her new proposed legislation. and if you're interested, we're going to post the entire interview, what we aired tonight and the rest of it that we didn't air on our facebook page tonight. the whole thing, there will be a link. facebook.com/thebeat with ari and you can always find me at facebook.com/arimelber. that's our show. "hardball" starts right now. a stunner in the sunshine state. let's play "hardball." >> good evening, i'm steve in for chris matthews. the battle lines are set for november, and maybe much more beyond that. a major upset in florida last night. it is now set the stage for a fall race for governor that just might be a preview of the 2020 presidential race. democrats defying the pollsters and picking tallahassee mayor andrew gillum for governor, with

far less money than his rivals, he ran hard to the left, for abolishing i.c.e., for legalizing marijuana. he connected with the grassroots energy of a democratic base that has come alive with activism in the trump era and gillum will now face republican congressman ron desantis. he thanked the president profusely. he has forged a bond with the very voters who powered trump in 2016. these are two candidates, gillum and desantis, two nominees who very much reflect the values and passions of their respective parties' bases and that means that this race in florida might offer all of america a preview of 2020, of what happens when these two powerful forces, the trumpian right and the resistance left collide in one of the biggest and most crucial swing states on the map. already today, we got our first skirmish. hours after his victory,

desantis found himself in controversy when he said these words about gillum on fox news. >> he is an articulate spokesman for those far left views and he's a charismatic candidate. none of those debates chs my cup of tea but he performed better than the other people there so we've got to work hard to make sure that we continue florida going in a good direction. let's build off the success we've had on governor scott. the last thing we need to do is to monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist agenda with huge tax increases and bankrupting the state. that is not going to work. that's not going to be good for florida. so i'm going to fight for what i believe in, because i think i'm the guy who can really lead florida in a good direction. >> gillum then responded calling a statement a dog whistle. >> it's very clear that m mr. desantis is taking a page directly from the campaign manual of donald trump, but i think he's got another thing coming to him if he thinks that

in today's day and age, florida voters are going to respond to that level of derision and division. they're sick of it. what we're trying to offer in this race -- >> was that racist or a -- was that racist or a figment of speech? >> well, in the handbook of donald trump, they no longer do whistle calls. they're now using full bull horns. >> the desantis campaign said in a statement, ron was obviously talking about florida not making the wrong decision to embrace the socialist policies that andrew gillum espouses. to characterize it as anything else is absurd. for now, all eyes are on the fight between desantis and gillum but could this florida race also be what trump versus his democratic opponent look like in 2020. for more, i'm joined by michelle goldberg, david french, eugene robinson, columnist at the "washington post," and a

national political reporter for bloomberg politics. let me start with you. big picture in terms of what this says, what florida is telling us through these two primary wins last night, about where the two party bases are right now. >> steve, this could be the single most fascinating race on the 2018 ballot in november. pure distillation of where the two party bases are going. you have a candidate that excites the grassroots left and a republican candidate who is loyal to president trump and, you know, who is very much aligned with the president and i think that captures where this is all going in the two parties. now, florida, big picture, is a perfect distillation of what's on the ballot in the 2018 election. you have a governor's mansion in the third largest state in the country that controls the keys to redistricting for the next decade. you've got a senate race in that state that could determine the balance in that chamber. you've got seven or eight competitive house races that could decide who controls the majority so it is all happening

in the sunshine state. >> in terms of what is happening inside the democratic party, this was a big upset yesterday, not many were predicting that gillum would win. what does it tell you about the choices that democratic voters have decided to make in the trump real estate? >> i first met andrew gillum a year ago and i asked him a the same question that a lot of people are asking. can an unabashedly progressive african-american candidate really win in the south? this strategy that he is trying, stacy abrams, the gubernatorial candidate in georgia is also trying, appealing to white moderate swing voters hasn't worked, let's try to put together a coalition of minorities, young people, and urban white liberals, because demographically, it's possible in both of these places. and as for the question of can it work? he basically said, well, the other strategy has failed over and over again. right? democrats have lost the governor's race in florida four times in a row. and so, it's not necessarily safer to go with a kind of

quote, unquote safe white moderate, because it's just failed over and over again, and i think that that was his -- has been the lesson since trump, is that you know, we've -- i think, before trump, there was a lot of focus on numbers, on data analytics and one of the lessons of that race is that passion and charisma and all of those kind of political intangibles, enthusiasm, also really, really matter. >> and david, that's interesting because what michelle's describing there is sort of how democrats psychologically maybe have reacted to the loss in 2016. the idea that, hey, a strategic change is in order here. the old model, the traditional model not working. let's go with something, you know, a new strategy here, as she's outlining it. the republican response to trump, though, if we're to read into this desantis win, big in terms of margin last night, is a republican electorate that, i hate to use the cliche, wants to double down on trump. >> well, you know, there's this contest between those who say

the key to politics now in this closely divided country is mobilization or the key to politics in a closely divided country is persuasion, winning people over. i think one of the lessons that the gop took away from 2016 was, no, the key ask mobilization, firing up your people. the democrats, as michelle accurately noted, have real struggles in states like florida and georgia. so it makes sense for them to try something else. the thing that i would note, though, is florida is a -- one of these states that's a decreasingly favorable playing field for democrats of late. it's almost like the mirror image of virginia, which has been gettingingly blue. florida's been getting increasingly red, so the odds are against gillum, i believe. a blue wave could carry him but absent that blue wave, i don't see it happening. >> you got the governor's race and the senate race there as well. eugene robinson, we say the campaign began today, the general election campaign down there in florida and we have this controversy, we set this up

in the beginning, it is over the question of race, over the intent, what was the intent of ron desantis in making those statements. in some ways, that has been a major feature of the trump era, controversies about statements about race, what the intention was, how the audience receives it. how do you read what ron desantis said there, because the claim here from gillu is this is clear racial politics on his part. do you read it that way or an innocent statement, as he says it was? >> well, you know, you don't get to determine how people hear what you say. and i certainly -- look, give him a pass on articulate in context, right, because in many contexts, that could be a racial reference, but in this context, an articulate spoken for socialist values, okay, you give him a pass on that. but monkey this up? that's not an idiom. i mean, that's not an expression. that's not something that people say. and so absolutely it struck me

as i believe mr. gillum said, not a dog whistle but a bull horn. and i think it's a -- you know, i think that's the way this is -- this race is going to go. i mean, this is going to -- this could become a very ugly sort of bare knuckles race in which you see some of the worst tendencies of trumpism just coming to the fore. >> david, i'm curious. somebody you've written critically about donald trump, what eugene is saying there. do you see in those comments from desantis today some of the worst instincts of trumpism? how do you interpret it? >> i really don't. i see him as trying and then bungling a bit and what was really pretty standard campaign rhetoric. my opponent is a formidable opponent, you know, he did well in the debates, he's not my cup of tea, but his ideas are bad for florida. i mean, it's really -- you know, except for that word, very normal campaign rhetoric. i do not think, if you look at desantis' record, and you compare it, say, with trump's

record, that you're -- you can make any kind of comparison there at all. with donald trump, there is a whole history and a background that says, look, when donald trump uses a word, there's not a benefit of the doubt there. desantis is a different guy. in context here, i think it was very clear he was praising his opponent's campaigning skills and saying his ideas were bad for the state. that's normal politics. that's acceptable politics. >> michelle? >> well, i don't understand the idea that desantis comes from a somehow different political context than donald trump. i mean, last year, desantis spoke at an alt-right event with people like milo and ann coulter and katie hopkins, who's kind of a rabid islamaphobic character from britain so he's very much of that world. you can't find a more slavish toaddy for trump. i think his commercial shows his children building a fake wall, which i think makes him a pretty

bad father as well as a bad person, but the idea that he deserves the benefit of the doubt, i mean, i don't know what was in his head. i don't think any of us do. but he comes out of a political world in which racist dog whistles are completely standard fare. >> i guess, david, that is a question, maybe, we say this as a preview for 2020, potentially, about trump-era politics. given the alliance desantis formed with trump, a big part of his appeal was having trump's support. when you seek out and cultivate support from trump, are you in some way, even if the wording was as innocent as you believe it was, are you cultivating these controversies in some way? >> well, look, if you're a gop official and you're not seeking out trump's approval -- not seeking out his endorsement, especially in a state like florida where he's got a positive, by many polls, a positive approval rating, you're courting political disaster, and look, i have criticized trump strongly on multiple grounds

because his entire history demonstrates that he doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt. the contrast here is the context to those actual conversations demonstrate that i believe that desantis deserves the benefit of the doubt. and look, the commercials -- i didn't like the commercials either, but to say he's a bad -- shows he's a bad dad, i mean, come on, that is over the line. this isn't going to be a contentious race. no doubt about it. every close race is going to be a contentious race, and i think it's incumbent on members of the press to be able to look and say, okay, fairly, i don't think that this was a dog whistle and then fairly, looking at it fairly in context, i do think it's a dog whistle. if we're pushing everything to 11, we're going to be seeing our negative polarization in this country spiral out of control. >> the other word that popped up there that we're not talking about, though, in what desantis had to say was socialism, and this attack, bernie sanders came in at the end and endorsed gillum in this race and this

idea of republicans trying to run against, hey, the democrats have moved to the left, they've embraced socialist ideas. among democrats, is there a concern -- classically, until, you know, the last year or two, no democrat in washington would have said you could be anywhere near that label and have a chance of winning. has the thinking changed there at all among democrats? >> steve, i think it has changed in part, and it's a generational thing. i think older american voters, when they think of socialism, they think of the soviet union, maybe think of venezuela. younger people think of scandinavia, norway, and sweden. so i don't think the word has the same impact on younger americans and clearly it shows, i think we see this from yesterday's primary, bernie sanders' support of gillum, as well as alexandra ocasoi cortez' victory that there is a section of the democratic party that are open to scandinavian socialist ideals and the second dynamic that is critical for the democrats is the demographic

one. voters who lean democrat want representatives who are culturally relevant to them, who look like them, who are not, you know, predominantly older and white voters in a party that is increasingly, you know, powered by minorities, by millennials, and by younger women. >> eugene, the most interesting thing to me about gillum, when you look at his political profile, is bernie sanders, as we saw, comes in for him at the end of this race, medicare for a lot of sort of sanders issues, those sort of lefty issues right now in the democratic party but also this is somebody that was a hillary clinton delegate. >> he was. >> in 2016. and hillary clinton, how did she beat bernie sanders so badly in those primaries? overwhelming support from black voters. he had overwhelming support from black voters yesterday. almost seeing politically a hybrid of sanders and clinton and what they brought out in 2016. >> you were right to bring that up because he was a clinton supporter in 2016. he's now supported by bernie sanders. look, i don't think gillum or

many democratic candidates are going to run around, you know, waving a socialist flag with the word "socialism" written on it. they're going to support policies that others may describe as socialist. they're going to talk about universal health care. they're going to talk about the student loan crisis in ways that some people will brand socialism, but the key, as you mentioned, is going to be intensity among democratic voters and bringing them out to the polls. democrats don't vote in midterms, and that's the big problem, and that's why, you know, i think it's right that gillum kind of starts in a hole here. but he can win this if he can sufficiently motivate democrats tad something they don't usually do, which is really care about a midterm election and really come out and vote. >> the margin in 2016, trump won

florida a little less than 2 points. eugene, michelle, david, sahil, thank you so much for joining us. president trump tweeted today that white house counsel don mcgahn is leaving his job, which apparently came as a surprise to mcgahn. could it be because of mcgahn's extensive cooperation with special counsel robert mueller. plus, take a look at where things stand in the battle for the senate. the match-ups are set in florida after last night and crucially in arizona. some new poll numbers to show you about. and the "hardball" round table weighs in on the big progressive upset in florida. we were just talking about that. and on jeff flake and donald trump battling over the meaning of the arizona results. finally, let me finish tonight with a different florida governor's race, one that may have changed american history. this is "hardball," where the action is. this is "hardball," where the action is. ur new car? you'd be better off throwing your money right into the harbor. i'm gonna regret that. with liberty mutual new car replacement we'll replace the full value of your car. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty ♪

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however, "the washington post" then revealed another twist in today's development that, trump's announcement of mcgahn's departure came as a surprise, including to mcgahn and that is because according to a source, mcgahn had not discussed his plans directly with trump. trump's announcement comes today after "the new york times" reported last week that mcgahn has cooperated extensively with the special counsel, speaking to investigators for over 30 hours in total. that news reportedly rattled the president who realized, quote, he did not know what mr. mcgahn had shared with mueller's team. despite that reporting, the president today insists he is not concerned with what mcgahn told mueller. >> and he'll be moving on probably the private sector, maybe the private sector. and he'll do very well. but he's -- he's done an excellent job. >> any concern about what he said to the mueller team? >> no, not at all. not at all. >> joining me now is a former federal prosecutor and jonathan swan, a national political reporter with axios. jonathan, just to the nuts and

bolts of this first, folks looking at the timeline here, would see the cooperation with the mueller investigation, the decision today. is there a connection there? >> several of the reporters have reported that there's a connection. i don't know one way or another. i've been trying to find out all day, and i haven't been able to nail it down to my satisfaction. what i can tell you is that trump has long had a strained relationship with don mcgahn. he's been fed up with him at different times. they've had pretty heated discussions where the president has, you know, become exasperated with him. in the president's mind, according to people who have watched the two of them interact and talked to the president about don mcgahn, trump thought that don mcgahn was always trying to get to no, was never trying to creatively get to yes when he had a request. don mcgahn's defenders say, well, that's because trump was often asking him to do things that were potentially illegal and certainly unwise. so, they say he was in a

difficult position from day one and they are quite sympathetic to him. >> eli, in terms of this question here, this issue of cooperating with mueller's investigation, is there a difference in terms of the role he could play with mueller being the current white house counsel or the former white house counsel. does that affect that relationship at all with mueller's team. >> i think where it comes into play is if mcgahn were to stick around and continue to be in these conversations with the president, those future conversations would now become subject to mueller, which may be a reason for the timing here. it may be a reason why the president said, okay, i think the president was already freaked out by the 30 hours and he should be. 30 hours is an eternity for a prosecutor to spend with somebody. it means that the person's got something of interest. i would never spend more than 3 hours with somebody who had nothing of interest. and so, now that mcgahn's gone, he won't be in the room and he won't be able to report on that to the prosecutor. >> does that suggest to you -- when you say that's a long amount of time, they must be interested in something in particular, does that suggest to you folks would look at this question of obstruction of justice, of the firing of james

comey, of maybe advice trump was getting, maybe what he was being told inside the white house, does it suggest anything about that to you? >> mcgahn seems to have been one of the main sources of sort of moderation and restraint and as jonathan alluded to, maybe his cardinal sin was that he would tell the president no and sometimes the best advice a lawyer can give a client, it's not easy to give is, no, don't do that. and you know, the most important thing, the most interesting thing to me as a prosecutor would be those conversations around the potential firing of mueller. it's been reported that mcgahn was the one who talked the president out of that or told the president, you can't or should not do that and i would want to know if i was a prosecutor sitting with mcgahn, why did he want to do it? what did he tell you were his reasons for wanting to do it? and if the answer is, he was freaked out about russia, that could be really important evidence. >> jonathan, the question is, what's next or who's next for trump in that role of white house counsel. i know mitch mcconnell sounded distressed about this possibility. >> the mitch mcconnell statement

was very amusing, at least to my eyes, because the first sentence said, if the reporting is accurate. this was after i broke the story and then the president on the record confirmed it. so, there was no reporting whatever, but what i saw from that was a sense of wishful denial. here's the issue. don mcgahn is an ideological conservative who in mitch mcconnell's mind, in chuck grassley's mind, has done a wonderful job feeding that pipeline of conservative justices, both at the circuit court level and obviously at the supreme court level. emmet flood, who is the likely replacement, however, i should stress nothing has been formalized -- emmet flood is not known for his ideology. he represented bill clinton during the impeachment and he represented george w. bush for two years during his second term and now he's obviously coming in to represent trump. someone -- a source of mine who has discussed emmet flood's

decision making said that the reason -- one of the reasons he came in for trump is because he believes that the special counsel is out of control. so it was very much from that very specific vantage point, protecting the institution of the presidency in his mind, that he took the job. there's less of a sense that he has conservative bona fides. >> and today's announcement of mcgahn's looming departure comes amid reports indicating that trump wants to fire his attorney general, jeff sessions. and now, just tonight, politico reporting that the president is personally asking republican senators to turn against sessions. "the willingness of republican senators to turn on attorney general jeff sessions is the result of a furious lobbying campaign from president trump who for the past ten days has been vent higz anger at sessions to any senator who will listen," according to one gop senate aide. this issue of potentially getting rid of sessions, to me, we were talking about this last night, some folks were suggesting a key element of the timeline here is the status of

the mueller investigation. if the mueller investigation is going on and trump moves on sessions, versus if the mueller investigation is finished and he moves on sessions, how key is that date to you? >> i think it's hugely important. because again, it goes to the intent. obviously, the president's biggest beef with sessions is that sessions recused himself and handed over the mueller investigation to rosenstein and mueller, who have some streak of independence in them and so i think if you wait until the investigation is done, he can't really be criticized for that. but if he does it before the investigation is done and given how quickly this is moving and the president's sort of famous impatience, i bet that's the way it goes, maybe after midterms but i don't think he's going to let this run all the way out until mueller is done. it goes back to the president's sort of fundamental misunderstanding of the roles of everyone around him. he comes from a world where, if you work anywhere near me, you work for me, drufonald trump, b many of these individuals understand you don't work for the president personally.

don mcgahn understands you work for the institution of the presidency but not this person. >> and jonathan, quickly, these republican senators, if it comes to it, say it was after midterms and trump got rid of sessions, are there potentially, it would not take many republicans saying no to that to keep a replacement from being confirmed. are there, you know, hey, sessions was in the senate for a long time. he's got some friends, some allies there, are there potentially a critical number of republicans wholds no to that? >> sure. i mean, how do you -- who do you replace him with? that's the question. i don't have the sense that trump or people around him have played out this tape to the end. you fire sessions, okay, who do you install to replace him? someone who's going to fire rosenstein? that type of a person who's going to be a lackey is going to be toxic to a lot of these senators, so yeah, maybe they will roll over and do it because they're republicans and they'll do it for president trump, but i think it's going to be a very tough confirmation. >> all right, jonathan swan and

elie honig, thank you both for joining us. up next, we're going to pfie up the big board. we've ngot nominees in florida and critically in arizona and some polling to show you. this is "hardball," where the action is. ow you this is "hardball," where the action is. implicated in two fel, and he's all but confessed to them on fox news. no one is above the law, so we have to make sure this president doesn't use pardons to cover up crimes. if you agree that a president should not be allowed to pardon himself or his associates, join us at needtoimpeach.com. the washington establishment doesn't have the courage to act, but the american people can.

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chest pain, mouth or tongue swelling, problems urinating, vision changes, or eye pain while taking anoro. ask your doctor about anoro. ♪ go your own way get your first prescription free at anoro.com. all right. welcome back to "hardball." we talked about the big surprise in that florida governor's race last night, but nationally, the other major headline, two key

senate races, the match-ups now set coming out of last night in florida, in arizona, so we said in light of that, why don't we reset as we get close to labor day here the state of play in the battle for control of the senate. so right now, obviously, here it is, democrats with 49%, republicans, you have the unfortunate passing of john mccain. that brings their numbers down to 50%. there will be an interim replacement of a republican moving in there so republicans will soon be back to 51-49. that's how we will go into the election. that means democrats in november, if they want to get back the senate, they need to post a net gain of two seats. remember, 50-50 tie, mike pence the vp breaks it so democrats have got to net two. that sounds, on paper, like not much but of course the story has been democrats on defense in so many places on this map. we're getting a sense, though, of how these are starting to take shape. the blue states, they are in trump states, states trump won in 2016.

we said in the beginning of the cycle, democrats have a potential uphill battle. the good news for democrats is pennsylvania, ohio, michigan, even wisconsin a little bit closer but they've been getting good polling news out of these states where democrats right now seem to have to worry the most, north dakota, trump won that thing by nearly 40 points. missouri, trump won it by almost 20. indiana, trump won it by 20. west virginia, montana, those are big trump states. right now, not looking as bad so democrats getting some good news there and then, though, along comes florida. bill nelson going to be the republican nominee there. here's the interesting thing. he's going to face off against rick scott, the governor. the polling in florida, trump won the state by less than 2 points and yet look at what we're seeing here. rick scott, if you average the polls together in florida, he's running slightly ahead of bill nelson, so again, you think of that senate math for democrats. even if they hang on to a west virginia, a montana, a missouri, a michigan, wisconsin, all those, if they hold on to all those, if they lose florida, the odds of the democrats being able to pick up the senate then, they

diminish dramaticlially if they can't get florida. the flip side, though, we said last night, arizona, republicans breathing a sigh of relief because the establishment choice is their nominee. arizona is one of these states, there aren't that many on the map, we're seeing there's four right now, republican seats where democrats seem to have some kind of a shot. arizona is one of them and if republicans hadn't nominated sally, i think democrats would have had more than a good shot but mcsally is now the candidate. she's facing the democratic congresswoman. we do have a recent poll in that race and check it out. if i can get that, sinema, the most recent poll had her ahead of mcsally by four points out there. look at that math. if democrats are going to take over the senate, get that net gain of two, they got to protect almost all of these blue seats and then they've got to make incursions into republican territory and that means, texas, who knows, that's a reach for

them right now. we'll see about tennessee. arizona looms as a must-win for democrats if they're going to have a chance at getting a 51 in the senate. so, two -- the in the gain of two doesn't seem like much, then you look at the map and it gets a lot tougher for democrats but that's where things stand after last night. up next, more on that history-making upset in florida. the bernie sanders-backed mayor of tallahassee beating the establishment favorite. what does that mean for the november elections? and for democrats hoping for a blue wave. you're watching "hardball." pinga blue wave. you're watching "hardball. this n insurance commercial. but let's be honest, nobody likes dealing with insurance. which is why esurance hired me, dennis quaid, as their spokesperson because apparently, i'm highly likable. see, they know it's confusing. i literally have no idea what i'm getting, dennis quaid. that's why they're making it simple, man in cafe. and more affordable. thank you, dennis quaid. you're welcome. that's a prop apple. i'd tell you more, but i only have 30 seconds. so here's a dramatic shot of their tagline so you'll remember it. esurance. it's surprisingly painless. so you'll remember it. that's confident. but it's not kayak confident.

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welcome back to "hardball." the florida contest for governor has become a marquee race this fall, pit ago progressive mayor against one of donald trump's biggest supporters, congressman ron desantis' victory was helped in part by his multiple appearances on fox news. according to politico, desantis made 121 appearances on fox and fox business. his campaign estimates it would have cost his campaign $9.3 million to purchase all of

that air time. his frequent appearances helped secure president trump's endorsement. let's take a look at a few of those. >> we're in 2018 now, and we still don't have evidence of any trump-russia campaign collusion. this russia collusion thing was infected by bias from the start, the legitimacy of this thing is gone. trump has almost the entire media against him, fake news day after day after day. he's got the entire democratic party after him. he's got the lobbyists after him. he's got the bureaucracy after him. and he's got some republicans who come after him to kneecap him and so he is under an attack like no president has faced, and he is standing tall for us. he is working hard so the last thing i want to do is go out there and lob hand grenades at the president. i think we need to support the president, understand what he's up against, and understand he's facing opposition unlike any other president we've seen. >> what do you think the president has done for your campaign in this primary?

>> well, obviously, you know, he's the 800-pound gorilla in republican politics. >> for more, i'm joined by our round table, laura basset from "huffington post," and an editor at commentary magazine. we were talking about this florida governor's race as sort of an illustration of where each party is in the trump era, and this seems like a big part of it. you've got a congressman who a key part of his campaign strategy was get on fox, and he got the president's attention, and it changed the race. >> think about desantis. desantis is a harvard yale guy, okay? he's a harvard-yale guy. this is not a populist's resume. if there is an indication that the party of the -- the party of reagan has turned into the party of trump, it is that desantis isn't walking around saying, well, as a man who attended harvard and yale. he's like, defend trump. the elites are going after him. he is the elites. he's, you know, he's a classic

image of the elites turning themselves into a pretzel to become a trumpian populist and it worked. >> becoming the party of trump, and then basil, in terms of the democratic party and how it responds to the phenomenon that john is describing there, the trump phenomenon, i think we get a look at that in florida a bit last night too. i'm wondering if the circumstances that allow gillum to win that nomination come out of nowhere with no money and do that, could he have pulled that off just three years ago? >> i'm not sure he could have pulled it off three years ago but i think it started at least three years ago because he actually -- and i met him when he was running for mayor of tallahassee, and he really started to engage a lot of young voters even back then to create this clearinghouse so people get trained to skprun be involved in these campaigns. so this effect, i think, is starting to come to fruition now, but it also speaks to the depth of our electorate. the fact that, what, 600,000

more voters came out in the primary yesterday versus four years ago, even after bush/gore in 2000, it's more than in the 2000 elections so the depth of our electorate is something that's very, very striking and it does speak to the young people that are coming out, because they want to see change. >> i think the numbers i saw, the most recent ones, were over 1.6 million in the republican race, 1.5 million in the democratic race. neither i had seen that high in modern history in florida. and i guess, laura, the way i've been thinking about this in my head, i'm curious what you think about this. it's almost like if you look at this florida race, each party can look at the other party and see exactly what they want the other party to be. democrats can look at the republican party and say, see, they're a bunch of trumpers. republicans can look at the democratic party and say, see, they are moving far to the left. >> absolutely. i think these two candidates really represent more the beating hearts of their parties, rather than the head, and i think democrats have been going with the centrist candidate in florida for a long time and losing for the past couple elections, losing by just one point. and it wasn't working for them

in a purple state like florida so now we have this far-left progressive candidate in the same vein as ocasio-cortez. i'm, there's definitely a progressive insurgency happening in the democratic party and i think it's working in a lot of places and the fact that there was such a massive, unprecedented turnout in the florida primary last night suggests that it could work in florida. >> if i could adjust the diversity of our candidates, i think, is carrying a tremendous amount of weight. consider in our country's history, there have only been four black governors. only two were elected but now there are three african-americans one running on the top of the ticket for us in three states, including florida. the fact that we're diverse is bringing people out to the polls. >> does the democratic party in 2020 have to have a person of color on the ticket? >> i'm not sure they have to but it would be nice. the truth is, even if we don't, we have to make sure that that diversity is all the way down ballot. if it's not, that becomes a real problem.

>> i got to go with have to, because i think if you look at hillary clinton in 2016, she lost because african-american turnout was down. the way to, you know, we had obama create a circumstance in which african-american turnout, which was historically low, became the driver of his two, you know, triumphant elections with over 50% of the vote. if you're trying to engineer a takeover of the presidency in an election like that, you need to take every advantage of the past that you possibly can. i don't know what other factor, aside from someone at the top of the ticket being an african-american, aside from everything else, what x factor there could be that could generate the kind of turnout that is necessary. >> got to speak to the voters. that more than anything -- >> of course. >> but more than anything else, because the truth is, you know, you got african-american women coming out for the arkansas -- the alabama race. doug jones. so it's not -- it's not just the candidate.

it's, do you speak to our issues, do you come to our neighborhood, do you actually talk to us about the things that we care about. so, yes, i would like to see it. i would love to see it and there are cory booker, kamala harris, would be phenomenal on the ticket topward as vp but beyond that, all of that still -- all of that energy has to filter from the top all the way down ballot. >> it does seem to me, too, laura, if you look at florida -- and i think, you know, stacey abrams in georgia is doing the same kind of strategy you're talking about here, where it's forget what we think of as the old playbook. here's what we're going to do. we're going to expand the voter -- voting pool out there and energize new people. if one or both of them wins, i got to think that's going to have a big impact nationally in the party in terms of the thinking of democratic voters in 2020. >> absolutely. well, the democratic party obviously needs to be doing something different. and that loss in 2016 was shocking. and clearly they weren't resonating with a big part of the country. and so i think that stacey abrams is coming, and gillum's coming in with a new message, and as -- when you think about

what's been happening in florida lately, and there's been some massive shootings that have really riled up young people in florida, and environmental issues are -- i mean, they're seeing dead animals washing up on their beaches. the policies, the policy failures in their minds of republicans are really right raw in front of their face, and so finding a candidate that can speak directly to those things in a vebold new way is importan and exciting. >> i think the question would be what happens if they don't prevail. so, does that mean that the trajectory of 2020 will move back in a moderate direction, or is this the passion that has been brought into democratic politics on the left, that going to endure and people will say, well, you know, this was only the beginning. we're going to keep going this way, because people don't vote strategically. most people aren't going to say, well, you know, i need to vote for the more moderate person because that will appeal to a larger -- they vote for the person they want to vote for. and if the democratic base and if the democratic electorate is

moving to the left, they will not go for some boring centrist like even if they get all this preachment that says, you've got to do it or you're going to be in trouble. >> there's this potential scenario in florida, as crazy as it seems where gillum wins and bill nelson loses. that would really reinforce that thinking among democrats. up next, these three will tell me something i don't know. you're watching "hardball." tell me something i don't know you're watching "hardball. introducing zero account fees for brokerage accounts. and zero minimums to open an account. we have fidelity mutual funds with zero minimum investment. and now, only fidelity offers two zero expense ratio index funds directly to investors. because when you invest with fidelity, all those zeros really add up. ♪ so maybe i'll win, saved by zero ♪ you shouldn't be rushed into booking a hotel. with expedia's add-on advantage, booking a flight unlocks discounts on select hotels until the day you leave for your trip.

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laura, tell me something i don't know. >> senate democrats decided to expedite a vote, because they wanted to get home early in time for labor day. >> an opening for democrats to take over the narrative from the republicans suggests there are 45 million people when you factor in housing.

45 million people that are living in poverty, but they're working. it's time for us to talk about the issues labelled as socialist. affordable college. >> as we speak, cynthia nixon, turned politician is debating andrew cuomo, she has taken off the gloves, she called him a liar, corrupt. she has two weeks to turn around the deficit. we should not count out the possibility that democratic voters are going in wild directions this time. >> laura, john, thank you for being with us. when we return, let me finish tonight with the last time a democrat won the florida governor's race, and how that win may have changed history. who would have thought,

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october 2nd. i'm a little excited about it. that 1994 florida governor's race was between an embattled incumbent and his ambitious and pedigreed republican challenger, jeb bush. 1994 was a big be year nationally, it looked like it was going to be a big one in florida as well. there was a contrast between the two candidates and it was more than ideological. childs who was more than 20 years older had more of a down home folksiness. it was a famous moment when childs got a chance to respond after bush attacked him as a liberal. >> my mama told me, sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me. let me tell you. one other thing about the old liberal. the old hekon walks before the

light of day. >> the audience was confused. >> what was he talking about? the old hekon he was talking about was a reference to rural florida folklore, the idea that in every group of raccoons there's one that sticks out. the craftiest raccoon is the hecoon. and he was telling bush to watch out. childs embraced that image for the rest of the campaign, and maybe tapped into something. maybe it tapped into something with voters who understood what he meant. whatever it was, with democrats dropping left and right, childs managed to pull off the upset and hang on, and that might have changed american history. when jeb bush lost that race, it

meant he would not be the next bush in line to run for the white house. instead it would be his brother. every election really does have ripple effects. that is hardball for now. "all in with chris hayes" starts right now. tonight on "all in." >> not -- >> excellent guy. >> the man at the center of the trump white house sent packing in a tweet. >> mcgahn's a really good guy. >> what the exit of the white house council means for the president. and for the mueller probe. >> are you concerned about what he said to mueller? >> no. >> then the candidate that trump tv built. >> the last thing we need to do is monkey this thing up. >> how democrats continue to build a new coalition. >> we are going to remind this nation of what is truly the american way.