to get it is that he is incapable of feeling solidarity and empathy. and now that number 2,975, will follow him wherever he goes for the rest of his life. >> san juan, puerto rico mayor carmenule lynn cruz. that is our broadcast for tonight. thank you for being with us and good night from nbc news headquarters in new york.. >> the past 24 hours have been a news psych with lots of unexpected twists and turns, lots of plot surprises, unexpected endings. that has made this sort of a fun day to be in the news business as my job because it's up with of those days where nothing turns out the way people expected to. and that makes it's discombobulating but it can be fun and it's humbling in all the right ways. this started this part sort of

unexpected nature of the news cycle started with the news that broke during our hour last night of the big, big upset in the primary in florida. yesterday. to pick a democratic candidate for governor in that crucial state. and drew gillum winning the democratic nomination in florida has been like a shot of adrenaline for the democratic party base coast to coast today. it absolutely makes that one governor's race a big national story, a point of national focus between now and election day in november. we're going to talk there hour with the dean of florida political reporters who is and i say this in a nice way, he is a freaking cynical guy, definitely like a i've seen everything you can't surprise me kind of guy. he today told us that andrew gillum win hag race in florida and what it means for florida and democrats broadly is something he has never seen before.

there is something about that race last night that grabbed even the most jaded political obbers by their lapels and shaken them up. we'll be talking about that, some of the reasons behind what happened there coming up. in addition to that andrew gillum race last night, here's norris weird turn and it's also about electoral politics. one of the broader trends that is happening in democratic party politics this year for the midterms is that there's a whole bunch of people running on the democratic side for congress who are people who have national security backgrounds. people whose background is in law enforcement intelligence, military, the diplomatic corps, other national security roles. for example, just last night in florida, a former u.s. -- a former u.n. ambassador won a congressional primary in the district currently represented by republican congressman ron

desantis. he had to give up his seat in congress in order to become the republican candidate for governor. we know he'll be running against andrew gillum. in his district, in thedy santis district, it will be nancy soderbergh running as the democrat to try to flip that seat from red to blue. another national security veteran, a guy named chris hunter is a former fbi agent and former doj prosecutor. he won a primary last night in florida, as well to try to unseat republican congressman and another district where -- that's another district where democrats are seen as having a shot to flip that seat from red to blue with chris hunter. that dynamic is not florida spec. democrats have a lot of candidates across the country in potentially flippable districts where the democratic candidate comes from a national security background. and that's interesting in terms

of strategy and was that a deliberate plan by you know the democratic party. what does that say about national security professionals and their desire to get into politics and the trump -- you can analyze it from a lot of different angles. >> but tonight we have just learned from some interesting reporting by spencer ac-kerman at "the daily beast" that the democratic congressional campaign complete, the committee in the democratic party in charge of electing house candidates have just warned given a warning to all of the democratic party's congressional candidates across the country who have a national security background. people who have security clearances or who have had security clearances in the past because of their past work, the democratic party has now just officially warned all of those candidates that they should be prepared for the trump administration to potentially illegally leak their security clearance applications. so that those applications can be used against them by the

republican party in the general election. the reason for the warning is because it has happened apparently once already to one democratic candidate. "new york times" breaking the news late last night that this candidate, abigail span berger, a democratic congressional candidate in virginia, she's the candidate democrats have nominated to try to unseat republican congressman dave bratt in virginia, abigail apparently had her full unredacted security clearance application not just released by the trump administration without her permission which is illegal but the trump administration apparently released it to a republican opposition research effort. which then did immediately start using that security clearance application against her in her congressional campaign. applications for security clearance are incredibly intrusive and incredibly personal on purpose. they are designed to ferret out anything that a foreign

adversary might try to use to blackmail you to get you to hand over information that you'll have access to because of your clearance. applications are deep deep background collection and they're specifically looking for anything that anybody might try to use against you. so it's medical information, it's relationship information. it's very detailed questions about like you know, have you ever smoked pot. it's very detail information about your family, about your extended family. it's super, super intrusive. and the government agency responsible for issuing your clearance is obviously supposed to protect that information in your security clearance application, right? not just because it's intensely private. it's because by definition, this is intensely private information about people who are obtaining security clearances. so it's important to keep it secure. it is information that is of a personal nature but it's also of -- it's also of a sensitive

nature when it comes to national security. that's why for example, all journalists know you can't file a freedom of act request to get somebody's security clearance application. you can try but if you get anything back from the agency you're toiaing, whatever you get will be redacted to protect the sensitive information in that document and rightly so. at least that's the way it's supposed to work. for some reason, the trump administration responded to a foia request by this republican group looking for informationing abouting this democratic congressional candidate ex-cia officer abigail span berger and what the trump administration sent that republican group in response to their foia request was span berger's complete totally unredacted application for a security clearance including her full social security number, her entire medical history, right? everything.

the reason abigail span berger found out this had handed is because there after aipac happily started shopping this document to reporters. and starred using it in political attacks against her in her congressional campaign. i mean, that is a legitimately new thing in politics. we're all supposed to be sort of jaded observers of politics and supposed to think there's nothing new under the sun. this is new. this is new. it was also new when trump decided to yank security clearances from john brennan because of his role in the russia investigation and the president doesn't like the investigation. apparently this is what comes next after you break that seal. now the republican party is using this stuff in campaigns. we will have more including the strange non-response thus far

from the agency apparently responsible for releasing this document. if this wasn't an accident, if this wasn't something done by some rogue employee who now be punished or prosecuted for having done this, right, of course we should expect that this will become a huge new legal fight with the trump administration, right? if they're misusing national security sensitive material like this in order todox their democratic political opponents, you would expect that to become a gigantic new legal fight with this administration. naturally, therefore, this news comes at the same time that we learned that the white house counsel is leaving the white house. the top lawyer in the white house, don mcgahn, news today about mcgahn comes a week and a half, 11 days after the "new york times" first reported he sat for at least 30 hours of interviews with special counsel robert mueller and his team of prosecutors. the "times" reporting that he

fully cooperated with the special counsel's inquiry. the white house has tried to play that off like, oh, yeah, no big deal. we totally knew he was doing that. we're fine. nothing to worry about. we're so squeaky clean. what could we have to worry about? but the "times" own reporting from its scoop and subsequent reporting from other media outlegs seems to indicate that actually the president and other top white house officials really had no idea that don mcgahn was cooperating with mueller to that extent and they definitely have no idea what he might have told them. and if don mcgahn has been fully cooperative with the special counsel's office and told them everything he knows that they might be interested in, he's potentially a super witness for them. he's been right there in the room for all the highlights for the firing of james comey, the fbi director which is now reportedly a subject of investigation by the special counsel as to whether that was an effort by the president to

obstruct justice. when national security adviser mike flynn was having secret conversations with the russian government and lying to the fbi about those conversations, the person who was warned by sally yates at the justice department about flynn's behavior, the person who got the warning that uh-oh, big problem, the serving national security adviser appears to be compromised by a foreign government, the person who got that warning at the white house was don mcgahn, white house counsel. he was there for the subsequent 1 days in which the white house did nothing with that information despite that is dire warning. when attorney general jeff sessions turned out to have not told the truth about his secret contacts with the russian government during the campaign, don mcgahn was apparently assigned by trump to prevent jeff sessions from recusing himself in the russia investigation. as a result of those revelations. that effort to stop sessions' recusal did not succeed. sessions recused and ultimately

we got deputy attorney general rod rosenstein overseeing the special counsel's investigation led by robert mueller. the "times" has also reported president trump told don mcgahn directly to fire robert muler. the times" reports mcgahn threatened to resign in response and he would not do it. so he's had this central role in all of those marquee events, all of which we believe remain under some level of scrutiny by the special counsel's office in their investigation. but on top of all that, don't forget don mcgahn was also the top lawyer for the trump campaign. so to the extent that the special counsel is looking at russia an a's intervention to help trump and the crucial question whether the campaign was aware of that and whether they may have participated or cooperated in any of those efforts, well, don mcgahn was there for that too in a key legal and financial role on the campaign for months. i mean, even as recently as this

week, don mcgahn has a role in another key controversy involving the president and this ongoing scandal this all encompassing scandal that surrounds him and his administration and frankly his campaign. "vanity fair" reported this week it has been don mcgahn who has been insisting to the president that no, he can't pardon his campaign chairman paul manafort ahead of manafort's second federal felony trial due to start next month in washington, d.c. "vanity fair" reports the president is so set on pardoning manafort despite that advice he has been considering bringing in a different lawyer to advise him on the matter or even to draft the pardon. since don mcgahn won't do it. now don mcgahn is leaving. it appears from follow-up reporting tonight in the "new york times"ing that don mcgahn is being fired from the white house as opposed to him resigning on his own terms. there was an axios.com story early this morning which said mcgahn was looking to leave,

maybe sometime this fall, wanted to get through the stuff with the kavanaugh supreme court nomination, he was starting to think of -- the "times" reports the president pounced on that story as an opportunity beaking to fire don mcgahn. over twitter. naturally. much to don mcgahn's surprise. "the president's tweet was precipitated by a report on the axios website ta don mcgahn planned to leave after cab anyhow's supreme court nomination process concluded. mr. trump had grown tired of seeing reports he might leave according to people familiar with his thinking. and he decided to take away any wiggle room. he decided to take away any wiggle room he might have. as "the washington post" puts it tonight? >> trump's announcement of mcgahn's departure came as a surprise, including to mcgahn. >> he was not aware that trump planned to send the tweet. so apparently, that is how the white house counsel got fired today. 11 days after we learned about

the extent of his cooperation with the special counsel. in case you're wondering no, this is not normal, not the way these things usually happen. no other white house counsel has been fired quite in this way. it's interesting the white house and president tried to spin this today as something that it clearly is not. they clearly tried to create a public impression that this was the orderly, long-planned roll out of don mcgahn's voluntary departure. if it was a surprise to him when he saw on twitter that he was leaving, that's not -- the public -- we don't know why they've tried to concoct a false public story line. we may find out in the future. sources close to mcgahn do have ways of getting their perspective on things into the newspapers we've noticed. but we'll have more on that story ahead with the reporter who has covered this really closely. to the extent that the current white house counsel don mcgahn has prevented the president from acting on some of his most destructive impulses particularly when it comes to

the russia investigation, don mcgahn leaving sort of creates a new x factor, a new unknown in terms of us as americans trying to anticipate trying to prepare for the ways this president might handle or try to manage some of the increasingly intense legal stuff that is swirling around the president and the white house when it comes to the ongoing scandal. at the end of next week, for example, we are expecting another sentencing. and prosecutors are asking for a custodial sentence for trump campaign foreign policy adviser georges papadopoulos. . papadopoulos's somewhat inscrutable italian wife told abc news tonight that despite her earlier public intimmations that her husband with draw his guilty plea and try to fight the charges for lie together fbi, she now says george papadopoulos will not fight, will not withdraw his guilty plea. she expects him to be sentenced next week. she hopes it isn't to prison.

if george papadopoulos goss o does get sentenced next week, that will make him the second person sentenced to time behind bars since the prosecution starred. we don't know how the president will react to that. ten days after mr. papadopoulos is due to be sentenced next week, jury selection will start in the seconds felony trial of paul manafort. today manafort's defense team asked the judge in that case to move the trial out of washington, d.c. to more conservative roanoke, virginia instead. the judge should rule on that motion within the next week or so. discussions in open court about that issue yesterday suggested that the judge might not be inclined to move the case but we will not know till we see her ruling. today was also the deadline by which the special counsel's office, the prosecutor's office had to tell that same judge, excuse me had, to tell the judge -- sorry. had to tell the judge from manafort's first case whether they wanted to retry paul

manafort on the ten felony charges for which the jury in his first case was unable to reach a verdict. prosecutors from the special counsel's office filed this brief with that judge asking for more time to make that decision. now, if the judge grants that extension we think that means we'll go maybe another 30 days or so before we know if the president's campaign chairman isn't just going to start a second federal trial next month but he's actually then going to go back on trial again for some of the charges he faced already last time in virginia. so i mean, imagine paul manafort's legal fees at this point, right? and there's this lack of resolution around the manafort case in terms of his ultimate fate and how long he's going to keep twisting in this particular wind and paying his legal team and all the rest of it. there's also an interesting and hard to follow lack of resolution around the michael cohen part of this case.

i mean, part of it is settled. the day he was first convicted in federal court, michael cohen pled guilty in a different cun federal court to eight federal felony charges. that wasn't the ends with michael cohen. it now seems like other shoes may drop and some of it may be federal, some of it may not. the new york state attorney general has asked for a state criminal referral of michael cohen on state tax charges in addition to the federal tax charges he's already pled guilty to. we learned at the same time that we learned at the same time of that revelation from the new york state attorney general that cohen also has already been subpoenaed by new york state authorities to testify about the trump foundation. new york attorney general has brought a civil lawsuit against the trump foundation. the new york district attorney is also reportedly considering criminal charges against the trump organization which is president trump's business. that criminal investigation reportedly derives from the trump organization's role in the

felony charges to which michael cohen already pled guilty in federal court. and you know it does seem like the doors are starting to rattle a little bit over at the trump organization. cnn reporting today that a second employee at the trump organization someone other than cfo allen weisselberg has gone to federal prosecutors and asked for immunity from prosecution. in exchange for his or her cooperation and testimony. we don't know who that person is from the trump organization but here's how cnn puts it today. "a second trump organization employee discussed a potential immunity deal with the federal prosecutors who charged michael cohen president trump's former personal attorney. that employee ultimately did not receive immunity after prosecutors in the u.s. attorney's office for the southern district of new york decided against granting such protection." the trump organization is not that big. family business, they don't have

that many employees. now we know that not just the cfo but at least one other person who worked there has gone on to federal prosecutors and asked for immunity, immunity from prosecution in exchange for cooperating with those prosecutors. in an organization that's not that big, that's probably not a good sign. at least not a good sign for the people hole aren't cooperating. and now there's actually one more piece of this we can add based on interesting reporting today from the "wall street journal." one of the things that i think people truly are not going to believe about this era when they look back at it as american history, is that when all this stuff was going down with the president's personal lawyer, michael cohen pleading guilty to multiple felonies, standing up in federal court and directly implicating the president in his crimes, right. >> while all that was happening michael cohen was the deputy finance chairman of the national republican party. i mean in, the trump era republican party, two of the

deputy finance chairman of the rnc have been michael cohen for real and also this gentleman, elliott broidy. "washington post" reported recently that the public integrity division at the justice department is investigating whether or not elliott broidy has been selling access to the president and the trump administration as an unregistered lobbyist and or unregistered foreign agent. that follows earlier bombshell reporting from "the wall street journal" that one of the things broidy was reportedly trying to sell to a foreign buyer was his self-proclaimed ability to make major department of justice investigations go away. he and his wife offered a gigantic multimillion dollar contract to overseas buyers. the terms of the proposed contract say he and his wife would be paid $8 million no matter what as a nonrefundable retainer if this contract were entered into. and then if they were able to get the justice department to drop this one particular major investigation within six months,

broidy analyst wife would be paid $75 million on this contract. if it took them a year to get the case dropped or settled, then they would only get paid $50 million. ef presumably in addition to their $8 million nonrefundable retainer. that will case that elliott broidy and his wife were reportedly offering to make go away for those very large sums, that case that they said they could get quashed, settled, ended, that case that they were offering that contract about is one of the largest alleged financial frauds in human history. it is a multibillion dollar heist from the government of malaysia. and now today, "the wall street journal" reports that the department of justice is looking into whether or not not just elliott broidy but lots of other people in trump's orbit have been getting laundered money stole in that giant heist from

malaysia "the u.s. justice department is investigating whether a fugitive financier laundered tens of millions of dollars and used the funds to pay a u.s. legal team that includes former new jersey governor chris christie, oh, and also a lawyer who represents president trump. the team of lawyers and consultants working for him includes mr. crist of christie, mr. trump's long time lawyer mark kasowitz and bobby birchfield, a lawyer who serves as the trump organization's outside ethics adviser." remember when the president decided wasn't going to give up his business and form a trust. look, we're bringing in an outside advisor to make sure everything is squeaky clean with me being the first president in modern history to retain his business interests while still serving as president. we've got an outside adviser. rest assured. there will be no funny money sliding through anywhere, nothing the least bit smelly in

this unclean office fridge. everything will be fine. that lawyer that they brought in for the trump organizationing is bobby birchfield who now according to "the wall street journal" is part after investigation into whether or not he received laundered funds from the biggest financial heist in history which is the subject after active justice department investigation. and the single best part of the story is bobby birch field's response to this report from the "wall street journal" "mr. birchfield said in an e-mailed statement that the malaysian financier had retained his atlanta based law firm to advise him on ongoing investigations adding that the law firm "performed appropriate due diligence on sources of payment." that's the wrong answer. write? think about that for a second. you did appropriate due diligence? you're the ethics lawyer who has been hired literally by the president of the united states to assure everybody that you're the guy looking into everything

to make sure there's nothing weird at all about any of the money moving around in any of the president's business and you yourself end up under justice department investigation for being part of a guy gigantic money laundering scheme yourself in your own business? the right response to that is not yeah, i totally looked into it. i completely checked this out. i did all my due diligence. i was totally sure all that money was fine. that money's not fine. >> you're the due diligence guy, if it didn't work here, don't advertise that. with all of these various strands of legal jeopardy surrounding the president analyst charity and his business and his family and closest associates, right, from before the campaign from during the campaign and from now, with all of these different legal matters swirling around the president and seemingly getting closer and close to the president with more

people offering to cooperate, heck of a time to lose a white house council, right? bloomberg news reports among the candidates being replaced to replace gk mcgahn as white house counsel is that guy, bobby burgefield, the due diligence ethics lawyer who apparently is caught up in a giant justice department money laundering investigation. yeah. you need a white house counsel. >> why not that guy. sure, he seems perfect. holes would you pick. is michael cohen actually all that busy before he has to report to jail? lots more ahead to get to tonight. stay with us. lots more ahead to get to tonight. stay with us need a change of scenery? the kayak explore tool shows you the places you can fly on your budget.

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i was going to talk about something else here, but the west has just broken one of those stories that is sort of a landmark story. you know it's big when they note a few paragraphs in, thrmg account is based on interviews this week with 26 white house officials. presidential advisers and lawyers and strategists close to the administration. 26 sources in this news story that the west just posted. let me just give you the lead here. president trump's advisers and allies are increasingly worried he has neither the staff nor the

strategy to protect himself from a possible democratic takeover of the house which would empower the opposition party to shower the administration with subpoenas or even pursue impeachment charges. within trump's orbit there's consensus his current legal team is not equipped to effectively navigate congressional demands and there's been broad discussion about bringing on new lawyers well versed in political scandals. they get spec. the president and some advisers discussed possibly adding abbie lowell hole currently represents jared kushner to the president's legal team if other fights with congress emerge after the elections. trump recently has consulted his personal attorneys about the likelihood of impeachment proceedings. still, according to "the post" tonight, trump has not directed his lawyers or his political aides to prepare an action plan. leaving allies to fret that the president does not appreciate

the magnitude of what could be in store next year. one other concern cited by the post tonight is that the white house which has struggled in attracting top caliber talent to staff positions could face an exodus if democrats take over the house because aides fear mayor mere proximity to the president could place them in legal limbo and possibly result in hefty lawyers' fees. one adviser telling the post tonight it stops good people from potentially serving because nobody wants to inherit a $400,000 legal bill." this white house has always seemed like a fun place to work. seems like that may be all the more so right now. carol leonnig is one of the lead reporters on this story. we'll be joined by carol leonnig next. stay with us. joined by carol lg next stay with us but now it's time to find my dream abode. -right away, i could tell his priorities were a little unorthodox. -keep going. stop.

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and enjoyed by the community in the future. winter is coming. and not just on premium cable. winter is coming is this new headline just posted in the west tonight quoting someone in communication with the white house. full quote is this. winter is coming. assuming democrats win the house which we all believe will be a likelihood, the white house will be under siege. it's like tumbled weeds rolling down the walls over there. nobody is prepared for war. >> joining us is carol leonnig.

i appreciate the time. >> glad to be here, rachel. >> so this is based on 26 sources which itself feels like the occasion for everybody to salute you just for the amount of work you and this team has done to put this together. upshot to me seems to be two main points. one that there is concern in the white house, maybe concern among the president's allies potentially signaling through the media trying to get his attention that the president may be in serious jeopardy up to an potentially including impeachment depending on what happens with laeks this november but also you're reporting on pretty detailed planning or considerations in the white house to really change the president's legal representation. am i right to take those as the two main thrusts of the reporting? >> absolutely, rachel. the two weaknesses are that the president doesn't have a lawyer representing him personally who

has some congressional or impeachment experiences and the other major weakness is beak the gutting we learned about over the last few days of reporting of the white house counsel's office. don mcgahn has essentially been announced as leaving by the president's tweet which was a surprise to him and many other of the president's aides. even the president's attorney was surprised by it this morning. but that announcement made us look more deeply, as well and try to tabulate what's going on in the white house counsel's office. this is the defense, the blockers for what would happen if democrats get subpoena power and it's a pale comparison what it used to be. four of the five deputies for don mcgahn will be gone by the end of the week. and that leaves one standing who mostly has represented the white house on national security matters. >> the news that mr. mcgahn

himself was surprised by the president's announcement that mr. mcgan would mcgahn would be leaving the white house, that left me feeling like really this was the firing of don mcgahn. it may have been that mr. mcgahn was looking toward the exits, that he was planning on arranging his departure from the white house, announcing his departure, submitting his notice as it were sometime fairly soon. he may have even been signaling when that might have been. if he was surprised today by the president saying he's out, is this essentially an involuntary departure? a sort of firing of mr. mcgahn? >> it's not the same kind of event as the tillerson tweet, not the same as the h.r. mcmaster, the national security adviser you're out of here. it's not that kind of see you later, charlie, kind of moment. don mcgahn has telegraphed to many people including reporters he planned to go in the fall

that cab anyhow's confirmation was sort of the crown that he hoped to finish off. that would be the ending of his moment as white house counsel. however, it's just an indecorous way to say good-bye to somebody. the president likes to do it in this manner to sort of squeeze off exits or entrances. that's the opportunity he sees today. >> carol, you and your colleagues reported last night that the president has privately revived the idea of firing the attorney general. do we see any connection between what's just happened with don mcgahn with the hollowing out of the white house counsel's office with not just mcgahn but all of his deputies either leaving or left? is there any connection with the potential firing of the attorney general? obviously that has big consequences for the russia investigation among a lot of other things but don mcgahn has

been described as somebody a sort of governor, a sort of brake pedal for the president for some of his strongest impulses when it comes to the russia investigation in particular. are these things linked? >> it's such a good question because i love your use of the word governor in this instance. it's true there there are a lot of people and don mcgahn probably is among the top three who have barred the door from the president acting on his worst impulses. however, i don't think that it is linked. i do believe don mcgahn's sort of message that he really was kind of done, i think there's something bigger going on inside the white house counsel and larger even in the white house which is people are tired. people are tired of the drama and at tilting and the careering and the daily sort of rush, rush, hurry up and wait and everything falls apart. a lot of things done on the whim of the president that wear

people down. i don't think the departures of all of don mcgahn's almost all of don mcgahn's deputies can be attributed to any one factor. but what i hear and what my colleagues at "the washington post" hear over and over again is people are wearing thin. and it doesn't necessarily mean that the president's pushing them out. but some of the president's ways of governing are. >> care len anything, national reporter at "the washington post." busy as of a these days. thank you very much for being here tonight. much appreciate it. >> of course. thank you. >> again, "the washington post" reporting tonight that the president has consuled his personal attorneys about the likelihood of impeachment proceedings. also reporting in the west tonight mcgahn and other aides invoked the prospect of impeachment to convince the president not to take actions or babe in ways they believe would hurt him. still the president has not directed his lawyers or political aides to prepare an impeachment action plan leaving allies to fret that the president doesn't appreciate the

magnitude of what could be in store for him for particularly if democrats win the house. we'll be right back. stay with us. win the house we'll be right back. stay with us hi there. this is a commercial about insurance.

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my mother said the only thing in life you should ever ask for is a chance. so i want you to know that if you give me the chance i'll not only be your nominee. but to be the next governor of the great state of florida that i'm going to make you proud every single day of the week. so i want you all to join me on this mission. all right? and together, we're going to take there state back, flip florida blue in 2018, and flip this country blue in 2020. >> you see the tag lines there, right. >> he pulls out beat the nra, not just fight the nra, beat the nra. health care for all, $15/an hour minimum wage, abolish i.c.e., impeach trump, and drew gillum, florida democrat has been testing it the theory that if you want to win, you should go

bold. clearly it worked last night in florida. and drew gillum benefitted from absolutely juiced democratic turnout in the primary yesterday in florida. 31%, that is way up from turnout for florida democrats in terms of what they posted in the last two midterm primaries. juiced turn yous like that is what democrats are counting on. on the republican side, gillum will face trump backed congressman rondy santis is calling gillum way too liberal for the state of florida. he also told fox news florida shouldn't "monkey it up" by electing mr. gillum. he would be the first ever african-american florida governor if he's elected. the dean of florida political reporters says he's never seen anything quite like this in his state. and given which state we're talking about, that's saying something. that reporter joins us next. stay with us. something. that reporter joins us next. stay with us (vo) why do subaru forester owners always seem so happy?

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for andrew gillum to slip through, sneak through and surge at the very last minute and then the shocker came on tuesday night. >> now, he in his primary was

seen as a sort of symbol of one approach to democratic general election politics which is don't necessarily try to be the crossover appeal candidate. don't go to the center, do everything you can instead to maximize democratic turnout. get the democratic base excited and they'll turn out and that's how you can win. did we actually see an absolute numbers, did we see a kind of a spike in democratic turnout in a way that sort of justified that strategy? >> well, i can tell you he was certainly the admiral ferret gut candidate, damn the torpedos. it caught on. when i would go around and talk to voters and you know, people i knew who are democrats all of them loved gillum and wanted a reason to believe. in the very last minute he gave them that reason and all of a sudden it came together at one moment. what you've seen in the democratic party for years in

florida is this idea that we have to have the centrist middle of the road capped in the middle of the road in the center, we'll find enough votes to beat the republicans. meanwhile the republicans in florida ran the base elections inspire in some cases inflame get your voters to the polls, get them passionate and get them to turn out. joke kept being on democrats. now whether they intended to or not, the democratic party is using someone who used that kind of technique that the republicans used but some of the republicans are nervous like wow, gillum has a passionate following. we've got quite a race on our hands. >> ron desantis won his primary easily on the republican side. he went on fox news today as he is want to do. he made this comment that's received national condemnation when he said that the florida shunts monkey it up by voting for and dry gillum. a lot of people seeing racial

overtones in that comment. do you believe there were deliberate racial overtaupes in that comment and what does that tell us about what did i santis, what kind of campaign he's likely to run. >> i'm going to take a pass ongoing into what was in desantis's mind. i can say that his campaign has been in damage control. they had already been looking toward the general election a few weeks before the primary, did i santis was ready to lit the campaign trail and define himself as his own republican. by 9:30, 10:00 a.m., on the wednesday after election day on tuesday, he suddenly had opened his mouth, stuck his foot in it and it has just been a really good gillum day. this is florida. and we see in our elections they're pretty volatile. i'll hesitate to call any candidate dead or any error like that fatal. it was a bad day for ron and a great day for andrew gillum. >> a humbling day for everybody who thinks they can predict what happens next in politics.

mark caputo, appreciate it very much. i should mention that andrew gillum will be the featured gest of lawrence o'donnell on the "last word" coming up at the top of the hour. more ahead. stay with us. the top of the hour. more ahead stay with us top of the hour. more ahead. stay with us. top of the hour. more ahead stay with us if you have psoriasis, ... little things can be a big deal. that's why there's otezla. otezla is not a cream. it's a pill that treats moderate to severe plaque psoriasis differently. with otezla, 75% clearer skin is achievable. don't use if you're allergic to otezla . it may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. otezla is associated with...

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[ coughs ] ♪ ♪ [ screams ] ♪ [ laughs ] ♪ whoa, whoa, whoa. your one item would be the name your price tool? it helps people save on car insurance. why wouldn't it save me? why? what would you bring? a boat. huh. five days left before brett kavanaugh's confirmation hearings are scheduled to begin for a seat on the supreme court. democrats in the senate have been pushing hard for those to be delayed in part because they haven't gotten documents from huge swathes of his past work in

washington. you might assume democrats right now would be doing everything they can to throw up roadblocks to try to buy them selves time they say is crucial. instead, last night, top senate democrat mus, no fuss, no taking up time. there have been a number of argues whether or not he is playing some sort of three-dimensional chess here and he got some amazing concession from the republicans that nobody can make republicans fight for every nominee in order to put the spotlight on judicial nominations and their importance, they just did the opposite. 15 times over five days before supreme court hearings.