at the top of a new hour. good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. we're still tracking tonight's special election results in ohio. right now, the race is still too close to call. and that's where we expect it to remain for the foreseeable future between the trump-backed republican candidate troy balderson and the democrat danny o'connor. nbc news decision desk will not be calling this race tonight. this is a district the president won by about 11 points during the protection. president trump was flown out to ohio for an event with this

candidate over this past weekend. you see him there campaigning for balderson. not long ago, the president weighed in on tonight's special election saying this, "when i decided to go to ohio for troy balderson, he was down in early voting. 64-36. that was not good. after my speech on saturday night, there was a big turn for the better. now troy wins and again we're not declaring that, a great victory during a very tough time of the year for voting." he will win big in november. congratulations to troy balderson on a great win in ohio. a very special and important race. for the latest, we go back to our man tonight in charge, steve kornacki, national political correspondent at the big board. the math gets more and more interesting. >> yes, and we've got a new and potentially cleaarifying piece information. take you through what we know.

1754. that is balderson's margin. that translates into a lead of 0.9%. the state law says 0.5 or less is a recount. right now, there would be no recount. why do we still call it too close to call? there are 3,345 provisionals yet to be counted and that won't be counted for 11 days. we expect them to skew to the democrats. enough perhaps to cut this thing in half which would bring that margin inside of 0.5 and have a recount. that's the basic. the other piece of it is this. there are some other outstanding ballots to tell you about. the secretary of state says there are 5,048 uncounted absentee ballots. i was on a few minutes ago and said we're not sure what they are. we have clarity. they are as i was suggesting a few minutes ago absentee ballots mailed out to people and have not yet been returned. that doesn't mean they won't be -- most of these won't be

counted but if a ballot was put in the mail and postmarked by yesterday by august 6th and it's received tomorrow or the next day or it's lost in the mail and takes a few days, whenever, if that gets in, it will still be counted. so some, a small number of these 5,048 you would expect are still going to be counted. those early absentee ballots we do know favored o'connor. you would expect that whatever comes out of this probably would give him a little bit of a boost. there are also going to be a couple hundred we would think a small number here of military ballots that you would expect would favor balderson, the republican. maybe a little bit of an edge of balderson with a military, maybe a little bit of an edge for o'connor in whatever is counted here. maybe a bigger edge with for owe conner with the provisional. all of the math does have the potential i don't thinking to erase the 1754 but to cut it in

half perhaps, certainly seems to have the potential. we've got wait. again, in state law, they're saying they've got to wait ten days before they can even look at counting these provisional ballots. so balderson feeling good here but nothing's official going to be anytime soon. >> just terminology question. our viewers have heard us talk about provisional ballots all night. remind folks what that means. >> there are ballots here, there's a question about the status of the ballot. maybe a question about the status of the voter. they tend to be when i keep saying these tend to be democratic ballots because they tend to be voters who they're especially from franklin keep the and from delaware county. oftentimes the voters might be poorer. you find this sometimes in nonwhite areas when you have i.d., voter i.d. requirements and maybe if you have an issue where it's disproportionately folks who don't have the i.d. or

maybe there's confusion around the i.d. you gets a situation where when you look the provisionals they tend to come more from the democratic parts from delaware county. number in franklin county of that 3400 was something like 1400 came out of franklin. i an big number even over 1,000 cape out of delaware county. more in the democratic part. they will review those ballots. a lot of them end up being counted and cast provisionally and reviewed afterwards. >> thank you so much. let's bringing in garrett haake, our correspondent who has been standing by at danny o'connor campaign headquarters. garrett, i presume the party is thinning out. and i presume win, lose or draw the attention now goes to november. >> yeah, brian. the party is over here. it's just our team here keeping the lights on. this race isn't over. we heard from both candidates

tonight in the nonconcession concession speech and the not quite honest victory speech that wasn't quite a victory speech that this is not over. this race immediately transitions into november. you can think of this like a late primary almost. setting up these two candidates again with now the republican potentially depending how all that recall business goes being able to call himself an incumbent in this case. but democrats like some of what they have seen on the ground here as they go into november in this race and in a lot of other races that will look like this in similar suburban counties. they feel like they fought a lot of this race especially the last couple of weeks on their issue turf, if you will, talking about things like protecting health care, social security benefits, issues that democrats want to be talking about. you weren't seeing the republican hammering the democrat particularly effectively on things like the republican tax bill. so democrats fee like even if they got not quite all the way there on the numbers, the issue

said here was something they can continue to work with. whether this race itself stays as competitive in november when it is not the race on the calendar with both parties pouring in millions of dollars volunteers from all over the place coming and flooding the zone, that's a separate question. but there are blueprints laid out in there race from both parties that they each think they can take back to some of these other races that be competitive in suburbs like this all over the country. suburban houston looks similar to this where you've got some of the burbs and how do you balance that mix in this competitive environment. >> garrett haake thanks for covering a dwindling crowd at the democratic headquarters in ohio 12 tonight. with us tonight in studio, former republican florida congressman david jolly and kimberly atkins agreed to stick around, chief washington reporter for the "boston herald"

as has peter baker, correspondent for the "new york times" thanks to all three of you for staying up late. congressman, again, just a civics and kind of a physical plant question. the winner gets to be an incumbent member of congress. the winner will go, will get really bad office space. they'll be on the bottom of the seniority list. >> he'll get his predecessor's office. >> you do inherit the office space? how does that work? >> i replaced the most senior member of congress.for eight months as a freshman, i had the best office on capital little. >> you had a beautiful view of the dome. >> then reality sets in. >> but they can't move in. they can't feel as much as anyone can move in with a two-year term. >> let's say it's 12 weeks before the next election. house is out till labor day. because it is an election day, they'll be in for about three

weeks. whoever the incumbent is, they will be an incumbent for all of about three weeks. what they will do is spend every day back home and continuing to raise money. >> you've got constituent services and questions and what happened to my social security check that don't stop coming in. >> that's the tough thing about a special election. what happens when somebody resigns is the staff stays in place likely till last night under the direction of the clerk of the house. constituent services can continue. but all those constituent services now get picked up tomorrow. they have to be staffed up. i think politically tonight what we're seeing is this. it's very hard to see a scenario where republicans keep the house in november. the trend is simply getting away from republicans. if you look at the conor lamb race, tonight, republicans are underperforming by historic proportion. and we have yet to see a race in the last two years since donald trump got elected in a truly competitive district in a 50-50 district. november, there's going to be 40 or 50 races where the playing field is level and watch out.

democrats could probably pick up every single one of those. >> kimberly, do you expect this to have a slow motion concussion wave like the old black and white flips of nuclear tests as it -- as the realization of what congressman jolly is talking about continues to roll over all the republican members up on the hill? >> i think so. i think you definitely see this. they're going to be a lot of people looking at the playbook and trying to figure out exactly how they can change it to sort of staunch the potential bleeding that could be ahead. it's worth reiterating no matter what the president said, this was a district that republicans should have won easily. and the fact that they didn't really changes the entire strategy here. i think republicans a few months back thought they could talk about the new tax law and talk about immigration and really bid a lot of support there moving into the midterms.

it seems pretty clear that those issues aren't taking hold exactly the same way that they hoped that it would be. perhaps the president is being a distraction with his twitter account. don't forget that he did insult lebron jails right before this election, too. there's a lot of variables here. and republicans don't have that clear strategy that i think they thought they would have by now. democrats don't either. but they're doing a better job in terms of at least getting out the vote so far. you have both parties taking a close look at this race to figure out what they do next. >> peter baker, your role is reminding us what else will be going on in the background as all these folks, all these incumbents campaign to stay in office, all the challengers campaign to unseat them and congressional districts times 535 across the country. that's right.

congress won't be in session very much between now and the election. a lot of dynamics are locked into place when it comes to their legislative records. one exception will be the issue of keeping the government open. passing the spending bills necessary to move into the next fiscal year. the president has talked about how he wishes he could shut down the government in order to leverage money for his border wall. that sent republican leaders on the hill into pa roxism of panic. they don't like the idea of doing that right before an election every time they experience aids government shutdown in the past, they haven't done well in the polls after the election. therefore, balderson doesn't want to be the one vote he takes before he has to head back to the voters all over again in ohio. right now most of the legislative actions or inactions as it were have been taken and they have the record to run on and have to defend or attack as they see fit. >> and peter baker, i couldn't

help but watch because we live in a television april, these two events in ohio tonight. backdrops were not word class or ready for live national television coverage. everybody looked the way you'd expect everybody to look. but there was televised live because we're in the trump era. and there's now a laser beam of attention everywhere two people are on a ballot. >> that's exactly right. this is the first time this particular district has had this kind you have national attention in decades. this is not a competitive district for the most part. you don't see a lot of media attention or attention by the national committees. you don't see the kind of money flowing in they've had. suddenly they're the focus of the political word. not because this one race matters that much. that one vote isn't going to change anything between now and the election whether he it cops to the house. what it did have was the potential for a big embarrassment for the president.

the larger trends are still there and consistent with the other special elections we've seen for the last 18 months. they're worrisome to republicans because they don't see the path to enernizing their voters to come out in a way that will stop this so-called blue wave that the democrats hope is building. >> can't thank you all enough. you helped us greatly covering the news. david, kimberly atkins, peter baker. coming up, he has likely visited more public schools in america than any other american alive today. sadly, he's attended funerals for dozens of young people gunned down in chicago, illinois. coming up, we will be joined by chicagoan and former education secretary arne duncan when the 11th hour continues. where i'd . aah! ...i would have said you were crazy. but so began the year of me. i discovered the true meaning of paperless discounts... and the indescribable rush

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weekend for a city already struggling with gun violence. 74 people in the city of chicago were shot between friday afternoon and monday morning.

74. 12 of them sadly were killed. according to the chicago tribune, "it marked the worst violence of any single weekend in chicago since at least before 2016, the year in which hop sides hit records unseen for two decades." this afternoon, the police superintendent eddie johnson announced as many as 600 additional police officers are being deployed. he says they'll be in the hardest hit neighborhoods by the weekend. we are happy to be joined tonight by arne duncan, a proud chicagoan, former head of the chicago public schools and as a member of the obama cabinet, one of the longest serving secretaries of education in our nation's history. his new book "how schools work, an inside account of failure and success from one of the nation's longest serving secretaries of education," is available starting today. mr. secretary, thank you so much for coming. this is not a book about firearms. it's not a book about violence and survival though i have to

ask you because the topics are not mutually exclusive. violence in a city like chicago and education in a city like chicago. >> they're absolutely enter twined. i'm obsessed with reducing violence at home. this weekend is no way to sugar coat it, it's devastating. what i say everyone may not agree with, the police have a role to play but i don't think we can arrest our way out of this and incarcerate our way out of this. we're working directly with young men 17 to 24 years old most likely to shoot and be shot and providing job training for them, providing mental health services, providing trauma counseling, life coaches. and guy who have been on street shooting at each other are walking away from that life and want to do something different. we have to solve an economic problem, not a crime problem. these men will eat, pay rent, they have to make a living. it's our choice whether they do that in the illegal economy which leads to violence or the legal economy.

in my heart i believe over the next couple years, these men will lead us as a city to where we need to go. >> let's hope you're right. we have to hope you're right. you're cruising along. there are stories about chris christie, great story about john kasich. you come to the point where you're writing the book in reeltime and parkland happens. last time i saw you to interview you was at the march that have shooting. ten years from now in this country, will something better have happened in american society because of that the awful tragedy? >> it has to. i've been very pessimistic on this issue since the sandy hook massacre. that was the worst day of president obama's presidency, my worst day in d.c. when 20 babies get killed and five teachers and a principal and we sti get nothing done in terms of common sense gun legislation. that was devastating. these teenagers across the country have been raised on mass

shootings. they've been raised on gun violence and not tolerating it, not going to stand for it. that march was something different in the air. young people from parkland, from chicago, young people i'm working with from across the country are stepping up. we as adults and parents have failed frankly and i apologize all the time to young people. they will lead the country to a place that is much safer, much more free of fear. i'm more hopeful on this issue than i've been in a long, long time because of the leadership and courage of our nation's young people. >> growing up as i did in jersey across the river, you listen to new york radio and tv as a kid. there was a guy on the radio, a new york haberdasher name the cy sims and he used to say, at sims an educated consumer is our best customer. i've always thought that was a wonderful slogan. we like to think an educated voter is our best voter in this country. you believe you've seen signs that is not a universally held

standard. >> i wish everyone came to the voting booth thinking about education. you're talking about politics tonight. my constant question i don't care an much. are they coming to voting booth thinking about, is this congressional leader or mayor or governor or senator going to help raise graduation rates and make college more affordable and increase access to prek. specifically with president trump, i don't think he wants to have the best educated citizenry in the world. i think when you have authoritarian tendencies and call the press the enemy of the people and want to become the only source of knowledge and truth, i don't think it's in his self-interests to have the best educated citizenry in the world. that deeply troubles me. >> the job you held was own created in the eisenhower era, not that many people have served as education secretary. there are not that many living former education secretaries. the current secretary betsy devos, has she reached out to you? have you talked shop at all?

>> it's stunning. she never reaped out. i talked all the time to my predecessors, margaret spellings, secretary bennett, republicans, democrats. it's a small club. i was the ninth serving. these are very wise people and at the end of the day, we're all working together. she never reaped out. that's all i can say. >> i wish you luck with the book. how schools work by arne duncan, former secretary of education during the obama administration. >> thank you. i know as the a politically busy night. thank you for visiting us here in the studio. >> thanks so much for the opportunity. >> another break for us. when we come back, we've been talking about how it's election night in other places. aside from the 12th district in ohio. steve kornacki brings us up to speed on all the races we're covering tonight right after this. the day after chemo shouldn't mean going back to

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and accessoriesphones for your mobile phone. like this device to increase volume on your cell phone. - ( phone ringing ) - get details on this state program visit right now or call during business hours. welcome back. as we said before break, we're covering the alarmest story of the night, ohio's 12th district special election tonight. but that's of course, if you're interested chiefly in that race or if you live in and around the 12th district, folks in kansas would like to know the results there tonight, too. there's a bunch of races going on. steve kornacki is back at the big board to brick us up to speed on everything else. >> so the president donald trump inserted himself into this ohio race. we've talked a lot about that. the other race where he inserted

himself in the homestretch was the kansas gubernatorial primary siding with chris chris kova kr. boy, this is a nail biter. kris kobach is leading right now doing the math by about 687 votes over, this is jeff colyer. this is the incumbent governor. the lieutenant governor who took over when brownback, the republican governor left. this is sort of an unelected incumbent governor here seeking a full term in his own right being challenged by kobach playing the role of insurgent. trump coming out for kobach at the wire yesterday. bob dole, as soon as trump did that he endorsed colyer. outstanding vote, trying to get a sense where that's from. there's a not insignificant portion of the aring vote in

kansas from johnson county. we talked so much around columbus, upscale suburbs, the equivalent in kansas city, johnson county, that you would expect colyer may get more boost out of that than kobch. this thing just an absolutely squeaker right here. the electoral implications for republicans, there's a poll that shows colyer if he's running leading the democrat by ten points. flip it around, kobach, if he's the nominee, a dead even race. greg or mann is going to run. that's a big story in kansas. one other in michigan, the numbers very confusing. i'm looking myself here for the first time. you had gretchen whitmer sort of the favorite here. el syed. you're not seeing a lot of vote counted. you might see more vote in.

this is from the secretary of state site. there's been disparities between what the secretary of state is reporting and what other folks are getting from their people. we've got the can of state's numbers here. gretchen whitmer. it would be an upset if she loses. we had a house race. long time democratic incumbent lacy clay being challenged by cory bush, the significance here, cory bush's most well-known endorser alexander ocasio-cortez. we watched her topple a giant in national democratic politics, joe crowley in new york. she endorsed cory bush and said folks in missouri, you can do it, too. bush falling short though. so you don't necessarily have a part two. we wanted to see if there was energy somewhere besides that energy in new york. not a great showing for clay. but certainly still he's not necessarily sweating at this hour. he's going to win that thing.

the big outstanding drama is in kansas, this governor's race. i'm clicking to see if we've got anything new. kobach ahead by hundreds of votes. we want to get a better sense where that's coming from. if he wins this, you know trump will be crowing about it tomorrow and the republican establishment will be saying oh, what have we gotten ourselves into for november. certainly from an electoral standpoint, he could win but that looks like he's a tougher sell in a general election certainly than colyer. >> that phrase we keep using has never been using, every vote counts. we have a couple headlines at this hour. number one, a bunch of folks will be up late into the evening counting votes. number two, the electorate is changing and for those of us who are diehard steve kornacki fans, he's back the next hour to host the whole thing. we'll be watching. steve kornacki, thank you for your contributions tonight. we have been able to reach mike

murphy by phone. and we're happy to be able to talk to him. the veteran republican strategist, long-type advisor to mitt romney, jeb bush, john mccain to name a few and former u.s. member of congress, david jolly remains here with us in studio. so mike, good to have you. thank you for making yourself available so late at night. what are we witnessing happen to the republican party do you think? >> well, our pea is narrowing because our president is quite unpopular. i was looking at the numbers in ohio and while the republicans have a good argument for the small part of it, we won the seat, if you look at the seat itself, it's so deep in our backfield it's very troubling that we're going to have probably a narrow narrow win there. i looked at the suburban counties which are a good bellwether, particularly delaware county. president trump ran about 16 points ahead there when he ran

for president. o'connor looks like will lose it by eight points which is if you translate that, if that's what suburban counties like delaware look like in november on election night, we'll probably lose the house, some other big races and if the president had numbers like that republican versus democrat, he wouldn't carry wie. so this is in the small way a republican victory but in a big way, the democratic blue wave is no fantasy. it is real. the next 90 days will be about can the party do something to solve this problem and a lot of it brought on by donald trump. >> another way of putting it as we've been saying tonight, if you want to go straight up demographic, if the democrats can do this in a district 88% white, it's going to be very tough for the gop to hang onto the house. >> yeah, it's like playing a football game where you're playing the whole game and your half of the field. so these are troubles. we're seeing other canaries

still on the bottom of the cage tonight. catherine mcmorris rodgers has a tighter race than normal in washington state. kansas where you saw very rare thing which was president trump came in and endorsed against an incumbent republican governor. and that's almost never done in a political party because you break a lot of china that way. and that one's dead even. i think colyer may inch out. i've been trying to look. it's super close and it does show the power that trump still has at least in republican primaries if nowhere else. >> david, charlie sykes was on a few minutes ago saying there home run 68 districts that are less republican than the one that is deeply contested tonight in ohio. >> that's right. that goes back to what we said. when you get to november, there are a lot more competitive races. it's hard to see how republicans at this point hold onto the seat or hold onto the house. we're seeing a lot at play

tonight. the ohio race is essentially a general election. we're seeing the trump dynamic play out in a general election and the ruch dynamic play out in a republican primary in kansas where he's an-inned the republican nominee, if you will. we're seeing the power of trumpism in a republican primary and the weakness in a general election. i'm glad mike brought up the state of washington, as well. democrats are really performing strongly in the state of washington right now. there's actually, when he referred to kathy mcmorris rodgers, she is a member of republican leadership who make it to november but right now she's tied with her democratic opponent and they will go into november with a very hard fought race. the last thing i'd say and i'm glad mike referred to this, as well. we're talking about states and communities and to your point on demographics overwhelmingly white that put donald trump in the white house. this is where republicans are now losing. if you were to look forward to 2020, you would say the trend is

getting away from donald trump, as well, there's no way he can win pennsylvania and ohio and wisconsin and these other states that delivered the white house for him. this is a bad omen not just for november of '18 but for 2020 if we don't find a course correction for republicans. >> mike, how does the party work in the gop? who decides where they're going to dig in and declare what congressional races as firewalls? we're just going to defend, defend, defend? we're going to try not to lose this one? >> well, it becomes resource allocation. what you're going to hear out of republicans is that our pelosi campaign works and we won this seat but as david said, you know, we're 60 seats into the republican list. so winning seats like had don't hold the house. step one is guard resources and they've probably admit there are a dozen to 15 seats that we can try to defend but it will be really hard. it will be that second dozen

where they start to really apply dollarses. but they applied millions and millions of republican dollars there were democrat are dollars, too. but this prove i war in ohio 12 was massively funded. there isn't that kind of money to go into every seat. they to make tough choices. normally the president would have a normal political operation that would use the bully pulpit of the white house to move and get out of trouble. the problem is this president is the atomic clock and he runs towards trouble and makes it worst. we don't have the normal rule book how to get out of attributable. it will. >> david jolly agreed to stay for further punishment. mike, i can't thank you enough for taking our call. it's always a pleasure to have you on air. mother break for us. coming up, this other breaking

story earlier today involving president trump's one-type fixer michael cohen. and the southern district of new york which you may have heard of, all of that when we come back.

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the wall street "journal" is reporting federal prosecutors are investigating michael cohen, donald trump's long-time personal lawyer, for tax fraud. cohen hasn't been charged with any crimes at this point but the southern district of new york is already looking into possible bank fraud and campaign finance violations. that investigation is related to a 2016 payment cohen made to adult film star stormy daniels to keep her from talking about an affair she claimed she had with trump in '06, something trump denies. now sources are telling the "journal" that can "federal authorities are assessing whether mr. cohen's income from his taxi medallion business was underreported in federal tax returns."

back with us tonight, ellie honing, former assistant u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york, former assistant attorney general for new jersey and david jolly has kindly agreed to stick around. members of our audience would be forgiven for not knowing what a taxi medallion is. i've asked what a of one on the air. there is one from new york city. in this city and others, you get a certificate but you also get a steele medallion kind of riveted to the hood of your cab. it is your license to own and operate that cab and counselor, why is it always such a fraught line of work to be in. >> these pieces of metal are extraordinarily valuable. >> before uber, fib me for plupting, they were $1.3 million. >> over $1 million. there's a phi night number here in the city. they wanted to control the number of cabs here. and they were worth 1.2, $1.3

million. uber and lyft drove that way down, but still worth a quarter million dollars each. they're closely regulated, rules and regulations about taxes that need to be paid. that's where cohen may be getting into trouble. historically there have been all sorts of games played that have gotten people into trouble with these medallions. >> these are not medallions controlled by cohen. these are just taxi medallions we grabbed in the taxi medallion file tape business. i know you are ex of the southern district of new york. it's not with any knowledge of the case that i'm asking, what do you think is going on with mr. cohen? >> so southern district, when we investigate somebody, we look for everything we can get. >> i've heard that. >> we're tenacious. and in new jersey, too. but you know, when you see someone like michael cohen interested in cooperating, you want to up the pressure as much as possible. if there are tax fraud

allegations against cohen, that will increase the pressure on him to finally come in and cooperate. let me offer some free advice to michael cohen as someone who fairly recently worked in the southern district. if you're going to cooperate and there are indications you need to get in and do it. the longer you wait, the worst a deal you'll get and the less valuable you are to the prosecutors. >> i ask this question of all the former feds we've had on this broadcast. what's the way you use to describe someone's life when you suddenly come under the spotlight of a place like the southern district of new york? >> it's your worst nightmare i think. you know, the southern district is tenacious. we will bring all the resources to bear and you know, always in pursuit of justice but if you've committed crimes, you do not want the southern district on your tail. >> congressman, we have a president who there were various account yesterday that maybe he knew something about a changing in status for his son donald junior but these headlines now,

it's just -- it's this pen numb bra all of it circling around the russia case at large. >> and happening in a political land scape of elections which we're seeing tonight. you are seeing the trump team kind of crumble around the president as a result of their own culpability. we don't need to feel empathetic for the folks now beginning to be held account from manafort to cohen to others. there's the gravity of it. there's also the political reality, electoral consequences of it. one of the things we're seeing in the body politic is this distrust of president trump and the people around him. and voters are beginning to use that distrust to inform their decisions. i believe it's what we're seeing tonight in ohio. i believe we'll see it in november, as well. >> counselor, what is the distinction folks at home would be fibben for being confused, is this part of the mueller case? no, they said this one's going

on in the southern district of new york. what is the relationship. >> it appears the mueller team wants to stay focused on the mandate as special counsel to focus on election interference. in order to stay focused and to preserve resources they've farmed off certain pieces primarily to the southern district of new york. that said, i have no doubt if mike cohen cooperates or anyone else of value cooperates those resources will be shared with the mueller team. they're all part of the department of justice and they'll put on the best case they can. >> i heard maggie haberman on cmn tonight said her guess was that by tomorrow, we would learn about the contents of rudy jo giuliani's letter to the mueller team about a potential interview. are you where i am on this? and that is i'll believe it when i see it? >> yeah, i think so. it's kind of amusing to see giuliani demanding these terms for the interview because the fact is, he doesn't have the upper hand here. he knows that. he was a prosecutor.

ultimately -- >> does he have any leverage? >> minimal. >> they've got the client everybody wants. >> right. i think giuliani knows the things he's demanding are outrageous. you'll agree to certain concessions maybe more for the president of the united states. he's way out of line for what he's demanding, time limits. >> in obstruction. >> i wonder why. if they don't agree, mueller i believe will crop a subpoena. you end up in the courts and trump is going to argue executive privilege. it didn't work for nixon in the '70s. it's not going to work for donald trump. it's nor national security and military secrets. nightmare scenario for trump is if he loses in the courts and has to go in a grand jury, he's under oath. there's a stenographer taking down every word he says and no lawyer, no defense lawyer alloweded in that room. can you imagine the carnage if you unleash mueller or one of his attorneys on trump with no lawyer there.

>> david jolly, a friend who is a lifelong new yorker and known donald trump for decades always says the following reminder to me. this guy was on the payroll of the network in this building for 14 years. he is used to being kind of the enter an inner figure in whatever room he walks into. he is a physically large and imposing guy. he's always been able to make people laugh and get attention. he i think truly believes in his ability to come into that room, take over and charm the folks even the grizzled veteran investigators. >> true. >> having established all of that, what's your straight up prediction will we ever see mueller on one side of a table and donald trump on another? >> i don't think so because i think it's too dangerous for donald trump. and his counsels will convince him of that. he is a master of brand management. he is not a master at dealing with the law. his culpability, the jeopardy of

him sitting down particularly under oath i think would be too massive for this president. one point though that was made about the southern district of new york that's very important. politically if trump were to move to have mueller fired by dismissing rosenstein, because of these referrals to the southern district of new york, they might kill the mueller investigation but these matters continue in the southern district of new york under a different jurisdiction. and so even if he were to dismiss rosenstein, that doesn't mean the president's liabilities is forever wish extinguished because he can still get brought into these other. >> the limits on the president's ability to pardon are states able to have their own cases so that punishment is still meted out on top of any presidential pardon. >> yes, if the president goes nuclear and starts firing people including perhaps the u.s. attorneys in the southern district, the u.s. attorney in

the southern district which he could do. then you still have your attorneys general. new york, new jersey, perhaps elsewhere. i'm not speaking from inside information. you're correct. that's separate and the president cannot pardon someone on a state charge. >>gent, i can't thank you enough. we've learned a lot in this segment. appreciate you both being here for it. ellie honing and david jolly, thanks. a deeper look at the lessons from this particular election night when we come right back. i joined uber nine months ago as ceo. the first thing that was important for me to change was the culture of the company. and i think that had to shift to responsible growth. second thing i wanted to change was the leadership of the company. and the third was for us to start listening. listening to our riders. listening to our driver partners. i think listening is ultimately going to make us a better company.

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america is on the right path and we're going to keep it going that way. it's time to get to work. over the next three months, i'm going do everything i can to keep america great again. so that when we welcome -- when we come back here in november get ready, we've got to come back here in november, i have earned your vote for a second time. danny o'connor ran a hard race. and i look forward to campaigning against him again this fall. >> can you believe how close this is? we -- we are in a tie ball game.

and you made this possible. the grassroots individuals who have been knocking on doors, fighting for the future of our country. i and so grateful. i am so grateful for all of your support. you believed in us. in a race that the pundits said we had no chance even being in. you proved them wrong. >> point of information or two here. this was a race to become a seated member of congress only to have to sing for your supper again in november. and while you heard the republican there kind of claiming victory as did the president kind of in his tweet tonight, we have to emphasize our decision desk is not calling this race. and we're not prepared to do so. the math is not there. whatever else you may read or see. on that, we are pleased to welcome back to our broadcast tonight, jeremy parties "the new york times." he's with us by phone from

washington. david jolly remains with us. jeremy, was this a case of you as a political junkie up late watching the coverage unable to sleep or did we calling you on your phone make it impossible for you to sleep? >> at the risk of trying to sound like i'm flattering you too much, brian, it definitely was your persuasive producers. >> great answer for 30 points and the lead to jeremy pete ares. jeremy, let me ask you the follow-up. what do you think it is we're witnessing tonight? >> i think tonight what you're seeing is the manifestation of a lot of worries across the republican party about what has happened to the trump voter. right now there's a lot of talk about this phenomenon caused the missing trump voter where you had people who turned out in 2016 to vote for trump who are just not showing up in these superb elections.

there were 100,000 some in the pennsylvania special, another 100,000 of them in an arizona special election. and the worry is that the enthusiasm for trump has either diminished or is not carrying over to these congressional candidates. that makes a lot of sense when you think about the fact that donald trump is a candidate who let's not forget is not really a republican. trump spent the better part of his political career as short as it's been attacking the republican party and its leadership. why should we expect that enthusiasm to carry over to a wing of the party that he has disparaged. i think you also have to factor in the idea there are a lot of voters fatigued by donald trump and everything happening in the

country. you know, republicans dodged a big iceberg tonight but it's going to be a very long cold winter ahead. >> and david jolly, you must be so curious, florida is full of trump voters. how many of them are the trump voters that jeremy just described? >> there's a lot of them and likely missing in november. the energy is still there on the right. the question is, where do these independent and lost voters go or do they show up. we should say recognize two candidates who worked very hard as well as their volunteers. we won't know for ten days who wins. if it's balderson, he deserves congratulations. danny and his team have a lot to be proud about tonight. that was a star on stage giving a nonconcession concession speech. watch for him in november and congratulations to all the people on the ground tonight. >> that's the thing about special elections. both of them will be back for november. you could hear and see that pivot in realtime tonight as we've been covering another wide

night in electoral politics. our thanks to jeremy peters, thanks to david jolly for helping us with this hour of coverage. that happens to be our broadcast for tonight. the extended edition. thank you so much for being with us. steve kornacki picks up our live coverage right here on msnbc now. all right. well, that special election for the house seat in ohio's 12 district remains officially at this thur close to call. that is our declaration here at nbc news. democratic candidate danny o'connor trailing in the count. his republican opponent troy balderson by 754 votes. whatever ends up happening, there is the possibility an automatic recount by end up being trigger. both candidates are running against each other anyway. 90 days from now in the midterm election. tonight both danny o'connor and troy badderson areoo