>> announcer: this is cnn breaking news. hello and welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm john vause at the cnn center in atlanta, and there is breaking news at the ballot box. democrats have scored two major wins on a day when voters across the united states went to the polls in state and local elections. in the deep red state of kentucky, democrat andy beshear has declared victory in the race for the governor's mansion. he leads the incumbent republican matt bevin by a razor thin margin. turnout was heavy which helped the democrat this year.

>> tonight, voters in kentucky sent a message loud and clear for everyone to hear. it's a message that says our elections don't have to be about right versus left. they are still about right versus wrong. >> for now, the incumbent, matt bevin, is refusing to concede. u.s. president donald trump won the state by nearly 30 points back in 2016. and on monday the president was with bevin campaigning in lexington. >> this is a close, close race. we are not conceding this race by any stretch. not a chance. and here's the thing. understand this, though. understand this. we want the process to be followed, and there is a process. we know for a fact that there have been more than a few

irregularities. they are very well corroborated, and that's all right. what they are exactly, how many, which ones, and what effect, if any, they have will be determined according to law. >> the other big headline comes from virginia. cnn projects democrats will flip both chambers of the state legislature, taking back control of the statehouse and senate for the first time in 20 years. and in mississippi, cnn projects tate reeves will win the governor's race over democratic attorney general jim hood. let's bring in cnn's ryan nobles live in richmond, virginia. so, ryan, it's not november 2020, but it seems to be the next best thing right now. those two results, especially in virginia and kentucky, democrats will be cheering. republicans maybe not so much. >> reporter: yeah. you know, john, i think that this empty ballroom that i'm standing in actually reflects how big the win here was for democrats in virginia. this is a democratic victory party, and it's already over because the results came in so early today because the win was

so convincing. that's not something that a lot of people predicted going into this race tonight. there were a number of races thought to be highly competitive, particularly in spots where republicans had controlled these seats in both the senate and the house for a significant period of time, and they simply were just smoked by democratic opponents. and, you know, i talked to both democrats and republicans after the votes came in today here in virginia, and almost every single one of them said that you had to attribute donald trump's influence over this race as being one of the big drivers in democratic enthusiasm. and the same can be said as to what we saw in kentucky. you know, matt bevin, the governor there in many ways a donald trump clone, somebody that has run very close next to the president, really touted his relationship with president trump as one of the main reasons that voters in kentucky should re-elect him. and the voters there felt much differently. so it is very difficult to be a republican tonight and find some sort of good news in these results both in virginia and

kentucky. you know, john, these are only two states, of course, but they are two states that loom large heading into 2020. you have virginia, which is a purple state trending blue. kentucky a state that is decidedly red. both of them pushing back in a big way against donald trump and his administration. not necessarily a good sign for the president heading into his re-election next year. >> talk about finding good news. the president just did. he tweeted congratulations to tate reeves, the governor who run his race in mississippi. claiming credit there, saying that big rally on friday night moved the numbers from a tie to a big win. no word what happened with the big rally he held in lexington and how that didn't quite pan out the same way. the turnout here seemed to be significant, and the race in kentucky and virginia, they set it on the president in different ways about using the president's popularity or un-popularity if

you like. >> reporter: yeah. i mean here in virginia, for instance, president trump never came to this state. it's a little bit different than it was in kentucky and mississippi because you had big statewide races there which made it a little bit easier in terms of the uses of the resources of the president. they did send vice president mike pence to stump on behalf of republicans. the president did send out a tweet, but there wasn't a part of the state or a specific race where they thought president trump would be able to aid the republican ticket in any kind of significant way. i think that first of all gives you an indication of where the president stands in a state like virginia, a state that president trump has said he thinks he can win in 2020, and a republican hasn't won statewide since 2009. and there hasn't been a republican that's won a presidential race. i think the same thing can be said for kentucky and mississippi. you know, president trump himself put so much of an emphasis on his presence in these states. you know, to his credit, i think there is evidence that him

coming in the at the last minute has propelled certain candidates in certain states over the humps. i covered the florida midterms back in 2018, and he made a last ditch effort there for ron desantis, who is now the governor of florida. desantis himself attributes the president's help in that respect. i think what you're seeing here, john, is there are still areas in the united states where donald trump is still very popular. mississippi one of them. we're seeing that there tonight. but the opposition to president trump in other parts of the country only is starting to grow, and you're seeing that opposition almost a fervent opposition. the enthusiasm in virginia in particular was off the charts. they called this an off, off election year in virginia because it was only the statehouse races on the ballot. those were the biggest races. there were no federal elections contested here today. there were no statewide races. these were very hyper local races and the turnout was comparable to what you see in

gubernatorial election years. the experts i talked to attribute that directly to president trump. >> he is a motivator for both sides, it seems. thanks for being with us. we appreciate the update. let's go to los angeles now. loyola law school prefer jessica levinson and lanhee chen. let start with the big picture here. these are two good results for the democrats in kentucky as well as virginia. so i guess, you know, jessica, how do you see the results? you can go first in terms of not just 2020 but, you know, i guess the ongoing impeachment hearing as well. >> so i think this is a good night for democrats, and i don't know it has that much to do with the impeachment inquiry. i mean we've talked about this, and i've long suspected that voters don't actually go to the ballot box that much based on the impeachment inquiry. what they do go to the ballot box on is issues they feel like will affect their daily lives, like for instance, gun control, like criminal justice reform, like environmental protections,

like the economy. so i think this really was a night about riding donald trump's coattails. but in this case it was democrats riding his coattails to victory. so i don't think it's so much about what's happening in these house investigations. i think it's more about what's happening on voters' tv screens. i mean this historic turnout shows president trump, as you've said, he's a motivator. he is energizing people on both sides of the aisle. >> and, lanhee, if you look at the turnout and where, you know, the republicans sort of crumbled, it was in the suburbs. they didn't just turn out for the president. if the republicans are looking for lessons and not spin, what will they take away. >> clearly the challenges are in the suburban and what we might call exurban areas, which are the areas just beyond the suburbs. they were a problem in 2018 during those midterm elections. they were an issue certainly in the virginia legislative

elections tonight as well as the governor's race in kentucky. i think there are obviously going to be some factors where republicans will say there were specifics about some of tonight's races that maybe aren't replicable trends. for example, matt bevin, the incumbent governor in kentucky, who appears to have lost tonight, he was tremendously unpopular going into this election. he was in fact ranked by one organization as the least popular governor in america. so there are things i think republicans will say, look, big trends we got to think about, for example this issue of the suburbs. but i think that will be moderated by the fact that there were some specifics from tonight that will not be replicated in future elections. >> you mentioned kentucky's governor race, and matt bevin, the incumbent. he actually made this election a referendum almost, it seemed, on the president as well as impeachment. certainly if you look at some of the campaign ads which flooded the airwaves. here's part of one of them. >> matt's proudly pro-life, against sanctuary cities for

illegal immigrants and against impeaching our president. >> so, jessica, you know, as lanhee mentioned, this is a governor who was deeply unpopular. trump is very popular in the state. trump's popularity could not get the governor over the line. i think it's significant that every other republican candidate statewide appeared to be heading for a win. so it doesn't seem to be a rejection of the republican part party. >> i think in this case it might be bevin alone because as we takes about on the down-ballot races in kentucky, the republicans are actually doing okay, many of whom align themselves with the president. so i don't necessarily think this is viewed as a referendum on president trump so much as somebody who was frankly trying to replicate president trump. and, again, i don't know how much we can take away from what happened in the kentucky gubernatorial race, again with this deeply unpopular governor, and how much we can kind of scale that to what would be

happening in other races in, of course, what everybody is looking at, the purple states in 2020. i don't know that this gives us a great bellwether or indication. >> lanhee, is there a danger that the democrats sort of overreach, you know, the significance of these results? >> yeah. look, i think anytime you have a small sample size of elections, these are off-year -- what we call off-year elections here in the united states, so they don't happen on your typical even-numbered year. so there are all sorts of reasons why you might not want to extrapolate too much from this. what is clear, though, is that there is a lot of energy in the electorate. there's a lot of people who are keenly watching what's going to happen next year and who plan to show up and vote. so arguably for democrats that could be good news. that's something they're going to have to cultivate going into next year. but we always should caution against taking elections like this and trying to draw too many lessons in terms of what it means next year, in part, john, because there's so much that could happen between now and when we have elections here

again in the united states, general elections here next november. >> and, jessica, there is a lot of energy on the democrat side, and there's a lot of energy for democrats in red states, it seems. but there also seems to be a lack of energy among republican voters, especially in those suburban areas. what happened there? >> well, i think that what happened is somewhat of what happened on the democratic side in 2016, where they just weren't all that excited by the candidates. they just weren't all that excited by the top of the ticket. and, you know, as you and lanhee talked about, if you lose those republican suburban voters, particularly in deep red districts, then you really do have a problem that i think is replicable in 2020, meaning that really is a problem for the republican voters. but so much of this -- i know, you know, this is like the pre-party to the oscars. it's a big night, but of course we're waiting for 363, i think, days from today. and one of the big questions that we don't know is who is going to be the democratic nominee. will it be someone where

democrats kind of hold their nose and say, i'll go to the ballot box, or will it be a transformational figure where people are energized not just to vote against president trump but to vote for somebody else. >> right. not to gdwell on this too much but kentucky was sort of unique in the sense that the president was there. he campaigned on monday for a candidate who was sort of like portraying himself in the image of trump, even more trump than trump. here is what the president told supporters when he was campaigning in lexington on monday. >> you're sending that big message to the rest of the country. it's so important. you got to get your friends. you got to vote because if you lose, it sends a really bad message. it just sends a bad -- and they will build it up. here's the story. if you win, they're going to make it like ho-hum. and if you lose, they're going to say trump suffered the greatest defeat in the history of the world. this was the greatest. you can't let that happen to me!

>> lanhee, it gets back to that question. the president was obviously joking, but how much of this will be attributed to donald trump and, you know, his popularity or lack of? >> yeah. i mean, look, i think this is one of those things in american politics, like many other things, where depending on how you feel about the president, depending on what your opinion is of him, that's how you're going to read into this. folks who are critics of the president are going to say, as the president said, this was a huge loss for him. those who are defenders of the president will try and shake it off as not a big deal. you know, the reality is it's probably somewhere in between. it certainly should matter because the president invested time and energy to get out there and campaign for matt bevin, and that still wasn't enough. on the other hand, as i've noted, matt bevin not a popular guy, had a big uphill climb. the fact he even got as close as he did, maybe that's testament to trump and his last minute

campaigning. this is one of those things where it depends on the lens through which you view the president and you view the republican party. >> bevin was expecting to win by five or six points he said at one point. we'd like you to both stay with us. we need to take a short break. a look at the virginia race when we come back. lass later this hour, remember that no quid pro quo defense by the white house? it's looking shakier by the day. we now have a senior u.s. diplomat saying, that's right. i do remember a quid pro quo. more details on that in a moment. for all of the heroes who serve us, t-mobile is here to help serve them. that's why we're offering 50% off family lines for military, veterans and first responders. so they can stay connected, on our newest, most powerful signal ever. and now, we are also offering half off our top samsung phones for military, veterans and first responders. our service is just one way we say thank you... for theirs.

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♪ geico would like to take a moment to say thank you to our military service members at home and abroad for all their hard work and sacrifice. we all sleep easier knowing you're out there keeping us safe. and on a personal note... sfx: jet engines ... i just needed to get that off my chest. thank you. geico: proudly supporting the military for over 75 years. welcome back, everybody. more on our breaking news. some important wins for democrats in key elections across the united states. first in kentucky, democrat andy beshear is declaring victory in the state's governor's race. he leads the incumbent, republican matt bevin by a razor-thin margin. president donald trump won the state by nearly 30 points in

2016. so far the incumbent governor bevin is refusing to concede. in mississippi, cnn projects republican lieutenant governor tate reeves will win the governor's race over the democratic attorney general jim hood. the other big news comes out of virginia. cnn projecting democrats will flip both chambers of the state legislature, taking back control of the house as well as the senate. back with me now from los angeles, law school professor jessica levin son, and former mitt romney public policy adviser lanhee chen. even though the secretary of state in kansas has called the result, the governor is refusing to concede. here he is. >> this is a close, close race. we are not conceding this race by any stretch, not a chance. and here's the thing. understand this, though. understand this. we want the process to be followed, and there is a process. we know for a fact that there have been more than a few

irregularities. they are very well corroborated, and that's all right. what they are exactly, how many, which ones, and what effect, if any, they have will be determined according to law. >> so, lanhee, you know, to raise that issue without evidence, it seems kind of like a trumpian play even towards the very end, what, to smear the results? >> well, look, i think it's a trumpian edge to a message which is a perfectly reasonable one, you know, when you've got a close race, which is to say, look, we're going to see how this all plays out. obviously the word "irregularities" raises some eyebrows, but fundamentally the idea of letting the process play out, if there is to be some kind of automatic recount, obviously there is a process that has to play out in a close election. but understandably that word "irregularities," probably could have picked a different word to convey the same thing. >> let's go to virginia now

because this was a state race where democrats sort of embraced their presidential candidates and republicans were distancing themselves from the president. jessica, that was a very different strategy than what we saw in kentucky. why did this work for democrats in virginia? >> so one thing i just wanted to say about kentucky is i think we need to uncouple two things, and as an election law professor, i just can't let this go. absolutely when there's a close election, you have to let the process play out. if it's within a certain margin, oftentimes there is an automatic recount. and it's very important that we uphold the integrity of these elections. similarly, because it's so important we uphold the integrity of these elections, using a word like there have been irregularities, that's a fact, this has been corroborated, is really dangerous. it makes people feel like their vote doesn't count, that there's something problematic about the process. it's -- these are two very different messages, and i think it's important to uncouple them.

i'm not saying that in the previous discussion you didn't. >> sure. >> now, with respect to virginia, i think what's different here, and it's kind of amazing because i was thinking about this. my students cannot remember a time when virginia was ever blue. i think it hasn't been blue since 1993. so what's different here, i think, in part is the turnout. as you said, that's often good for democrats. shifting demographics, shifting registration, really getting people, i think -- a lot of people to the polls. they were voting for specific candidates in state legislature, and i would bet just as many were voting against president trump. >> and, lanhee, what this now means is the democrats have basically full control of the state, you know, the governorship, the senate, the lower house, which puts them in the box seat for passing a lot of measures which they've been trying to get through and also for redistricting as well, right? >> yeah, right. that certainly is an important factor. i would say what the control of the legislature for democrats in

virginia also means is it probably alters the calculus for how republicans approach the state in 2020. the state has been trending toward the democrats. donald trump lost it by five percentage points in 2016. obviously for republicans if they're looking for swing states or states where they think that the president has some votes out there, virginia is not going to be a place they're looking. they're more likely to look at a place like minnesota, somewhere in the upper midwest than they are virginia. i do think this election cements a trend that's been going on and certainly will affect the campaign metric as they go into 2020. >> and, jessica, was this a state that was similar to kentucky in the sense there's sort of this unpopularity in the suburbs for donald trump and those republicans just didn't show? >> i think absolutely. i mean we have to look at exactly what the final turnout numbers were. we always know that those can shift a little bit from election night. but i think that you are seeing a deep unpopularity in -- i

should say significant unpopularity in those suburban districts. and if you look at even the polling of the likely voters for 2020, you see a little bit of that support that used to happen for the president in the red states in those suburban areas. you see a little bit of it starting to crater. i would say to your previous question, you know, very important for virginia. think about the issues that are on the table. gun control, as you said, redistricting, redistricting, redistricting, the ability of the democratic legislature to draw those dict lidistrict line to lock in place their power for another at least ten years is so important. once a candidate -- excuse me. once a party can gain control, now that the supreme court has said, basically, no, we don't look at these partisan gerrymandering cases anymore, i think once a house flips like this, you're going to see it stay blue for a while. >> okay. we'd like you to both stick around for the next hour because there is still a lot more to get to with this breaking news on this off-year election day and

the results, which obviously have the democrats cheering. thank you and we'll see you again at the top of the hour. in the meantime, when we come back, there was no quid pro quo, no quid pro quo. but hang on. yes, there was. a key figure in the trump impeachment inquiry now changing his testimony about that u.s. military aid for ukraine. they give us excellent customer service, every time. our 18 year old was in an accident. usaa took care of her car rental, and getting her car towed. all i had to take care of was making sure that my daughter was ok. if i met another veteran, and they were with another insurance company, i would tell them, you need to join usaa because they have better rates, and better service. we're the gomez family... we're the rivera family... we're the kirby family, and we are usaa members for life. get your auto insurance quote today.

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it is 12:30 here on the east coast. welcome back. you're watching "cnn newsroom" with our breaking news coverage. big wins for democrats in state

and local elections, seen as a potential bellwether for president trump's chances for re-election in 2020. in kentucky, a deeply red state, democrat andy beshear has declared victory in the governor's race. the republican, matt bevin, is refusing to concede. in virginia, cnn predicts democrats will take back control of the statehouse and the snate. and in mississippi, republican governor tate reeves will win the governor's race over the democratic attorney general jim hood. a key figure in the u.s. impeachment inquiry suddenly remembers, ah, yes, the quid pro quo he had long denied. in a major reversal from his previous testimony, the u.s. ambassador to the european union, gordon sondland, now says the trump administration withheld aid to ukraine until its new president announced investigations into joe biden and his son and the 2016 u.s. election. cnn's alex marquardt has the details. >> reporter: in black and white, one of the president's top envoys changing his testimony,

now admitting he told ukraine's leadership that hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid were being held up until president trump got the investigations he wanted. ambassador gordon sondland, who is a longtime republican donor-turned-diplomat who gave money to trump's inaugural committee, amending his original testing, writing, i now recall speaking individually with mr. yermak, where i said resumption of u.s. aid would likely not occur until ukraine provided the public anti-corruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks. that public statement that trump wanted, according to the top u.s. diplomat in ukraine, was that president zelensky go to a microphone and say he is opening investigations of biden and 2016 election interference. those investigations were being pushed by the president's personal lawyer, rudy giuliani. >> there's really only one story. all of the witnesses agree that the president engineered a shakedown of the ukrainian

government. >> reporter: in sondland's transcript released this afternoon, when asked if what giuliani was doing was illegal, sondland responded, i assume so. >> that's illegal. you cannot solicit a foreign power to investigate american political parties or your american political opponent. >> reporter: over time, sondland said things got more insidious. the demands on ukraine bigger and bigger. and ukraine would have to play ball before the ukrainian president got a meeting with president trump. the problem grew for the state department, which was fully aware of what giuliani was doing, sondland said. and when sondland raised it with his boss, secretary of state mike pompeo, pompeo rolled his eyes and said, yes, it's something we have to deal with. another member of the trio in charge of diplomatic relations with ukraine was former special envoy kurt volker, who according to the new transcript, told the ukrainians about the giuliani factor and described the extent to which giuliani controlled ukrainian access to trump. the ukrainians believed that by

speaking to rudy giuliani, they could communicate to president trump, volker was asked. that information flow, he answered, would reach the president. kurt volker also said that he told rudy giuliani that those conspiracy theories about biden and ukrainian election interference were not true, that they had been debunked. now democrats are trying to get all the witnesses they want before the public hearings start. that could be as early as next week, while republicans continue to slam the process. congressman mark meadows, who's the ranking member on the oversight committee, calling it blatant partisanship, arguing as many others have that president trump was merely trying to clean up corruption in ukraine. alex marquardt, cnn, washington. >> with me now from la jolla, california, former u.s. attorney littman and from los angeles, former assistant u.s. attorney for los angeles david katz. thank you guys for being with us. for some reason the president, his family, his supporters, they cling to this belief that the

transcript of the call with ukraine's leader is proof of innocence. listen to don junior. >> my father put the transcript out. read it. everything else is opinion. >> mm-hmm. >> read the transcript and make your decision from there. >> and on monday night at a campaign rally, supporters were wearing those "read the transcript" t-shirts, which seemed kind of odd. just to be clear, the summary of the call does not exonerate the president, and now there is more than 1,200 pages of testimony from administration officials, career officials, and they seem to be painting a very clear picture of exactly what happened. >> that's exactly right. by the way, the transcript itself paints a fairly clear picture. that's where trump says "we need a favor, though," and proceeds to say what zelensky has to do. so it's this funny kind of brazen move to say "read the transcript" when i guess they're thinking nobody will. it's just another kind of slogan

that will keep people revved up. but you're right. the much fuller version is all the much more damning. and today the source matters. so sondland first of all, he's correcting what was obviously a lie, and that always brings attention to it, brings it into neon lights. but more importantly, he's a political supporter of trump. others have been the state department career professionals. and now he's had to say this is a quid pro quo, and having previously testified that it would be wrong when he was forgetting he had said it, he's stuck with the testimony and stuck with it saying that they did something illegal and immoral and, in his own words, insidious. >> here's how the white house responded to another day of evidence which blows up another impeachment defense and continues to support the allegation at the heart of the impeachment inquiry. both transcripts released today show that there is even less evidence for this illegitimate

impeachment sham than previously thought. no matter salacious media biased headlines which are clearly designed to influence the narrative change the fact that the president has done nothing wrong. so, david, to you. is this best described as the disney defense? if you can dream it, you can do it? just create your own reality? >> well, it is trump's own reality because today was devastating news. this is the one witness who supposedly helped him in the impeachment inquiry, and that witness, a political appointee who gave over $1 million to trump to buy that ambassadorship, he jumped ship. there is nobody defending trump on the merits. you remember the lieutenant colonel who came to the proceedings? he was a direct witness to the phone call. why are these trump supporters at a rally talking about "read the transcript"? first of all, as you say, john, it's a rough summary. but on top of that, we have a direct witness. we don't need the whistle-blower anymore. we don't need the notes that

donald trump jr. says his father released. we have a direct witness, a man in uniform who has given his life for this country, a man who won the purple heart, who has come to the congress, and he said, i heard that conversation. what i heard was improper. so now stripped of having any defense on the merits, all there is is noise. all there is is sloganeering. and we have a situation right now where there's -- you know, because they know all the evidence is going to be bad and against the president, now they've been committing more acts of obstruction of justice, more articles of impeachment by directing people like mulvaney and bolton not to come when their testimony is obviously relevant to this inquiry. >> and this seems to be a problem for the republicans obviously. here's the trump loyalist senator lindsey graham. he's taking this sort of similar approach of just ignoring these latest revelations. here he is. listen to this. >> i've written the whole process off. i've written him off. i think this is a bunch of b.s.

i think this is a sham process. i think the substance is not worthy of an impeachment discussion. read the phone call for yourself. i don't care what anybody else says about the phone call. the phone call, i made up my own mind, is fine. >> harry, that's the chairman of the senate judiciary committee. he's also a potential juror in the impeachment trial saying, la, la, don't tell me anything. >> in fact, that's actually been the latest excuse that republicans have proffered to keep their head in the sand and avoid saying anything about trump. they're not jurors. it's not a criminal trial. it's a political proceeding, and they have to make a political decision. and graham here is of a piece, nothing wrong here, keep moving along as this ten-car pileup wreck is, you know, carnage all

over the street. and trump has made it difficult for them now. you would think -- remember back in clinton's day there was some attempt among democrats to maybe give a half-measure of acceptance, say he did wrong. trump is insisting, in his words, this was perfect, perfect, perfect, and he wants the republicans to defend him on those terms. and nobody who wants to have any credibility in the future can do that. so they're not -- there doesn't seem to be a strategy afoot to actually take some middle ground. instead they're in the disneyland defense exactly as you described, john. >> if you look at these transcripts closely, this he reveal that republicans have been fully engaged in these depositions. they've been questioning witnesses, clashing with democrats. most gop lawmakers on the three panels at the center of the probe have simply not shown up. republican questioning during these private interviews have been driven by a handful of

president trump's allies and gop staff. so, david, to you, there goes another trump line of defense that, you know, this is a process which lacks transparency and the republicans have no access. >> well, because they didn't have a defense on the merits, they went to this process argument. >> that argument doesn't hold either. >> it doesn't hold at all. i worked in the u.s. attorney's office with adam schiff. adam schiff is doing a tremendous job of putting this together. he's going to be one of the managers of the impeachment trial in the senate. that's what lindsey graham was. lindsey graham was saying that it was an impeachable offense and that clinton should be removed from office when graham was a manager, and that was for an alleged lie about private sexual conduct. for graham to say this is not impeachable conduct, and once adam schiff and the other impeachment managers get a hold of this in the senate and there are televised hearings that are going to start maybe in as soon as a week, i think the country is going to have a different view. they say that once televised

proceedings started against president nixon, there was immediately a 10% turn against him. if that happened, there would be 60% of the country in favor of impeachment. and adam schiff knows how to present a case. i saw him present them back in the late '80s. i think this is going to be devastating. and with no one defending the president on the merits, how can you? even sondland, right, had to say that his testimony the other day was not true. i mean his whole defense now was that he retracted in time that he's free of alleged perjury. that's the defenders of trump. this quid pro quo conversation took place. it took place abroad by someone who didn't even have a charter, an ambassadorship to cover ukraine because ukraine wasn't in the european union. it's all a farce, john. it's all falling apart. >> if this ever does get to public hearings and all this testimony is being played out on television, how devastating will that moment be for the administration? >> we'll see. it looks pretty devastating but

he has dodge the bullets before. one thing to note. we're not just talking about a phone call. we're talking about a three-month course of conduct that just is pushing to get him to investigate burisma. >> okay. harry & david, thanks so much. appreciate you being with us. >> great to be with you. we'll take a short break. when we come back, a massacre in mexico. three women, six children all killed. why the family does not think it was a random attack. most people think of verizon as a reliable phone company. (woman) but to businesses,

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in mexico, police have arrested a suspect in the horrific killing of three women and six children. the victims were all dual citizens and members of a mormon community living in mexico. it's believed a newly formed drug cartel could be behind the massacre, but family members believe they were specifically targeted. a u.s. official says there is evidence which backs that up. cnn's matt rivers reports now from mexico city. >> i think a lot of us are just speechless. it's horrific. >> reporter: family members in shock after a horrendous attack by suspected criminal groups left nine people dead, including three women and four small children and two babies.

it happened monday while they were traveling in a caravan through northern mexico just south of the border, headed to pick up family for an upcoming wedding. >> i just can't believe that this actually happened to our family. it just seems like a bad dream. >> reporter: family members tell cnn the group was driving between the mexican states of sonora and chihuahua in a caravan for safety reasons when they were attacked by an armed group which sprayed the car with bullets and set at least one on fire. mexican government officials say it's unclear whether the attack was targeted or a case of mistaken identity with the shooters mistaking the families as rival groups. kendra lee miller is the bride at that upcoming wedding. she tells cnn her sister-in-law is among the victims. >> nita was one of the most vibrant, happy souls that i've ever met. she just had so much spark and life in her. >> reporter: kendra says ranita was driving one of the vehicles

with four of her several children to tucson, arizona, to go shopping for the wedding. 43-year-old dawna langford and her two children were in another vehicle, and 29-year-old christina johnson and her 7-month-old son were in a third vehicle. seven children overall were injured in the attack and are now hospitalized. >> none of my grandchildren made it out. they burnt to a crisp, and my daughter-in-law. and they're about as innocent as they come, and i'm not saying it because she's gone. but she was a good mother to those children, and they're innocent as the day is long. >> reporter: the victims are all members of a mormon community in northern mexico not affiliated with the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints. u.s. president donald trump weighing in on twitter saying in part that now would be the time for mexico to wage all-out war on the drug cartels, offering u.s. assistance should mexico want to wage that fight. but the mexican president responded saying he spoke to president trump during the day

on tuesday, that he appreciated the offer of assistance, but that this was mexico's fight to win, mexico's fight to seek justice for these victims, that it was mexico's responsibility. but there are people questioning here in mexico whether the mexican president is capable of carrying out that responsibility. matt rivers, cnn, mexico city. >> more on breaking news in a moment here on "cnn newsroom." two key victories for democrats in state and local elections in the u.s. what it could mean for republicans and donald trump come 2020.

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declaring victory but it's a razor thin margin. the president won kentucky by 20 points in 2016. in virginia, cnn predicting the democrats will flip the state house and the senate. another key race, republican tate reeves will be the next governor of mississippi. you're watching cnn.

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in atlanta. there's breaking news at the ballot box. democrats have scored two significant wins and republicans have seen their support in the suburbs crumble. in kentucky, andy beshear has declared victory in the race for the governor mansion. there was heavy turn out that helped. he addressed supporters just a few hours ago. >> tonight voters in kentucky sent a message loud and clear for everyone to hear. it's a message that says our elections don't have to be about right versus left. they are still about right versus wrong. >> as all this, the incumbent has not conceded even though the state officials have called the