some day before i diely tell you what charlie sykes said during last break. for now my thanks. now that does it for our hour, i'm nicolle wallace, "mtp daily" starts right now. hi chuck. >> hi, nicole. it feels -- like a slow -- >> a sex tape. what was weird. >> that is a good question on any given day i won't answer that question. if it is wednesday, republicans, the call is coming from inside your house. >> tonight, could the democrats keystone state win by the cornerstone to a midterm takeover. >> this is not a aberration, this is a trend. >> plus republican rewrite. how the party is trying to flip the script on this devastating

loss. >> conor lamb ran as a republican. >> and the u.k. cracks down on russia. will the u.s. join in the retaliation? >> condemn the culpability of the russian state. >> this is "mtp daily" and it starts right now. ♪ ♪ good evening. i'm chuck todd here in washington. welcome to "mtp daily." we begin with a gut punch for president trump and a wake-up call for nancy pelosi, conor lamb is the apparent winner according to nbc news in a district trump won by 20 points. we say now that a source now says it is probable that the saccone campaign will ask for a recount but we say apparent because we believe all of the ballots are counted and if there is not enough of the overseas to change the total, but a recount

is possible, but still lamb erased a 20-point deficit. that is a headline that will not change regardless of the vote total. some republicans are panicking after the results and others are saying there is no reason to panic because lamb was actually the republican in the race. we kid you not on that one. but that doesn't change the fact that president trump campaigned for the actual republican candidate rick saccone not once but twice. and make no mistake, he run on trump's tax plan and tariffs and against sanction cities and talk about ms-13 and ran on trump style attacks on liberals claiming democrats hate god and despite all of that, he apparently lost in the district that trump won by 20 points. so folks, there are more than a hundred republican-held districts that are technically and statistically less republican than this one. and democrats need just 24 house seats to win back the house. that is what should worry president trump and republican leaders after last night. but the spin today from top republicans like these folks is that there is no reason to

worry. because the democrats conor lamb who was attacked as a pelosi supporting obamacare trump hating liberal is actually a republican. >> both of these candidates, the republican and democrat ran as conservatives. >> lamb ran against pelosi. >> >> he ran for the president's tariff policy. >> don't think we'll see a lot of democrats doing that in the paul. >> 90% of the voters don't want nancy pelosi to be speaker and they want a conservative message. >> conor lamb never identified himself as a democrat. he ran against nancy pelosi and said he would not vote with nancy pelosi. >> in this particular case, the lesson was run away from nancy pelosi and run -- with donald trump. >> to be clear, that is what you say when you are worried about moral and retirement and to be clear, conor lamb is not a trump republican but did run as a centralist democrat and democrats do have something of a crisis on their hands because of it. because the first headline from conor lamb's post eliection

interview was him saying nancy pelosi needs to go. >> i will say and continue to say, that i think we need new leadership at the top of both parties in the house and so i would like to see someone besides nancy pelosi run and that is who i would support so i think we need to sweep new people in there. >> that is nothing new for lamb. and a notable part of the campaign was opposing pelosi and he won. what signal does that send to other democrat running in the now swing-ish red districts. what signal does that send before pelosi's future if democrats want their blue wave to wash through trump country and take back the house? so here is the dilemma for the democrats. republicans right now are reassuring their ranks that they can hold the house because there won't be many anti-pelosi centralist democrats like conor lamb running against them. are they right? right now there is less of a purity test for democratic candidates in the competitive districts than the republican opponents. you can run as a democrat and

oppose nancy pelosi and the base will forgive you right now. but if you are a republican, good luck opposing trump because the base might run you out of town. so let's bring in folks to talk about what we saw and in western pennsylvania, david wasserman from the cook political report and heidi preside bola and mich steel and maria teresa cumar. >> and mr. wasserman, you are the vote counter and you called the race so we don't need you a.p. and you helped us call it as well. so what do you take away from this race? we've heard wake-up call, washi wash -- warning signs. this is like the 18th wake-up call in the last year. >> chuck, a democrat winning a district that trump carried about 20 points is seven or eight beer goggles ugly for the republican party.

there is no doubt about it. and yet at the same time democrats did something smart here. they largely stayed off the pittsburgh airwaves as a national party. and that was completely unlike what they did in georgia six where jon ossoff lost. it allowed conor lamb to run his own campaign and present himself to voters not beholden to either party and that helped him win this race. >> what is this race look like when there is 434 of them out there. and the reason i ask this is this way -- republicans threw everything at this race at the last second to try to rescue this campaign. my guess is had saccone been in the shape that he was and this were before a november election, they would have just moved on to another race and saccone loses by five or six and they don't bother. but that is my sense of this. what does this race look like without it being the only race

on the ticket? >> well, you're right. there are a hundred districts that republicans hold that are less republican than this one. and yet not all of them are going to be k-- competitive in the fall. conor lamb was a uniquely strong candidate. his life story resonated with the district and a young marine and prosecutor. republicans aren't going to have that problem of running against basically a perfect candidate everywhere. so their only strategy or hope for winning and holding on to the house majority is to disqualify their democratic opponent with opposition research and make them unacceptable. it is going to be a scorched earth fall campaign. >> and democrats now take away from this which is they've -- they've been saying this. they feel as if they want to find more candidates fit the district and i've seen this movie before in 2006. it worked but does create governing problems down the road. >> it absolutely does. and, look, conor lamb could be in congress for a while. because the redrawn pennsylvania

map gives him a district that is much better, much more friendly to democrats than the one that he apparently just won. but that's the nature of a party with no clear leader. it's a big advantage when you are out of power because the face of the party could be every single candidate in every district who could tailer a message to that district but when you are in power, it becomes much more difficult because you have tough decisions to make on issues like guns, trade, you name it. >> michael steel, what did you learn from the race? >> i think any republican candidate isn't running as if they life depended on it, they are doing it wrong. the choice is not between panic and complacency but doing the hard work and raising money and doing your job and be ready for whatever wave comes or doesn't. and at the same time, we won't face a marine who is pro life

and pro-gun in every district this fall. this is a unique situation and unique to the democratic candidate and he didn't face a primary. >> he didn't have to move to left. >> i don't think a democratic candidate who faces a primary will run television ads showing him firing an assault weapon. >> what did you learn? >> that we're seeing basically a riftory and it started with virginia and they changed the state house almost overnight. holding on the thread. so we're t-- seeing a thread an i'm looking for the folks on the ground in midterms because they will be able to identify the democrat. and what i mean is northrup won gi nine points but it was everybody underneath. while yes lamb was a unique candidate, i'm looking at the local state house to see what we're bringing in and i say that because -- there is close to 30,000 folks that decided they want to run for office. they have a pool of candidates they didn't have in 2006. >> heidi, it was interesting,

republicans tried to nationalize this race in so much different ways. whether it was pelosi or taxes and at the end it was trump and democrats let conor lamb run his own race which in an environment like this you would want to do the exact opposite. >> but they had twin forces where they didn't have to -- maybe it was the lack of the primary, but they didn't have to do a lot to energize the democratic base. they were already energized so they gave conor lamb the running room to go back to the pro-union working class voters and if you look at the district, it was represented by a democrat before tim murphy. a lot of those people are still registered as democrats. they're just coming home on an economy populous message that they allowed conor lamb to run on. and i thought one of the things also about this that is potentially a huge problem for republicans, is the way in which they retreated from the tax cut message. a big part of the urgency in getting the tax cuts done was to

allow members -- or candidates like saccone to run on it and yet pulled back and started running on other issues like conor lamb on crime and guns. >> david wasserman, we knew republicans in suburban areas were going to struggle. this is a district that is sort of half suburban, half ex-urban. not quite rural but a mix. and in every -- it is sort of like what every suburban district in small cities looks like. it is like the suburbans of omaha or the suburbs of even kansas city and the kansas side of things. there is a lot of districts that have these half suburban, half ex-urb ex-urban areas where the republican candidate has to make a decision, hug trump or start distanting themselves -- hug trump and alienite the

suburban-its. >> i think republicans did a decent job of getting vote out compared to the other races that we've watched. but democratic intensity particularly in those inner suburbs of pittsburgh was just slightly higher. and that made the difference in this race. if you actually break it down, conor lamb lost the election day vote by maybe a handful of votes, one thanks to absentees. but the danger for republicans is that they are not going to be able to run this kind of field program everywhere in november. and trump is not going to be able to visit all of these solidly republican districts. >> how many districts are kind of like this one, where they sort of straddle the suburbs? meaning they are -- i think lexington, kentucky, that district looks like -- feels a little sim milar. what others ones are like this. >> you are right. kentucky six district, you mentioned omaha, naeebraska andn

california central valley there are a few districts that are suburban and somewhat more kind of rural, more conservative culturally. so these boarder zones are the places that will make the difference between the majority and minority. >> and that is what i think to. nancy pelosi, what is the lesson. >> i think right now nancy pelosi needs to take a step back and just watch the party -- take a breath. i think lamb coming in will have a lot of supporters because there is a new generation of young democrats that want to take leadership. >> do you want her to announce that she is not running now or wait until after november. >> it is hard because she's the one that fund raises and she does it well. so do you want to get -- >> i think it is an interesting dilemma. >> he was asked the question and he answered the question. he was not standing up at the podium thumping the podium saying nancy pelosi has to go. >> but he is going into as a freshman with other individuals hi highly senior that will -- >> he put it in his ads.

>> how rattles are republicans that -- oh, well if democrats really work hard -- it would decide they don't want to be -- that attack doesn't work. >> i don't think we're worried about because there is no sense that pelosi and hoyer and clyburn are moving on. they are clinging to their positions -- what we're seeing is the flip side of what democrats dealt with under president obama, where popularity doesn't translate but unpopularity does. >> and will we start to see more democrats in the reddish districts brag about not supporting nancy pelosi? >> absolutely. and at the same time, i think nancy pelosi probably appreciates that and likes that. because she knows that that would help her chances of becoming speaker again. but i'm telling you, i'm meeting with the democratic candidates by the dozen who are running in a lot of these competitive districts, they don't like her and i think she's going to be very hard pressed to keep her job even if democrats do retake the majority.

>> i don't know where she finds her 218 if she has a shot at getting 218. mr. waterman, everybody enjoy followed you last night. you owned twitter. kornacki won the airwaves and you won twit. that is the way we look it. panel is sticking around. up ahead, school is out across america. millions of kids nationwide -- high school and middle school -- skip class to protest gridlock on gun control. will the message resonate on capitol hill?

welcome back. tonight on meet the midterms, a little bit of seat switching. chris mcdaniel auns nod he is opting to run for the open senate seat, a special election in mississippi. rather than continue his primary bid against sitting senator roger wicker. who will the tea party conservative mcdaniel face in

the primary? that is the big question right now. that second senate seat will become vacant at the beginning of next month when thad cochran resignation becomes official. then it will be up to republican governor phil bryant to appoint a successor and now facing immense pressure within the state to head off the mcdaniel challenge by naming a strong conservative to the seat. perhaps it is bryant himself. we shall see. that is what mitch mcconnell would like. mcdaniel must figure that he has a better shot against a newly appointed republican than a long-term incumbent like wicker. and from his 2014 challenge toed that cochran he may have a point. the point is there watch that race now. we shall see. who does phil bryant appoint that he believes can beat mcdaniel in a primary? more "mtp daily" after this. rheumatoid arthritis? do what i did. ask your doctor about humira. it's proven to help relieve pain and protect joints

from further irreversible damage in many adults. humira works by targeting and helping to block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to ra symptoms. humira has been clinically studied for over 20 years. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. ready for a new chapter? talk to your rheumatologist about humira. this is humira at work. welcome back. last night's special election was good news for democrats. but it wasn't all good news. joining me now is democratic

congressman tim ryan of ohio. he camed in pennsylvania for conor lamb. congressman ryan, welcome back to the show. >> how are you? >> so let me ask you this, what is the biggest lesson you took away from conor lamb's win in trump country? >> let the local candidate decide what the main issues are in that campaign and let them articulate and let them frame it, keep the d.c. circuit consultants and pollsters out of it and let them handle it locally and i think that is a winning recipe for democrats. >> is this -- when you look at what the republicans tried to do with the tax cut, pelosi, at the end it became more of a -- a trying to rally the trump voter, what message that they were thrown at them did you fear could work that didn't work the most? >> well, i think it was the numbers. the sheer numbers. but when we stay on that economic message, that message that unites democrats and

independents, republicans, working class people, small business people, men and women, that works because that is what is on people's minds. people who are underemployed, making $30 or $40 an hour a few years ago are making now $15. we have to talk to that person's aspiration and i think connor did that. and expanding health care, protecting medicare, social security and being for tax cuts for middle class, not huge corporation. >> and what did you learn about nancy pelosi's potential role in the midterms from last night's election. >> well again, that the local candidate needs to decide how they're going to handle that situation. obviously it is a national issue in so many different ways but they need to figure out how to handle it locally and those of us who run in our own races need to be able to make that determination. >> do you think that the democrats have a better chance if you have folks say, you know what, i am for new leadership

rather than electing the old leadership team? >> well, chuck, i've been abundantly clear where i stand. >> i know where you stand. but do you think it is good for other democrats to say that this year? >> i think they have to decide. i don't think us having an internal fight here in d.c. -- it benefits anybody at this point. but we have to be focused on letting the local candidate make that determination. make that judgment as they -- as they feel in their own hearts what direction the party needs to go in and we need to respect that. >> you know, there is some issues where conor lamb is at odds with the democrat eck base and -- democratic base and i talked to some who said on the issue of guns, maybe -- maybe the democrats need a unified more on guns and if conor lamb loses that will prove being pro-gun doesn't work. does him winning mean the democrats do need to be more open minded on the gun issue on their side of the aisle.

>> well, i think what conor lamb did and i don't know his gun position in side and out but it is important to recognize that we are going to have people that may agree with us on all of the issues with regard to assault weapons, with regard to background checks or those kind of issues, but they may hunt and they may culturally align with the people in our district and i think that can be a very powerful message to people saying, look, i hunt with my kids. i'm a hunter. but i do think these assault weapons need to -- need to come out or we need restrictions, we need universal background checks without saying those people who do hunt are somehow not good citizens. that just -- it is a cultural issue. so you can actually be with the democrats on this issue and be aligned culture ll with people who would say, that person just has maybe a different opinion than me, but i like them. and this is the thing -- chuck,

when you focus on the economic issues, people will disagree with you on maybe some of the social issues but if they feel like you are speaking to them economically, they're going to vote for democrats. >> so let me ask you this. do you think as far as a national message is concerned, the democrats need a national economic message but then let the cultural stuff be local? is that how you would advise the party? >> well, we're going to have a bunch of fights in primaries. where they're are all kinds of different issues and i think for the most part we should stay out of those and let the local people determine who they want to nominate. and then we need to support the democrat at that level. the one who is running against the republican because we've seen what the republicans have done. but a robust economic message, i believe, is one that plays all across the country and then you can have a local flavor to the economic issue or to other issues. but having a broad, big aspirational message i think is important.

>> very quickly before i go to the other side of the aisle to talk about republican messages. president trump is floating a three-year temporary protection for daca recipients in em change of three years of funding for the wall or some down payment for the wall. what do you say to that? >> well, i think i've heard him say a lot of things that he never really backs up. so taking care of daca is a priority for a lot of us. and i would be anxious to see him get that in writing and agree to that in writing and the house and the senate agree to that in writing as well. but i think taking care of daca has to be a component of that. >> i think you are not alone in wanting to see that stuff in writing first. congress tim ryan, democrat from ohio. thank you very much. let me turn to a former head of the nrcc, congressman names tom davis and ran the nrcc in the days of '94. >> when we were winning. >> when you were winning. so we heard a lot of talk from

leadership and paul ryan and you've spoken with some folks and the st and the -- the feeling of the day is this guy ran as a republican. it feels like a morale boost spin but tell me -- >> it is true. they had a better candidate. he was out of central casting. >> he fit the district. >> candidates and campaigns matter. joe biden was the only national democrat he could bring into the district without determining -- and these have been cultural alignments for a long time. but the bulk of conor lamb's vote came from the pittsburgh suburbs where liberal democrats and resistance democrats wanted change despite the democratic turnout and we've seen that across the board for the last several months. >> so if you are sitting there as rcc chairs and you are sitting there going -- i think paul ryan is less republican -- or devin nunes is less republican and there is unique -- >> they are in couple ben-- incumbents and that makes a

difference. >> but how nervous are you. >> they've seen this coming. most of the members got elukted running against obama and now they have to defend -- >> they've run in a year like this before. >> they've never seen this before and i said this at the republican conference, they would weather the storm and some there are nothing they can do but they have to run good campaigns and open seats are vulnerable in this environment as we saw yesterday. >> so what i think has to be a problem is that this is -- this is the type of district that you thought, well trump could help. >> i think he did help. i think had he not gone in, it would have -- >> okay. but he could help a little bit. he helps a little bit with turnout. but you still have a swing voter problem. >> you have the problem that trump voters are loyal to trump. and they're not necessarily republicans -- obama had the same problem. they were obama central voters and republicans have that problem. they have the additional problem of controlling everything in government. people who are angry got to

focus their attention exclusively on republicans and in addition you have ticket splitters that would put a check on the president than give him a blank check. >> post-alabama, yet another one of the wake-up calls that some people are hitting the snooze part on too often. you could pick apart a specific race but the trend line is the same. democratic is surging. the republican leadership view is this. we're not going to do much slate legislating and we're going to run on the ticket, is that a good strategy. >> that is not a good strategy. we held in the house in '96 and we got welfare reform and worked with clinton and got the appropriations done on time. >> a democratic president who was incentivized to do things. he needs to show -- >> you think a republican president would want to do that. because when you show people that congress matters and you are making -- you take the sting out of it. >> i was just going to say, if they have -- and there is no evidence that they plan on doing anything of substance -- >> going into the four corners as we say in basketball is not

the way to go. it is too risky. we know where this goes if this changes. republicans have the time and the alarm whistles and they have to change the trajectory. >> and i felt like they did a lot of testing. they tried a tax cut and didn't punctuate. and -- they tried ms-13. >> i was watching ed gillespie as entire campaign on speed in this pennsylvania race. they kept trying and it was the same thing he did. let's try this one and nothing stuck. >> these are inherent local races. i don't think there is a one size fits all. with what they found with conor lamb, one size doesn't fit all and republicans have to do the same thing. they can't all be donald trump and some have to run against him. >> how grateful is steve stiebers this is march with a special election and not, say, december. >> he has the race in ohio coming up next door. >> but my point is -- >> so this is still spring training. this seat doesn't matter

because -- >> my point is that this could have led to a lot of retirements. filing deadlines have past. it is late. >> but members have been watching these legislative races. but you are right. >> do you think they'll get a couple more. >> it is possible. you still have filing deadlines and still have some people on the bubble. but, look, steve has been spelling the members for a long time this is coming and i think a lot of them get the message. >> and if they didn't get it. >> this delivers it. with a punch. >> tom davis. thank you. up ahead, america's closest ally in a major confrontation with the kremlin. the latest on the attempted assassination of a former russian spy. (avo) if you're burdened by belly pain and constipation,

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welcome back. students spilled into the streets today calling for gun reform. the date of protest is one month after the mass shooting at marjory stoneman douglas high school in parkland, florida. students from 3000 schools in all 50 states had planned to participate. some schools warned students they would be subject to disciplinary action for walking out but the threat did not stop marches out of the classroom. some of them frankly -- schools were allowing to happen. the walkout included a 17 minute moment of silence, one minute for each life lost in florida. on capitol hill demonstrators turned out by the thousands, some meeting with lawmakers after the rally. organizers hope it adds momentum for the march for our lives rally planned for later this month here in washington, d.c.

and around the country. we'll be back in a moment with more "mtp daily."

panel is back. heidi, and michael and maria. i want to bring up what is happening in the house intel committee. yesterday trey gowdy essentially put out a statement that appeared to contradict whatever the majority report was going to be when he said based on the evidence russia had disdain for secretary clinton and motivated in whole or part by i desire to harm her candidacy had she prevailed. it turned -- it was essentially a response to conway and mike conaway who ran the russia investigation decided to walk -- essentially confirm trey gowdy's statement. heidi, take a listen. >> you said twice yesterday that you actually believe that the russians wanted to help hillary

clinton. can you be clear about what is actually in the report or in the -- >> help her -- >> twice -- >> hurt her. >> no yesterday when we asked you twice you said -- >> nothing they did remotely helped hillary clinton. >> heidi, it seems like a reversal, not a misspeak. >> it is a reversal and this is an unfortunate end to a chapter in which everybody said this committee's work is defunct and discredited in terms of an investigation is going to depend on the senate. as can you see here, you've got even members who are supposed to be agreeing on this report and disagreeing with each other and the democrats -- >> the republicans can't agree with each other on their own report. >> right. so all attention shifted to the senate and as good thing that we've seen so few leaks out of the senate. >> this is bad for the institute of congress that the house intel

committee is a useless organization. >> i don't think anybody is covering themselves in glory. there are two important points in looking forward, one if we are going to protect our election in 2018, this midterm, we have to start drawing conclusions and getting some next steps and so wrapping up some portion of the investigation ma-- makes sense that end. and you have to remember that the democrat leading the intelligence committee is spending more time in cable news green rooms than in the intelligence committee. and to this process -- >> is that his fault or devin nunes? i agree. >> nobody has covered themselves in glory. >> is it a who started it -- >> they are doing the best they can. but i think that the democrats share equal blame if not greater blame for politicizing the house intelligence committee. >> we're going to disagree. but the part of the challenge is that they are -- they are not having folks like devin nunes come in and become so forth right. i think adam schiff is sounding at alarm, american people pay attention because this is far

for serious. i agree think we are not doing enough to safeguard our elections because it is business as usual and people are trying to put this under the rug and we need the senators in the united states senate so actually come in and become patriots and put our country first. >> i want to go back. i don't understand why paul ryan let this fester. >> the whole point in bringing conaway in and replacing devin nunes was to avoid this scenario. but if you talk to the democrats on the committee, you saw a report today a status update explaining all of the grievances. there is no less than 30 different witnesses that they wanted to bring before this committee that have not been called, there is witnesses who -- evoked privileges that they don't have to not answer questions. and that they wanted to bring back to requestion documents to -- request documents and then a verdict is andreaered in the case and the whole ship is

sinking. >> because paul ryan has been able to ram through the tax reform. he's getting the legislation that he wants and he wants this to go away and doesn't want to shed light on it because it keeps him in power. >> it is almost 5:42. i haven't mentioned a think about the trump white house this hour. so i didn't want to say i didn't mention his name. but we didn't talk about his white house. but larry kudlow, there seems to be a new trend of sorts. michael steel, the president wants to reshape his team so they're also tv ready. there seems to be a lot of overlap and almost complaints from people not willing to go on tv to defend the president. >> the president ser seifs reality of what he sees on television news. i don't know whether he watch as much as has been reported, hours every day but it clearly shapes his opinion and impression of things and so he's putting together a team that will be better at that. >> that he sees on tv. so larry kudlow or john bolton. >> all of the people in the

beginning stages for communications jobs were previous fox news analysts. this is not a new thing. he's -- from the beginning of the came but i think he's also bringing in people that he feels may be -- like in the case of pompeo, more loyal to him. >> and people demonstrating visibly they carry his agenda. so i think that is -- that is a challenge because he's definitely going to have people that are more yes oriented and don't understand public service and how government functions and have the relationship that he needs on the other side of pennsylvania in order to make this stuff work. >> and you have to think about this from the president's point of view. from his point of view, the metrics he cares about, he's knocking it out of the park. the dow is up, job numbers are good. tax reform is passed. and he turns on cable news every day and people are beating the crap out of him. so he wants people to be able to go and make the affirmative case for what he views as the huge successes of his administration. >> i think that is a great way of putting it. the metrics that he is using, where are the folks defending him on that.

any way -- thank you. much appreciated. more proof that every vote counts. don't believe me? ask conor lamb. dad! can you drive me to jessica's house? (groans) ♪ "welcome to my house" by flo rida ♪ this is what our version of financial planning looks like. tomorrow is important, but so is making the most of the house before they're out of the house. spend your life living. find an advisor at northwesternmutual.com.

welcome back. tonight i'm obsessed with finding the right camera by -- and i'm also obsessed by the pourer of one. one person and one vote. how often do you hear somebody say it? why bother voting.

my vote doesn't count. try this number. 627, how many votes separate democrat conor lamb from republican rick saccone, giving lamb the win. do you think there might be some trump supporters today in southwest pennsylvania whose vote didn't count because they didn't vote who are rethinking my vote doesn't count attitude today. or how about 537, how many votes bush won in florida in 2000. out of 596 -- 10 votes strong cast. and that is 9 one-thousandths of a percent ents. and how about zero, how many votes separated this republican and democrat in the virginia house of delegates. 11608 to 11608. tied and even. every vote counts. that was won by yancey. so next el-- election day wheth

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let me make one thing clear from the very beginning. the united states stands in absolute solidarity with great britain. the united states believe that's russia is responsible for the attack on two people in the united kingdom using a military-grade nerve agent. >> that was ambassador nikki haley this afternoon after britain kicked out 23 russian diplomats ramping up tensions between london and moscow as she mentioned, this comes after the attempted murder avenue former russian double agent on british soil and they believe u.k. is behind the attack using one of the most deadly chemical weapons ever created. british scientists say sergei

skripal and his daughter were poisoned using something called novichok developed by the soviets in the 70s. it is known to be five to eight times as deadly as the chemical weapon used to chemical weapon used to kill north korean leader's kim jong-un's brother last year and there's no sign it was ever used until this attack last week. let me bring in an expert on russian spy craft and policy. he is now an msnbc analyst. ambassador mcphaul, let me start with this nerve agent that the russians apparently used here. how concerned should we be that they have weaponized this and are willing to transport it overseas? >> >> well, i'm very concerned, chuck. it's really scary. it's not the first time, but it's the most audacious use of

an assassination attempt. let's be clear, there are a lot of ways they could go after mr. skripal if they wanted to do it quietly. they did this in a way that left their fingerprints on it and therefore i think it demands a firm response. >> many people, it's interesting you say that, that they wanted to be caught, they wanted this escalation. a certain russian leader has an, i'll put this in quotes, an election this weekend. is this all driven by his own attempts to run up the score in his own rigged election? >> i don't think so. i mean that's an interesting hypothesis, i don't think he needs to run up the score, he's going to win, there's no surprise there. i think it is a signal, and i have heard vladimir putin say it on the record, that traitors must be dealt with in the harshest ways, so if you watch the russian press, they're saying in one breath, we didn't

do it, but traitors need to be treated in this way. and i think it's a signal to all people that might oppose vladimir putin that he's willing to play tough in this way, but most audaciously that he's willing to play tough in this way in nato ally united kingdom. >> i want you to hear from a long time putin opponent, garry kasparov. he said this about the response by the pretties. it's a start, but proportionate response is what putin wants, predictable escalation he can absorb. deterrence must be based on -- obviously he's arguing for a disproportionate response at some point, that that's the only thing putin will respond to. >> i agree with garry. i'm glad they expelled 23

diplomats. and i hope many of them were spies. that's the right response. i also want to see a nato response. there's something called article 4 in the nato treaty, where there will be consultations among us all about what we can do in response to attacks like this. so there should be a multilateral response, but ultimately garry's response is right, you have to hit them where it counts. there's a lot of russian money in the uk, that would be where it would hurt, especially if there are people closely connected to putin. >> every once in a while, putin likes to talk about international agreements. i believe russia is a signer on the chemical weapons treaty, nonproliferation treaty, this would be a violation of it. president obama, when assad apparently violated, he was going to use that treaty as the justification or rationale, had he decided to strike syria, he decided not to. should we be enforcing this

violation of this agreement? >> yes. and i think that argument has to be made. it doesn't mean that putin's going to back down. i think something people forget about putin, people say, well, this is not the cold war, one of the ways it's not the cold war is that vladimir putin doesn't respect the international institutions, i think even less so than some of the late leaders of russia. and now he's openly getifying that agreement. but that get hands that we push back and invoke that treaty. >> american leadership, there doesn't appear to be any appetite for that coming from this president. >> tragically not. now i applaud the statement by ambassador haley, that's the right diagnostic, but now comes the prescription. what is the policy response?

and so far, whether it's this, whether it's a response to the indictment that mr. mueller made, whether it's a response to russia's new nuclear weapons that putin announced a couple of weeks ago, we have had very little, actually no response at all. i don't think that serves america's interest, i don't think that serves the interest of the nato alliance and i hope our leader s in washington, the president and maybe now our new secretary of state, will begin to understand that a weak response does not advance america's national interest. >> perhaps that's something president trump will respect. weakness, pugh doesn't respect, he wants strength. >> mike mcfaul, always good to see you, sir, thanks for coming on.

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well, in case you missed it, president trump isn't just stafsstafs satisfied with troops on the ground, he wants troops in space. >> we may even have a space force, space force. we'll call it the space force, what a great idea. >> space force. why does this sound vaguely familiar ♪ we're the space force ♪ we would like to keep the planet free ♪ ♪ you can say goodbye to tyranny ♪ >> not making this up, nbc ran this sitcom called "space force" back in 1978, it ran for a

single episode, featuring a young fred willard, irony ensued. it was awfully cheesy, but there was one nugget of space gold in that humor abyss. >> wouldn't it be better to try to solve it without fighting? >> no. >> without bloodshed? >> no. >> no. >> without risking your own lives? >> no. >> yes. >> with that, fred willard might be a space force yet. i always learn something from you, chuck, now i learned that tv history. >> goodbye. >> thank you, sir. chuck todd, coming to us from washington. and we join him tonight. we are live from d.c. for a very special show. we have several original reports tonight on important topics, a democratic surge in trump country, and whether it holds clues to a break in a new way, in "vanity fair," how an