are just worried about the duration of time, because they say, the longer it is before this trial, the more time there is for emails, things like this to come out. So that was the concern we had heard. So far, we've not gotten any official White House statements to these released emails, though.

BLACKWELL: Kaitlan, Sara, thank you both.

We got much more on the breaking news tonight, the Pentagon announcing the U.S. killed a senior Iranian military official on an airstrike on the president's orders.

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BLACKWELL: A breaking news tonight President Trump ordering the Pentagon to launch an attack that killed a senior Iranian military official and a senior official in Iraq's paramilitary forces. The attack happened at Baghdad airport. Back with me, Jim Sciutto. Jim, we have discussed throughout the hour how this is an escalation of this tension between the U.S. and Iran. What does the next step potentially look like? War if it comes with Iran.

SCIUTTO: It won't look like the Iraq war in 2003. The invasion, it won't look like the Gulf War in 1990. It may not look like any war conflict we've seen, because it will not just take place on the battlefield. Because Iran has enormous capabilities. Which has already demonstrated in a number of fields. They can carry out terror attacks. Whether in the region. On, soft targets or military targets. They can attack shipping. We've already seen that. They have enormous cyber capabilities. They already attack us with fair amount of regularity. You can expect more of that.

So, what's known as hybrid warfare? But a whole host of fronts with a whole host of technologies that take aim at a whole host of targets. And keep in mind not just military targets but the potential of diplomatic and civilian targets. [22:55:10]

Think, U.S. Embassies in the region, but also economic targets as well. Soleimani, who was killed in this strike was the leader of a force that carries out as expert at these kinds of attacks and that's the kind of retaliation you can brace yourself for.

BLACKWELL: Let's focus on Soleimani, because as we discussed tonight that morally no question that there had to be some justice for Soleimani. The question is where does this fall in a broader conversation? Tell us more about what people who don't hear that name often, don't know the context. Why this is such a major development.

SCHNEIDER: There are hundreds of American families, many who might be watching tonight who lost service members. Sons and daughters to attacks carried out by Soleimani and his force in Iraq. Six hundred service members killed, thousands more wounded. Think of that. They're going to be watching this news very closely. That's the kind of person and leader he was. He's no longer on the battlefield. The question is, how does Iran respond?

BLACKWELL: Jim Sciutto, thanks so much. Stay with us for more live coverage of our breaking news. The Pentagon announces a top Iranian military official was killed in an airstrike by U.S. forces tonight.

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