it doesn't look to be moving in that direction. we'll wait and see whatwh the reaction from the moore campaign is. now, doug jones prepares to be the next senator sworn and here, changing the balance of power, taking a way one quote from the g.o.p. >> shannon: this is a fox news alert. we want to take you to alabama where democrat dougwe jones is celebrating his victory, havingi been just elected to the u.s. in it. in. just take with us a minute. he pulled off a race that just weeks ago, many would've thought impossible. that was before allegations against roy moore dating back decades in some cases surfaced and voters we saw today were really conflicted over whether or not they believed those allegations. we had a big number of voters actually tell us in our voter

analysis that they stayed home because of the allegations, they chose not to vote at all, and you would think tonight that had to have helped democrat doug jones. he is going through, thinking his supporters, and vowing to take washington by storm. let's listen in. >> it's the volunteers who made 1.2 million phone calls around the state! it's those volunteers who make sure that we knew it was every community.s you know, i keep hearing about the different communities in this state, the african-american communities. thank you! [cheers and applause] my friends in the latino community, thank you! [cheers and applause] to all of my jewish friends, happy hanukkah!

we have built this everywhere we have gone. we have had that same energy, we have had that same excitement. at the end of the day, this entire race has been about dignity and respect. [cheers and applause] this campaign has been about the rule of law. [cheers and applause] this campaign has been about common courtesy and decency and making sure everyone in the state, regardless of which zip code you live in, is going to get a fair shake in life! [cheers and applause] and let me just say this, folks. to all of my future colleagues

in washington -- [laughs] i have had such wonderful help. but i want to make sure, in all seriousness, there are important issues facing this country. there are important issues of health care and jobs and the economy. and i would like, as everyone in the entire probably free world knows right now, we have tried to make sure that this campaign was about finding common ground, and reaching across, and actually getting things done for the people. c so i have a challenge. i have this challenge to my future colleagues in washington. don't wait on me. take this election from the great state of alabama -- let me finish.

take this election where the people of alabama said i want you to find common ground, i want you to talk, take this opportunity, in light of this election, and go ahead and fund that chip program before i get up there! [cheers and applause] put it aside and let's do it for those million kids and 150,000 here in birmingham, alabama. i am not going to talk too much longer. it's been a long night. it's been a long campaign. but let me just say -- i know i have forgotten so much, i'vee forgotten so much, so many thank yous, and how we feel. this vote, this vote, i have said it before. alabama has been at a crossroads.f we have been at a crossroads in the past.

and unfortunately, we havero usually taken the wrong fork. tonight, ladies and gentlemen, you took the right road! [cheers and applause] that's it -- usa! [crowd chanting "usa"] on a very personal level, let me tell you -- and i said this at the top and i do mean this -- it seems, i want to thank each of you for helping me fulfill a lifelong dream of serving in the united states senate that started out with my mentor, and ever since then, that has been my dream. thank you for that.

so as we approach this history, as we approach this crossroads, we have work to do. we have work to do in this state, to build those bridges within this state, to reach across with those that didn't vote for us, to try to find that common ground. i am pledging to do that tonight. but i will tell you, tonight is a night for rejoicing because, as dr. king said, as dr. king liked to quote, "the moral arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice." tonight, tonight, ladies and gentlemen, tonight in this time, in this place, you have bent that moral arc, a little closer to that justice, and you did it, that moral arc, not only was it

bent more, not only was it aimed truer, but you sent it the righy through the heart of the great state of alabama in doing so! thank you, all! i love you! thank you! thank you! god bless you and god bless the great state of alabama and the united states of america! >> shannon: you have beenou listening to democrat doug jones and alabama successfully pulling off a run for the u.s. senate. he will be the next senator to join here in washington with a lot on the plate in 2018. how much will it cost them losing that seat? first of all, let's talk, before we hear from roy moore, we'll expect we'll hear from him eventually, let's talk about his reaction. secretary merrill, it's great to have you with us tonight. what can you tell us about turnout? we thought it was going to be so critical. >> thank you, shannon. it's unbelievable. the people of alabama really responded in this campaign unlike anything was ever expected to have occurred. actually, when you see exactly

what happened with more than 1.2 million alabamians participating, this is a record participation and the people of alabama are to be applauded for their encouragement and support to both candidates and both campaigns. >> shannon: we have talked a lot about this.r it's not only a specialal election, the special, special election. it comes at an off time, part of a runoff now, and there has been so many competing stories and scandals and all these kinds of things and that gets us to m tonight. you and i have had many conversations as this has unfold the last couple weeks about write in votes. i want to talk about something, he says jones votes right now, 640,520, moore, 641,576. about 9,000 votes different. then he says write-ins were 22,044. those folks who decided to have write-in votes instead of picking one of these candidates, more than covered the margin by double. for them to take the time to go out and vote on a day when theyn

knew that their write-in probably wouldn't matter, that seems like quite a statement from the folks of alabama. >> it really is, shannon. it's very important to note that all of those write-in votes will be documented and recorded and printed. so it will be understood exactly who received those votes and i what that will mean in the final difference. we actually sent instructions to the probate judges a couple of times.ns we'll send them again tonight to make sure they know those votes are supposed to be counted, documented, and recorded. and we will have those in the information that will be received back by our office toward the end of this week, the first of next week. >> shannon: it will be interesting to see the names that come up. i would imagine we see some jeff sessions and other names from alabama, maybe mo brooks, others who were a part of a that initil first, larger election, before getting us to this runoff. are you surprised that people would cast a vote that they knew probably wouldn't impact the tally for one of the other of

the two but actually gave doug jones the huge advantage, the win? >> well, certainly, it looks that way, shannon. one of the things that needs to be accepted from that is that the people of alabama were trying to make a statement with those write-in votes and they wanted to make sure that those votes were recorded and were documented for the candidate of their choice other than one of the two candidates that were listed on the ballot. >> shannon: it's always interesting to me to see that data when it gets broken down. we really actually see thehe otr names in the effort that people made to go to the polls on a day like today and not vote for one of the two main candidates. we look forward to that. when do you anticipate thatwa information will be available and when will you certify the results so that doug jones will be that -- one step closer to coming to washington to serve? >> sure, shannon. one of the things that needs to be noted is that the provisional ballots that were cast today will actually be processed and counted next tuesday. the information about the write-ins will also be processed next tuesday. that information needs to be back in our office by next

friday, the 22nd. the earliest that the vote can be certified will be the 26th of december and the latest will be january the third. so within that window, there are a number of things that have to be processed and executed by w e local offices and each one of the 67 counties, as well as our office, the office of the secretary of state. we need to make sure that everything is done according to plan, to ensure that the o integrity and preservation of the credibility of this process is secure. >> shannon: okay. the man we now think is the senator elect, not officially without your certification, but doug jones, appears to have won tonight, the democrat. he's got a lot waiting for him tonight but just so folks are reminded, this is essentially a two-year term for him as he fills the seat that was vacated by jeff sessions when he became the attorney general. you know, two years out, a lot of people are already running for the seat. how do you think this will play out? this has been one of the most unusual, raucous campaigns that we have seen in a long time and it seems like, you know, within

months, the two sides will be looking at this as a fresh seat again. >> certainly it is, shannon, something that needs to be given a great deal of attention. a lot of people had said that if doug jones won, basically what h would happen is he would become the scott brown of alabama. of course, scott brown was serving in massachusetts after senator kennedy's death and he served for two years and w was defeated by elizabeth warren and she took that seat in the full term. t so there are a number of things that can happen but it's s important to make sure that those continue to be processedpe according to the way that the people of alabama intend for them to be processed. i also think that it's important to note that we need to make sure that we are giving attention to every detail and section 17-16-20 of our code also talks about an automatic recount provision and it could be that judge moore's team may want to pay for a p recount, being within half of 1%. the automatic recount happens

when it's within half of 1%, but depending on how it actually evolves at this point when those provisionals are counted or to see how other things actually affect that, it could reduce that number a little bit more than it is now to make it half of 1%. if that takes place, we'll follow state law in order to ensure the integrity and preservation of the credibility of the process. >> shannon: it's an important fact to look at it as you go through these ballots and get to the final numbers. i'm not sure that your office is going to want to tackle that after all you have been through. i know you will do it dutifullyc but i know you would probably like to take a nap as well after the last -- >> i tell you, it has been unbelievable, no doubt about it. >> shannon: secretary merrill, we'll talk again soon. thanks for your time. >> thanks, shannon. >> shannon: while we await roy moore, we expect to hear a concession speech, we want to go back to doug jones' campaign headquarters. doug mckelway has been following this all day. doug, you have been giving us updates throughout the day. the folks felt confident even

when numbers initially were not in their favor. they knew what they were looking for, and they felt pretty confident today, it sounds like. >> yeah, i think that is definitely the case, shannon. doug jones is still on the stage as we speak, waving to people, friends and volunteers here, just thoroughly, thoroughly enjoying the moment. this has been a quest of his since he was a young man that first got involved in politics. not only is it victory night for doug jones, it's also his 25th wedding anniversary, as you might have heard during his victory speech tonight. he and his wife louise are celebrating their 25th anniversary. he paid to a really key he paid homage to a really key guy who happens to be a familiar face to a lot of fox news viewers, joe trippi, the mastermind behind his campaign. congratulations. >> thanks, we had a great team,i wonderful night. >> what made this work? >> look, i think the country really is looking for people to bring the country together and stop the division in washington

and i think doug jones spoke to that, finding common ground.d. a lot from his speech tonight, finding common ground, trying to work together across party lines. you know, there's not a lot of that going on in washington and he is going to try to do that. i think people in alabama wanted to do that. >> you are not of the mind that it's the sexual harassment that ruined this. there were polls in the early summer that showed it was a dead heat. >> i'm not saying it didn't have anything to do with it but we were in a dead heat. we were down one point long before "the washington post" stories or allegations came out. it certainly didn't help, you know, moore has always had some trouble in the state.s it worked against -- almost against what people were looking for.d he is seen as divisive, he was seen as controversial, they didn't want more of that in washington. >> did you sense at any time that moore was not ready for a primetime player? i recall a radio interview where

the host asked him, what is your position on the dreamers, and he didn't know what the dreamers were. >> there was a lot of that. again, i think people knew him in this state for a long time. he has been removed from office twice already. he was controversial. what they were looking for was somebody that was going to try to find common ground, try to work with other people in both parties, work with senator shelby, the other senator here, and i think doug jones, we reached enough people, he did, and that is what got us over the line. >> this is a deeply, deeply red state. is doug jones a one term senator? does this represent some kind of a seat change in alabama politics? >> [laughs]na we'll see. i think it will get down to how can he work across party lines, can he work with senator shelby to get things done? if he can, i think this state will like this.

that is what they wanted by electing him. certainly that is what he will try to do. washington is a tough place to do that. h h no one is kidding themselves. >> senator cory gardner, republican from colorado, already asked him to join the republican caucus. any chance of that happening? >> i don't think that is going to happen but i do think he'll join some, you know, caucus to bring people together. >> joe trippi, this is quite a feather in your cap, as well. congratulations.oe >> a lot of good people worked on it. it was a great team. i am proud to have been a part of it, really, it was amazing. >> go to see you. safe travels. shannon, back to you. >> shannon: doug mckelway live with the doug jones campaign on a winning night for them. with that win, the balance of power in the senate gets even tighter for republicans, 49 democrats, what happens now? tax reform, they'll probably get that done.? but let's break it on the fox news politics editor chris stirewalt.at good to see you tonight on a busy night, sir. i want to read the president's

tweet that we just got and he says, "congratulations to doug jones on a hard-fought victory. the write-in votes played a very big factor. a win is a win. and therepublicans will have a shot and another short period of time. it never ends."ri in the meantime, they will have" a democrat in that seat. >> that was a very gracioushe tweet. especially, since, if you recall, after his preferred candidate lost in virginia, he roasted the guy on twitter in real time in the same evening, complaining about ed gillespie. this time, he didn't denigrate roy moore, who, by the way, we recall, was not the candidate that the president wanted to win in the republican primary. this is not the guy, roy moore was not the guy that trump chose to win for the republican primary. guess what? this is something that steve bannon and his acolytes are going to have to think about now. donald trump was right about the alabama primary. steve bannon, the president's chief political advisor during

the campaign, was wrong. so that is something that steve bannon and his team are going to have to factor in as they go into 2018. how much of this primary battle stuff do they want to do? how much of the civil war do they want to do? what other seats could it cost them? >> shannon: i talked to the senate majority leader about this and about bannon backing other antiestablishment candidates that are often at odds with the party would like to do.ds he wouldn't even say his name, if you remember that. he noted the person you mentioned is how he referred to bannon, has picked the a lot of losers. tonight, this is going to be a r mixed night for mitch mcconnell. he loses a critical vote, at least for a couple of years, but he has now had proof of his feelings that steve bannon is not helpful to the party. >> there's that and also the more important consideration fob mitch mcconnell, who is thinking very much about the 2018 midterm elections. having roy moore serving in the united states entered may have cost multiple seats for republicans.

you can't know, it is all hypotheticals. having roy moore is a sitting u.s. senator, we can disabuse ourselves of any notion that he would be kicked out or removed or what how do if heic got elected, having him as a sitting u.s. senator was going to be trouble for the rest of his party because, guess what? not every state is as republican as alabama and not every state is as accommodating of the views of roy moore as alabama might be.is when you take that show on the road and democrats start pushing roy moore across the country, that could have cost mcconnell other seats. i think from that perspective, and what he is most concerned about, holding that majority, growing it by a seat or two, this is important. winning is always better than losing. winning is always better than losing, but this may be one where the silver lining is quite considerable. >> shannon: okay, so right now, the g.o.p. is trying to get stuff done on the hill. they can only lose two votes. they have the vice president to be the tiebreaker if they need

him. now they are down to one. does this mean that one republican senator is going to be able to derail anything? a contrarian libertarian like rand paul or often lisa murkowski or susan collins. it seems like you're always trying to hold that together if you are the g.o.p., the coalition. but now, they are down to one. >> susan collins' christmas list will be fulfilled. i predict. whatever it is that she desires is coming her way because as republicans think about how you get things done and, as you say, they can lose two, but now, newr they get into the senate, after these results are certified in a couple of weeks and we get the new look senate, they can only use one. that will notd affect them as they try to do this jam through at the very end of the year, they will have a minute right here, put a lot of pressure on them, more pressure on the taxes, the must pass end of year stuff that is so crucial. in the next year, whatever has m to be done, they won't do much. but whatever has to be done, each of those senators will feel

like they have more veto than ever before. >> shannon: with that in mind, and the power play that the president had tweeted and talked about the fact that we need this vote in the center, accusing doug jones about being bad on crime and the border, but our voter analysis, i think you give it the acronym earlier tonight, fnva, talking about what was most important to people, number one, candidates morality came out on top as 92% when asked to rank these different options. second was a party control ofhe the senate. it sounds like people's issues about morality trumped the day, no pun intended, when it came to listening to the president about losing control of the senate for the g.o.p. >> let's be plain about it. for the people of the alabama who are overwhelmingly conservative republicans politically, this would -- this was a choice between the united states senate and also bringing discredit to their state, looking silly, looking ridiculous. i would just point out, alabama

is only a generation or two removed from when a time when its name was tied to infamy, when it was tied too george wallace, when it was tied toto avowed enthusiastic segregation. it is not something that alabamians are particularly interested in associating themselves with. that is why roy moore, in thee past, was not only removed from office, but struggled in statewide races and that is why you put the added part on about the sex scandal, he just becomes a no-go and i think that ised wn you get those tens of thousands of write-in votes, saying won'tt vote for the democrat but i think it's important, they are saying, i want you to know i was here.vo if you wouldn't have failed me, i would have been there for you. >> shannon: if at one point, the numbers will change throughout the night, we will get more provisional votes w and things counted, but at one point, 9,000 vote margin. if you got 22,000 write-ins, they were fired up, they wanted to be heard but not attached to either one of these guys.. we will learn a lot more about who those names were. i'm sure we will recognize manyl

of them. >> nick sabin ftw. >> shannon: he and jeff sessions will be in there a lot. chris stirewalt, have a good night. what does the alabama senateav race now say about steve bannon conservatives versus the establishment republicans? "fox news @ night" spoke to senate majority leader mitch mcconnell about the former white house chief advisor over there.e. here is what he said. >> back in 2010 and 2012, the person you mentioned and hisis allies succeeded in nominating01 five candidates who all lost. we succeeded in 2014 and 2016 in defeating sure losers. >> shannon: let's welcome the political panel tonight. senior columnist from townhall.com, and radio host and fox news contributor, great to see both of you tonight. gentleman. >> great to be here. >> shannon: on one hand, mitch mcconnell is not a happy

camper tonight, he has lost a seat, but on the other hand, he might be doing a victory dance because he wouldn't even say bannon's name and he wanted to say this guy keeps picking losers. i'm doing the right thing for the party, he's not. >> i think that sounds about right. one of the big winners is the quote unquote donald trump likes to call the swamp, but establishment republicans. remember, at the beginning, they wanted luther strange, they lost that race, and then you saw establishment republicans, including richard shelby, the senior senator from alabama, saying, hey, listen, don't quote for this guy, i am not voting for this guy. this speaks to the larger problem the republic and party has. t now that donald trump is in the white house, i would argue ase, part of the farther left fringe of the party, i think he is connected synonymously with steve bannon, the biggest problem they have is how do they talk to suburban voters? how do they talk to suburban voters of virginia? now we find out that they can't talk to suburban voters in alabama. this is very problematic for the republican party moving forward, especially as we look to getting

trump's agenda through end of 2018 election. >> shannon: i feel like i can already hear kurt chuckling. this was such a unique race. i think it is hard to draw too many generalities from it. in the end, people did say, according to our analysis and f data, that morality matters to them over party. >> shannon, let's be really clear and that's not try and sugarcoat it. we, republicans, lost. we lost a seat we should have won.ep who lost it? we need to figure that out and figure out how to fix it for next year. we lost because the establishment tried to jam an establishment candidate down the throats of the alabama voters in the primary and theyhe rebelled. they nominated a kook, a nut, roy moore was a terrible candidate before and a terrible candidate especially after the revelations camend out. we have problems on both sides. the conservative insurgents are sick and tired of not being listened to. the establishment in washington is sick and tired of having the

voters beyond the beltway trying to have input. we need to come together, we need to dove it quick. we need to learn the lessons of virginia and the lessons of alabama, which is our voters are not going to show up if we don't give them a proper choice and we did not do that. we need to make lemons out of this -- lemonades out of these lemons, shannon. we have a lot of lemons tonight. >> shannon: we are awaiting roy moore, who appears to have been defeated, they g.o.p. nominee in alabama for the u.s. senate. we will keep an eye on that and go there live to hear from his take on this tonight as soon as that happens. in the meantime, richard, it ist interesting, we looked at a lot of data that was coming at us today from voters and folks dowa in alabama. it was interesting that a lot of people said they stayed home because of these allegations involving moore. they didn't want to vote at all. and the 22,000 plus who showedt up just to write-in a name including senator shelby, as you mention, because they wanted to be heard in this whole thing, so they didn't want to have to apparently vote for either oneo

of these candidates they found unacceptable. >> i think that is very interesting. the 22,000 numbers were interesting, also the fact that doug jones won this race, looking at 10,000 votes, more will come in as you count provisionals and so on.. but i think it speaks to the larger problem that donald trump will have. donald trump wholeheartedly embraced roy moore as a candidate, even though, as my colleague says, he was a kook. he was a kook that won overwhelmingly in the primary against luther strange. that speaks to the fact that republicans are having a bit of a problem in coming together -- >> shannon: richard, there were none of these allegations against moore when that happened. none of those were public because it makes a huge difference. had they been public during that earlier primary vote, you know, the g.o.p. may have decided on d somebody else. >> i hear what you are saying but let's also remember that roy moore is guilty for saying comments like, lgbtq people should be put to death. his rhetoric was problematic

before -- >> shannon: i'm not sure that he said those exactt words. we need to do a fact-check on that. >> i think i'm almost right. >> roy moore is a terrific -- was a terrifically flawed candidate. i think we ought to be honest with ourselves and say that. even though he was terrificallyy flawed, he almost pulled this out, he almost won. as republicans, we need to learn from this. we are having a civil war in our party between the establishment and the conservative insurgents. it is time we come to a revolution. the establishment needs to understand, the people outside of washington, d.c., want to be heard, they don't want amnesty, they don't want corporate welfare. they don't want all this other nonsenset that we have been seeing. listen to this people that come together and put candidates forward who are decisively flawed. >> where does president trump fall?

is he part of the establishment or the insurgency? >> shannon: that has been a tough part of the question. this race has been all over the place with bannon and the president on different sides of everything. >> i think it speaks to the larger problem. >> shannon: we see people coming too the microphone, so we expect we'll hear from roy moore shortly. in the meantime, richard if you will stay with us, we do want to check in at moore headquarters and find out when we will hear from the judge. in the meantime, let's check in with peter doocy in montgomery. he's been following this today. peter, correct me, i heard earlier today, we got some emails, i don't know who it was, correct me, something about, we are going to win tonight, it's a landslide., that has not how it turned out. why were they so sure? >> shannon, this is the most extensive word we have gotten from the campaign right now, the chairman's speaking, but he just came out to say that the night is not over for the moore supporters who are gathered here

because they are hoping to get the margin within a half of a percent to trigger an automatic recount. this is the first official mention of the possibility of a recount that we have heard from here, but they are talking about a recount and they are not talking about any kind of a concession. so we know that judge moore has been here at one point. they did turn off the tv, they stopped showing "the new york times"'s tracker of the counties coming in blue that led the networks to call it. actually, they came out and ask the people here to keep the faith and they started singingng hymns. i took notes. "how great thou art," "all hail the power of jesus' name." the very quiet crowd was singing with a group of young people who were up on the stage, but things are not over, the way that the moore campaign sees it right now.

to that end, though, up on capitol hill, i am also getting some reaction tonight -- and you know what, here is roy moore. >> thank you. i really want to thank you for coming tonight and realize when the vote is this close, it is not over. we still got to go by the rules about this recount provision, and secretary of state has explained it to us and we are expecting that the press will go up there and talk to them to find out what the situation is. but we also know that god is always in control. you know, part of the problem with this campaign is we have been painted in an unfavorable and unfaithful light. we have been put in a hole, if

you will, and it reminds me of a passage in psalms 40. i waited patiently for the lord, that is what we have to do. he inclined to me and heard my cry and brought us up also out of a horrible pit out of clay and set my feet on the rock and established my goings and put a new song in my mouth. we are praising to our god. see it, hear it, and be moved by that. yes, you will. and that is what we have got to do is wait on god and let this process play out. i know it's late. we can't wait and have everybody wait after 11:00. but the votes are still coming in and we are looking at that. may god bless you as you go on, may he give you a safe journey, and thank you for comingma tonight. it's not over and it's going to take some time. thank you. >> shannon: okay. so not a concession speech from roy moore tonight, although we w

and just about every other outlet there has called this race for doug jones. as you are the secretary of state on earlier tonight, he did say to us that under alabama law, if the vote was is and a half percentage point, it does qualify for a recount. tonight, moore is hinting at that. he is not conceding. there are provisional ballotsti and other things that will take some time to sift through. not every vote is in. far from it. his camp is hoping for a bit of a miracle. quoting from the bible, talking about god hearing his cry and climbing to his -- lift him out of the clay. essentially, what they are l dog is -- what will be there laugh last hope is to get the vote with and have a percentage point and trigger that recount. bret baier joins us now. not a concession tonight. >> no. there are other bible verses that say, "it's over."ht i will tell you what, the numbers that we are looking at,

it could be three, four points, just looking at the projections right now. the raw vote total is roughly 9,000. we had 22,044 write-ins. you talked to chris stirewalt earlier about it. 22,000, that is double the difference. there you see the lead is increasing on the raw vote total, 670 now. just looking at the map, looking where the votes are, it doesn't seem like it's going to get to that half percent, not even close. more like it's expanding and not contracting. i think eventually, you are going to see from the moore campaign a concession. >> shannon: it's interesting because in watching the data we were getting in the fox news voter analysis, one of the groups we were really watching were white evangelicals because i think they went by 90% or more for mitt romney in the last big race, the presidential race. tonight, the split was 74%,

jones, 22%. it wasn't enough to put moore on top unless something miraculous happens with what is it remaining to come in.ir certainly a drop off from what we saw for mitt romney. you'll remember, lot ofp conversation about whether evangelicals would vote for a mormon candidate, even less of them felt like voting for roy moore apparently. >> that's true. i just listened to the other conversation. this is apples and oranges to the virginia race.e. it's just completely, completely different. this was a very flawed candidate. these allegations are overwhelmed all of the coverage. his first interview with sean hannity was really, really bad, as far as a candidate making a pitch or trying to stop the bleeding on a story that was getting out of hand for his campaign.. he fought back, in part because of all of the other allegations that were flying and accusations and resignations that were happening on the democratic side and in the world of hollywood.

but it overwhelmed. just the write-ins alone, you saw the president's tweet mentioning that number, and what was actually a very gracious tweet if you think about where the president has been on commenting on some of these races. >> shannon: the g.o.p. certainly did not want to lose e senate seat. that is not helpful for supreme court nominations or anything else they have going on over there. but in a way, does thise eliminate some sort of headache that they would've had to deal with moving forward? apparently the word was there was going to be a 10:00 a.m. meeting with mitch mcconnell to get everyone in the g.o.p. on the same page if roy moore won because we heard so much conversation about, do they seat him right away, do they refer him to the ethics committee? at least for now they have lost a vote but they don't have to deal with that part of the conversation. >> exactly. over the past few days, you have seen the mantra that has started to develop about the president's accusers and calls for him to resign, and investigations.

and i think you are going to see more of that. if you had roy moore in thatgo seat, the g.o.p. establishment believed that that was going to be a real problem in 2018. doug jones is going to be a democrat. he will probably hold the line on some things. but if he wants to get reelected in 2020, he is going to have to check the box in what alabama believes, at least some ofof th, because if you put policies of the trump agenda up for a vote in alabama, it would be an overwhelming win. >> shannon: i heard someone refer to him -- you may remember who it is -- potentially senator joe manchin of alabama. he is also somebody who is a conservative, moderately conservative democrat. he knows how the voters at home feel, and i was there in west virginia covering a senatee race when he ran. there were people on both sides of the aisle who loved him, who felt like he was through to west virginia values that he wasn't going to tow the party line. do you think that is the space that doug jones will be forced g

into? >> yeah, i think so. manchin, heidi heitkamp, joe donnelly, fitting all of that. so far, we should point out, democrats have held the lineal when the democratic leadership has said, vote this way. even not discussing tax reform, not to argue tax reform on the senate floor. i think it would be interesting to see how doug jones votes. i do believe that this race, as we called it, is going to turn out to be about three or four points. i will note that president trump weighed in on three elections over the past three months. luther strange, ed gillespie,we and roy moore.re all three of them are losses. is it tied directly to president trump or does it tie to steve bannon playing the other side? o we don't know how it is going to fall out but the first reaction from the president was to congratulate jones and to say the write ins caused this loss. >> shannon: as we get the a final numbers in the coming

weeks, we will learn a lot about how that filters out. unlikely at this point that they get to the .5 percentage spacing between the two candidates that they need to get to a recount so we will continue to watch it. excellent coverage as always, bret. let's bring back the panel. senior columnist from townhall.com and radio talk show host and fox news contributor richard fowler. they have the winners and losers from tonight. we touched on this a little bit. who were the winners and losers now that doug jones, itit appea, has won the seat? >> wow. i think in a way mitch mcconnell is a loser. he will get a lot of blame from the conservatives insurgents for this because he pushed luther strange. he has to thread the needle with 51 votes instead of 52. it will be tough. but let's look, steve bannon has lost, steve bannon brought roy moore in, pushed roy moore and roy moore stumbled.

he managed to lose alabama. another big loser are people who like the second amendment, people who don't like abortion, people who don't like amnesty. conservative voters have lost an important voice. this is not a good night. we got another one coming up in a year! >> shannon: [laughs]no it's never over. as you all know andea as the president tweeted tonight, it never ends because there is always another election.s richard, walk us through your winners and losers with jones being the winner tonight. >> with jones the winner, i will add to my list. i think black voters were a big winner because they once again showed up for the democratic party in a major way. the other one is "the washington post," who was the first publication to rollout a story about roy moore and ito think they are big winner tonight. the third big winner is the establishment. to go off of what bret was saying a couple of moments ago is they normally have to worry about the guy sleeping

downstairs, but now that he is not going to be in the senate chambers, they can try their best to delete them from their memory and hope that democrats don't bring him back up for all of the things that was wrong with his candidacy. in the previous segment, i want to correct myself, the comment he made was that being gay was illegal. correcting myself. >> shannon: thank you and credit to you because we always want to make sure that we know what is factual. it is a great characteristic for us all, we make mistakes, to admit them. thank you, richard. >> absolutely. >> shannon: i know that you have said that you think the president is a loser here. this is interesting, setting up a weird dynamic between bannon, the president, mitch mcconnell. it is kind of a weird stew as they move back and forth between these candidates. i did not see steve bannon, did not hear from him, i don't know what his take is going to be. he was all in. >> [laughter] he is probably out back at the moore rally pounding his head into the wall.

i think -- donald trump occupies this interesting space where he triangulates between the steve bannon wing and the mitch mcconnell wing. he goes back and forth and he plays with them both. he supported luther strange and then he supported roy moore to keep that seat. i don't think donald trump is going to get any blame from the conservative voters about this. i think they have taken donald trump out of this equation. it was very much a roy moore centric vote. not that we shouldn't learn from it, but he was a uniquely flawed candidate. he managed to lose a uniquely republican state. i don't think donald trump is going to get any blame, at least not from republicans, and if democrats try and cast it on him, i don't know if it will resonate. >> i beg to differ. the reason why, if you look at

other republicans, i think the model example is senator shelbya from the state of alabama, he was like, "i won't even votes fr this guy, even though he is from my state, i would rather give this lead to a democrat than to give it to roy moore" and the president, on the other hand, had a rally just outside of the borders of alabama, he did robo calls into the state, he forced the party, after disengaged, to reengage, and these are all things that are connected clearly to president trump. not to mention all the tweets endorsing roy moore. it is hard to split him from roy moore or to split him from t steve bannon because what we have seen in this race is they followed the steve bannon playbook down to the tea.ha in the virginia race, they were like, it is because they didn't embrace trump. roy moore did that and he still lost. i >> shannon: we have to remind folks, in case you have been under a rock, this is a very unusual race. really quickly before we go, do democrats risk missing the point or reading too much into it ifro they say this is a referendum on trump?is

>> i think they do. i want to encourage them to do that because i love it when democrats -- as i was taught atu fort benning, never interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake. the thing i don't want his republicans to make a mistake. i don't want us to think, this is just roy moore, this was just a one off. there are a lot of things going on and i think richard had a really good point. black voters were energized and they came out and they made their voice heard. we need to understand that a lot of people who sometimes we lazily count on to not vote

thank you very much for all of your hard work tonight. we've got other big, big nonelection news we'll get you right after this break. ♪ (male announcer) share the wonder of christmas

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get a 4 week trial plus $100 in extras including postage and a digital scale go to stamps.com/try and never go to the post office again >> shannon: special counsel robert miller's investigation may be wrapping up, according to ty cobb. we're getting new d >> shannon: we are getting new details tonight, on 10,000 text messages between fbi agent peter strzok, who was taken up the miller investigation and his alleged mistress, and fbi lawyer named lisa page. we got these tonight, pouring through, finding out exactly what they were talking about.

harassment here is what jumped . paige said: paige replied "i think so. "that same day, strzok said: about a month later, page texted him, so, look, you say we text on that phone when we talk about hillary because it can't be traced. so page appears to be acknowledging that they know they are doing something that shouldn't be done are the very least, something that they don't want to waste. remember, all of these texts were taken place during the fbi's investigation of hillary clinton's emails.

strzok was involved in that. james comey's assessment from grossly negligent to extremely careless. after trump secures the nomination and it's a little unclear exactly what page is referring to here, she says, "maybe you are meant to stay where you are because you are meant to protect the country from that menace." strzok replied, "thanks, it is true that we are both very fortunate and of course i will try to approach it that way, i just know it will be tough at times. i can protect our country at many levels, not sure if that helps." even though both strzok and page are no longer in the special counsel's office, and all of that stress feeds into the narrative and feeds into the accusations for many republicans that his purpose tainted because people on his team have an anti-trump bias. here's one of president trump's personal attorney, jay sekulow, tonight. >> at the end of the day, you have to say, how is this allowed to continue? why are these people not terminated? you know what the answer is, people don't like when you say

it, but it is the deep state, the bureaucrats. >> another white house attorney, ty cobb, said that mueller's team is done interviewing white house officials. he also said that he believes the special counsel's investigation is going to be wrapped up soon. we are talking weeks, maybe months. but democrats have come out and said that is either complete fiction or wishful thinking. so, shannon, believe what he will on that one. >> shannon: iss a very big story to be coming out tonight, the same night we have the election. we will continue to pour through these. >> they are still coming in. >> shannon: we have 10,000 to read. it takes a little time. we thank you for pouring through. >> thank you. >> shannon: let's go back to doug t jones' campaign headquarters in birmingham, he is the victor tonight. doug mckelway has been with him on a night theyy were feelig confident. he's made his victory speech, but doug, roy moore is not conceding, at least not yet. i >> shannon, i'm having real trouble hearing you with all of the toys. i didn't quite make out your

question. i wonder if republicans in the senate, especially in the leadership of the senate, aree breathing a big sigh of relief tonight. yes, they lack one more vote in their majority, they had the slimmest of margins, quite literally, a one-vote majority in the senate. imagine the problems they would have had, had roy moore won and you would have had this justfi endless fight between the leadership and roy moore. much of the population of alabama and the rest of the country hounding roy moore for every stance he would take in washington. to some people are wondering here whether this might have been ame blessing. also, many people are wondering whether or not he would have been out of legal jeopardy, as well. just reading up on the statutes and alabama and there is no statute of limitations against sexual assault and alabama if the victim is under the age of 16 at the time and we all know that one of the victims was 14 year old at the time she had her

experience with roy moore. so that's it. also, doug jones ran an incredible campaign here. he is a formidable candidate, and i love amy and who walked the walk and talk the talk. he was campaigning endlessly here, covered something like a thousand miles in the last several months where his opposition was going to the football game, the army-amy game in philadelphia. many people said that was not a bad idea, a demonstration of his patriotism, which would have gone up or welcome but the bottom line was that he was not answering reporters questions. he was not meeting with his constituents. it did not pay for him. >> shannon: doug mckelway at doug jones' victory headquarters tonight. again, the alabama senate race that had captured headlines for weeks, if not months, is over tonight.on judge roy moore was not the victor but he has not conceded tonight. he is hoping to capitalize on a state law that would allow a recount if this margin gets to within a half percentage point.

it doesn't look tribute moving in that direction. we'll wait and see what the reaction from the moore campaign is. now, doug jones prepares to become the next senator swart and, changing the balance of power. with -- >> shannon: this is a fox news alert. we want to take you back live to alabama where democrat doug jones is celebrating his victory, having been just elected to the u.s. senate. let's listen in. all right, we are going to work on that audio. just take with us a minute. he pulled off a race that just weeks ago, many would've thought impossible. that was before allegations against roy moore dating back decades in some cases surfaced and voters we saw today were really conflicted over whether or not they believed those