>> president trump's midday news conference today. his post election news conference happening less than 12 hours after the last polls closed in the united states. good afternoon, the c-span election coverage continues with our phone call reaction and more. we'll update you as well on some of the outstanding races. ere's how to join us by phone. 202-748-8000 for democrats. republicans use 202-74 -8001. nd independents, 20 -748-8002. that news conference from president trump was barely over when the news came out from the white house that jeff sessions, the attorney general, had

resigned. he had turned in his letter of resignation at the request of president trump. the headline here in "the new york times," jeff sessions, is forced out as attorney general. as trump involves loyalist, that loyalist is matthew whitaker, the current chief of staff, at the justice department. he takes over immediately. was sworn in this afternoon. deputy attorney general, rod rosenstein, was at the white house today for what was reported to be a preplanned scheduled news conference. kelly o'donnell of nbc tweeting this photo, deputy attorney general rod rosenstein at the white house west entrance to the white house. from chuck grassley, chairman of the judiciary committee in the senate, thanks to attorney general sessions for his service to our country. both leading the department of justice and in the u.s. senate serving the people of alabama. i have enjoyed working with him for decades. he is a true public servant and i appreciate his service.

his friendship. jerrold nadler, the congressman from new york, currently the ranking democrat on the judiciary committee, meaning he's the likely ranking chairman of that committee, when the 116th congress gavels in, part of his statement saying, we're immediately issuing multiple letters to key officials demanding they preserve all relevant documents related to this action, talking about the mueller investigation, make sure that the investigation and any evidence remains safe from improper interference or destruction. one more from the likely incoming speaker, nancy pelosi, it's impossible to read attorney general session's firing as anything other than a plateant attempt by donald trump to undermine special counsel mulers' investigation. from nancy pelosi. the balance of power in the u.s. senate. 97 senate seats, totaled 35

elections, 97 decided with three outstanding races. one of those is in arizona where the two congresswomen, mart why mcsally and sinema face each other. 9.3 for congresswoman mcsally. sinema at 48.4. florida next, incumbent senator bill nelson trailing rick scott, governor of florida, 50.2 for governor scott. 49.8 for bill nelson. and to the mississippi special election, theed that cochran seat, cindy hyde smith, current senator, 31.5%. 40.6 for mike especially pi, the democrat and republican chris mcdaniel at 16.4%. those races not decided. a dozen and a half or so house races not decided. let's look at a couple quickly before we get to your calls. to the 48th district.

the overall look at the house at this hour, just about 5:00 eastern, 222 democrat seats. 19 republican leets. 218 needed for the majority. still a number to be decided. the 48th district in california is dana rohrabacher, and he is trailing in his race to holly ruda, 50.7, and congressman rohrabacher with 49.3. new jersey third, this is a race that may be decided by mail in allots, tom macarthur, 49.%. andy kim is 48.9. we'll tell you about that momentarily. one more in the house side, the utah fourth, this is mia love, the incumbent congresswoman, 48.7, she trails the democrat there, ben mcadams, 51.3. get to your calls and comments.

we'll update you where we can can on those races and others as they come in. we're planning to also bring you the briefings from this afternoon. leader pelosi we'll hear from mitch mcconnell, the senate leader, and also from chuck schumer on the election results. first to ports myth, virginia, hear -- portsmouth, virginia, hear from robert. caller: good afternoon, i'm calling in regards to the sessions quote-unquote resignation. listening to earlier people that have been talking, i knew he had this planned getting rid of sessions. this very moment and under this very circumstance of losing the house. it won't -- i understand it won't stop pelosi or whoever takes the helm as speaker from restarting the investigation, but whitaker can halt it, gain all of mueller's files, and hand him to trump's attorneys.

giving him his chance at behind. his host: the president is going to ask the acting attorney general to shut down the mueller investigation? caller: i honestly believe it. it just goes to the whole history. that goes from mcconnell's feverishly appointing judges and the orchestrating even of halting the garland nomination from the bench. it won't matter what any state a.g. brings up as charges because the judges are who rules the case. that goes all the way up the chain right up to the scotus. host: from marvin in sheffield, iowa. republican line. you are on the air. caller: yes. i'm a happy republican today because i believe that if the old hipies who have the money that come from california said let's work together.

there are too many smart people that are just getting thrown under the rug. there's a lot of people that want this thing to work. that's what our country was established on. i find myself happy as hell because i'm talking on -- i can't believe it. pride of my life that people can get together. host: you are happy with the overall results. the strengthening of the republicans in the senate. and the taking of the house apparently by the democrats. caller: yeah. that's the way our country works. if people have an argument or legitimate gripe, you go to the voters. you talk about it. there needs to be more people. the shame of our country is, there are how many million people, how many show up and vote?

host: let's hear from new orleans. ryan, good afternoon, on our democrats line. caller: thank you. jeff sessions is fired, he came there saying he was going to stop the people out of jail. he was going -- wasn't going to commute some sentences. not a s to show you -- trump fan, but this was great that he was fired. he got there and said he was going to do this and stop this. . was all for law enforcement that was killing black men in the streets. unlawfully. this is going to go on his history for him that the president of the united states embarrassed him every chance -- every time he had a chance. thank you. host: thank you. we mentioned the new jersey third, back to that race, with tom macarthur, the incumbent

republican, some news on that race this afternoon from eporter amy rosenberg with the "philadelphia inquirer." andy kim takes the lead over tom macarthur in the new jersey third congressional district. the background on that, from jan at the burlington county courthouse, in new jersey, totesals that include vote by mail bat lots increased kim's total by nearly 15,000 and tom's total by 10,000 which would appear the swing the results to kim's favor. we'll show you here on the screen what it looks like. this is before this information took hold. it may show that now. showing andy kim with 49.8. and tom macarthur, 48.9. very, very close. has not been called yet. keith next in chesapeake, virginia. welcome. caller: hi. i got two comments about chuck

schumer. he was talking about all this things about basic math. the -- about host: go ahead, keith. caller: sorry. got tv on here. he talk about couples in states that trump won. but that has nothing to do with the constituents in those states. so that has nothing to do with math. he wants to talk about the math. 30-plus years in the house and senate, that's way too many years. he talks about all this immigration issues. 30-plus years and he has all these issues to do with this and that. he didn't do anything about any of that. talked about 2 and two was her

career record. well, that has to do with math. she was in there too long. -- e we need to have some host: make sure and everybody else tuning in, thanks for the call. mute your television set when you call in. go ahead with your comments. cape coral, florida, where that senate race is still too close to call. laura on our republican line. caller: good afternoon. i'm calling from florida, the great state. and i'm very, very proud of florida and what we have done here. electing rick scott as our u.s. senate. and ron desantis for governor of florida. we have worked very, very hard to get this done. and i also want to mention that i wish the media and the public

would be more representative and respectful to our president. i don't like hearing negative, and horrible comments made. we need to respect our president. he has done great things for this country. and will continue to do so. thank you very much. host: thanks, laura. we'll check that florida governor's race. tell you about the other two races that we know of that are still up in the air. this is alaska and mike dunleavy now declared the winner in that race over mark begism. the democrat. former senator. 52.5%, 43.7% for mark. in georgia, very close race in the state of georgia. between brian kemp, current secretary of state for georgia, and stacey abrams, former leader in the legislature in georgia. a 50.3 for brian kemp. 48.7 for ms. abrams. and she has not yet conceded

that race. if we can, look at florida, our caller there just a moment ago talking about the governor's race, the senate race there is still too close to call in the senate race between rick scott and bill nelson. one of the ones that has not been called yet. we'll show that to you in just a moment. rick scott and bill nelson, rick scott is 50.2%. and bill nelson, the incumbent, 49. to indianapolis, rick on our democrats line. hi. caller: hello. host: you are on the air. mute your television set and go ahead and comment. caller: the reason i was calling is i used to be a democrat and i recently got into the church pretty good. well, i decided i no longer wanted to be a democrat due to the fact of allowing the pro-choice killing the babies and the gays getting married.

i don't mind people being gay. and the fact that the open borders and taking our guns. there is a lot of stuff i don't agree with anymore. i switched to the republican party. i'm happy to say that a republican won in indiana. host: so you are happy that your senator there, the democratic senator, joe donnell lirks losing last night? caller: totally happy with joe donnelly losing. host: rick in indianapolis. cleveland and hear from chris toes. go ahead. caller: hi. am i on? host: yeah. caller: perfect. i'm a democrat. still a high school student. can't vote yet, sadly. i just want to say i'm miffed with the democrats right now. last night was supposed to be our big night. everyone was talking up this

blue wave. democrats made gains. i feel like it was a blue splash than anything else. we took back the house. at the same time we lost way more seats in the senate than i expected. north dakota was gone. i expected missouri to flip. and now we're losing indiana. i did not see that at all. as well as florida. it's a little upsetting. also as an ohioan, i find it interesting to see yesterday's sherrod brown, he did pretty well. he won i believe it was about 53-47. for the senate seat. in just about every other statewide race the democrats just -- they weren't crushed. when you look at the governor's race where mike dewine beat cordray, i would say that was also 53-47. when they ran against each for

attorney general back in 2010, that was within a percentage point. it upsets me a little bit that the democrats -- we focus too much on all the issues that are going on that we don't have enough time to stop and say what are we doing wrong? that's how we end up being able to take the house by a slim margin but lose the senate. we made some good gains in some of the gubernatorial races yesterday. host: let me ask you about the governor's race. the one with mike dewine, former senator, and richard cordray, former head of the consumer financial protection bureau. were you expecting mr. cordray to win that race? caller: i don't know if i was expecting him to win simply because when you look at name recognition in ohio, mike dewine has been around forever. long since before i was born. it's looking now like he's going to stick around for a while. cordray had an uphill battle,

considering that he lost his re-election bid for attorney general in 2010 to mike dewine. spent the next nearly decade just in washington. host: appreciate the call. we're going to get a couple more of your calls. just wanted to show you the comment of probably see more tweets and comments like this without going -- with outgoing members leaving the 115th congress. from ryan costello, current outgoing member in the sixth congressional district in pennsylvania. and ryan costello tweeting this this afternoon. to deal with harassment and filth, spewed republicans members of congress in tough seats every day for two years because of the president, bite your lip more times you care to. the disagree and separate from the president on principle and civility in your campaign, to lose because of the president, and have him on you, angers me to my core. you can can see his language on the screen. talladega, alabama.

larry. good morning -- good afternoon on our democrats line. caller: good afternoon. i'd like to make a comment about the a.g. sessions. when donald trump picked sessions, he picked the best red neck that alabama had to offer. he couldn't have made a better choice. too bad donald trump was too big of a red neck for the a.g. also, i'm glad that the dems have taken the house because now that we have taken the house, democrats taking the house, we can put check on donald trump. for two years he has ran the store like that prejudice red neck a.g. that he chose from alabama. host: here's lee, we'll wrap it up here with los angeles on our republican line. caller: hello. i think -- trump works harder. i think that resonates across america. even in places where he didn't stump did pretty good. i'm from southern california.

it's surprisingly red down here. people think california is just liberals. that's not the case. we did pretty good. republicans did pretty good. host: do you think president trump comes out of this election? republicans losing the house. he does a dozen or more campaign swings through the fall. what's his lack of a better word, brand like going into the next two years and likely rerun for secretary term? i ler: he's got the big -- think the rallies, it's crazy. it's like a rolling stones concert. more people outside than inside. it's all positive feedback. i bring my children. it's really good message. it's like -- he was a democrat, he was a positive person, too. host: thanks. appreciate your comments and calls this afternoon.

more ahead. we're going to show you the briefings this afternoon from today from leader pelosi first. and mitch mcconnell, the senate leaderer. and chuck schumer, democratic leader in the senate. we'll reair the president's news conference tonight, 8:00 eastern. more of your phone calls after that. next up, nancy pelosi. ms. pelosi: good afternoon, everyone. good afternoon it is, and great day for the american people. the biggest winner in yesterday was the health care for american