here with us. good night from nbc news headquarters here in new york. thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. it's a busy news night. very happy to have you here. we're going to start tonight with a puzzle. do not worry, it's a really easy one. you are definitely going to figure out the answer right away before we even get to the first commercial. in october of last year, october 17th, there was a confirmation hearing in washington for a sort of high-profile trump judicial nominee. somebody who the trump administration had picked to be a new high-ranking federal judge. a guy named greg katsis. he had been a supreme court clerk for clarence thomas. he had worked in the george w. bush justice department. he worked at the big republican

law firm jones day. when the trump administration started, greg katsas moved into the white house, the white house counsel's office to work as a deputy in that office under don mcgahn, who also worked in the george w. bush administration who also worked at that republican law firm jones day. gregory katsas was not particularly more controversial than any other trump nominated judge. if you squint he looks like all of them. but with his kind of resume, the kind of connections that he had and his 100% hard line conservative record, he really was the kind of guy that republicans in the trump administration have been living to put on the courts. and in this case, the reason katsas nomination was more high profile than most, they wanted to put him on the federal appeals court that sits in washington, d.c. there are federal appeals courts around the country in all the geographic circuits. but the one that sits in d.c. is sometimes called the second

highest court in the land because that appeals court that sits in d.c., that's the one that hears lots and lots of federal policy issues and national security issues and conceivably that is the appeals court that would also hear issues related to the president's own personal legal troubles if it ever came to that. so lots of supreme court justices come directly to the supreme court from the d.c. appeals court. d.c. appeals court hears a lot of significant and high profile cases. appointments to that court are seen as more important to appointments to other courts because of the kinds of case that's go to that particular court. at gregory katsas' confirmation hearings in october, senators felt the need to ask him about what he worked on during his time in the trump white house. they wanted to get him on the record on all the stuff that he worked on for trump during his confirmation process. in part, so once he ended up on that really important appeals court, there would be a clear black and white congressional

record of all the issues where katsas would have to recuse himself as a judge. as a judge, you can't rule on stuff if you had a hand creating that thing at some earlier point in your career. at his confirmation hearing, they needed to know what he had done for trump. they asked him, did you work on the muslim ban? turns out he worked on the muslim ban. did you work on the controversial and ultimately sort of fake voter fraud commission that was set up and then quickly collapsed at the white house? yes, he apparently did some work on that as well. well, how about the mueller investigation, the russia investigation, did you do any work on that, sir? white house counsel's office where greg katsas worked for trump, they of course have had a significant role dealing with the demands of the russia investigation. so senators asked him, republican and democratic senators asked him if he worked on that stuff in the trump white house. republican senator mike lee just asked greg katsas bluntly if he had been part of that

investigation. >> have you been interviewed by the special counselor has the special counsel asked for the opportunity to interview you? >> i have not been interviewed by the special counsel nor have i been asked to be interviewed. >> good to have that on record. this judicial nominee says he basically wasn't a target of the mueller investigation. he hasn't been called to be a witness in that investigation. they haven't asked to interview him. that's good to know. then senator dianne feinstein asked the next obvious question. okay, you were not personally questioned in the investigation, but did you work on the issue at all in trump apartments white house in the white house counsel's office? did the russia investigation, the mueller investigation come up in the course of your time working for trump? and here's what he said. >> intelligence committees, possibility -- the white house counsel's office in january 2017, have you worked or advised on any matters related to special counsel mueller's

investigation into russian interference in the 2016 election? >> i have given legal advice on a few discrete legal questions arising out of the investigation. i have no knowledge of any underlying facts regarding russian interference. >> can you tell us what those legal questions were? >> i'm sorry, i cannot. >> and why can you not? >> this goes back -- >> are you asserting grounds of privilege? and what are those grounds? >> i am saying that the executive branch needs confidentiality in order for the president to receive confidential advice, in order for lawyers to provide confidential advice. >> so, this man is being

nominated to the appeals court in d.c. he says under oath, no, i myself haven't been questioned by mueller. but yes, in the white house, i worked on this investigation. no, i don't want to say which parts of it i worked on. the president is entitled to confidential legal advice on a matter like this. but at that point senators are kind of like, okay, so you worked on it but you won't say what? come on, man, tell us. this is important. this stuff could end up before you as a judge, particularly given the specific court you are about to be a judge on. we need to know if you're going to have to recuse. we want you on the record now about whether you are going to recuse when these issues inevitably end up in your court. so then another senator, another democrat, richard blumenthal decides he's going to push on this and he's going to do it point by point. so, this guy is not going to say which part of the russia investigation he worked on for trump? well, let's ask him piece by piece, specific point by specific point. we'll try to get a yes or no question, yes or no answer from

him on each piece of it and maybe we can puzzle it all together and figure out what he worked on, even if just by process of elimination. did you work on the james comey firing, mr. katsas? did you work on the paul manafort part of the scandal? did you work on the white house handling over documents that were demanded by the special counsel's office? come on, man, what was it, what exactly did you do? so blumenthal walks him through point by point. this process of elimination puzzle to figure out what the guy actually worked on and it basically becomes this very, very nervous, very tense sort of game of hide and seek. >> have you been involved at all in advising the president on the firing of james comey as director of the fbi? >> i was not. >> have you been involved in any discussions involving dealings with paul manafort or his role in the campaign or subsequently

in the special counsel's investigation involving him? >> i was not. >> have you been involved in any discussions within the white house relating to the special counsel's work? >> relating to the special counsel's work, yes, as i testified earlier. i have given legal advice on a few discrete questions presented by the special counsel's work, but i do not have knowledge of the underlying facts that the special counsel is investigating. >> would you tell the committee what issues you have been involved in advising on, without giving the content of your advice? >> no, i'm sorry. i cannot do that, both because

it -- that would inevitably tend to reveal the substance of the advice. >> i can see this kind of escalating tension here, right? kind of crescendo of visible nervousness as senator blumenthal gets him to deny, confirm his work on various parts of the russia investigation, what he did give advice on with regard to russia. as this goes on, you can sort of physically sense the impact of these questions. you can see the impact as blumenthal keeps getting more and more specific. what did you do, man? what did you work on? >> have you ever advised any official in the white house to provide or withhold documents? >> i'm just trying -- just running the tape here. not that i can recall. >> would you recuse yourself from litigation involving the

special counsel, for example, litigation that would involve criminal proceedings or production of documents or any other discovery issues involving the special counsel where his requests or demands for documents or testimony might be contested? >> to the extent that the case touched upon the specific case before me would touch upon anything that i worked on in the white house, yes, i would. >> well, let me just say very emphatically since you are unable or unwilling to say exactly what the advice relating to the special counsel's activities touched upon, my strong suggestion is that you would have to recuse yourself as to any and all matters -- >> perhaps, perhaps the question would be -- so, the first question would be did i work on the matter. and as i've told you with regard to your case, anything -- any matter that i worked on, very

easy and open and shut recuse. >> yes, i worked on the russia investigation. no, not on firing comey, not on manafort, yes, some other stuff but i don't want to say what it is. maybe it was the documents i talked about. i'm running the tape here. i don't know if anything -- if it was anything i touched on -- i would recuse -- i would definitely -- i don't want to say. that was october. those were confirmation hearings. gregory katsas was confirmed. he's now on the u.s. court of appeals in d.c. on the supposed second highest court in the land. and now today something appears to be going on in that court, and this is something we've been keeping an eye on for a couple of weeks now. our suspicions appear to be sort of bearing out. we are not allowed do see overtly what is happening in this case because all the briefs related to this case are under seal. all the hearings they have had so far in this case, and the next hearing they are expected to have on this case have all been closed door hearings and apparently will continue to be

closed door hearings. we are not even allowed to see who the people are who are involved in this case. we are not allowed to know who the parties are in this case. all we are allow today see is that it pertains to a grand jury in washington, d.c. the break in our understanding of this case came when reporters from cnn who were basically staking out the federal court house in d.c., they saw lawyers from robert mueller's office, from the special counsel's office entering and leaving sealed court hearings in one federal court room and going in and out of the clerk's office at that courthouse dealing with filings related to the secret sealed case. it is something that's been happening in federal court in d.c. it's closed door hoorearings on. it is sealed filings only. when there are conflicts and decisions and appeals between mueller and whoever is on the other side of this case, those conflicts have very quickly escalated out of the district court in d.c. up to that second highest court in the land, up to the d.c. appeals court where

matters related to this secret case have been on a miraculously expedited calendar. these matters essentially have been heard instantly, and they have been prioritized overall sorts of important -- other important national significance cases in that court. what is this matter that the special counsel's office is litigating and who are they litigating against and why is it being treated like this? we cannot report it directly. we don't know exactly what it is. we can't see any of the materials from the case. but it definitely involves mueller. and the one judge on that court, on that appeals court who has recused himself on this issue and is not sitting in on any aspect of this case is the old, i'm replaying the tape here guy. it's greg katsas. and he did after all that badgering at his confirmation hearing, all the efforts to pin him down, he did pledge to senators that he would recuse himself from anything that he

had worked on in the trump white house including specifically anything that he had worked on in the russia investigation, although he would not say exactly what that was. remember he said he didn't work on the manafort part of the russia investigation. he didn't work on the james comey being fired part of that investigation. but he did work on some other stuff that involved him advising the president about mueller's probe. and for whatever reason, he is the one judge who is recused now from this mystery case that today was the occasion for a roughly 30-page-long brief just getting filed by the mystery lawyers. there's the lawyers from mueller's team on one side, there's mystery lawyers on the other side representing whoever this mystery person is, who is in a big secret fight with the special counsel over a matter that relates to mueller's grand jury and we do not yet know what it is. so obviously a lot going on right now in the news, right? another couple of races called

today in the midterms. today the democratic party is up to i believe 36 pickups in the house of representatives. they appear to have flipped 36 republican seats and counting. that is exactly the kind of democratic wave that democrats were hoping for and republicans were saying would never happen in this midterm election. there are about a half dozen more seats that are yet to be called. but democrats are already up to 36 confirmed flips. in the florida recount, the senator and governors races, that went legally crazy. the state refusing to accept the vote totals from one big county's recount because those vote totals arrived two minutes after today's official deadline because the county was having trouble wrangling with the state's official website for submitting this stuff. whether or not you want to be a stickler for coming in within two minutes of the deadline, what that means is the stated to decided to purposely count what is known to be an inaccurate vote tally from one county while these major statewide race s are within a hair's breath of who is going to win. we'll have more on that coming

up. that's a fast developing story at this point. inside the administration, inside the white house, i don't know if it's a reaction to the democratic party's big gains in last week's elections, but things do seem wobbly and emotional. inside the white house, the president had a terrible trip this week, skipping troop deaths in world war i which was ostensibly the reason for the trip, the whole reason he went there but he skipped the commemoration because it was raining. he has been railing on people in the white house because he's looking for somebody to blame for that decision because apparently the president didn't look bad that he canceled the commemoration because of rain. immediately upon returning home from what has been a very embarrassing trip, the office of the president's wife, the first lady, was allowed to publicly fire the deputy national security advisor, which is still almost too bizarre to put in any

framework whatsoever other than to just point at it and open your mouth and say, my god, what the heck was that? the election nightmare for this white house which does appear to have rattled this white house, it appears to not be ending any time soon. republicans hope to add another senator when mississippi holds the senate recount tern days from now. you think that would be a shoe in for republicans. they wouldn't need to worry. their republican candidate started off this week musing publicly about attending public hangings, a.k.a. lynchings in mississippi. she's musing how she would like make it harder for liberals to be able to vote in mississippi, including at some specific schools, if you know what i mean. her response since that tape came out tonight is to call it a joke. obviously just a joke. but republican cindy hyde-smith is running against an african-american democrat named mike espy who is running a good campaign in mississippi.

this election is a runoff. it happens in less than two weeks. the republican party should not have to spend a dime to elect a republican in the state of mississippi. but, you know what? they already lost an alabama senate seat running a campaign like this. in mississippi they're having to spend money, too. that is a story that is yet to unwind. it is worth watching. there is something up when it comes to the existential candle that has faced this administration from the beginning. at the start, you recall it was an fbi investigation, counter intelligence investigation that started during the 2016 presidential campaign looking at this hostile foreign military intelligence operation to monkey wrench our election and the crucial question of whether or not one of the two candidates in that election, mr. trump, was in on that foreign military intelligence operation, whether he was aware of it, played a part in it. the fbi started that investigation during the

campaign. it was not publicly reported before americans voted in that election, but it came to be known soon thereafter, and when president trump found out about the fbi running that investigation into what russia did and the possible involvement of him and his campaign, the president fired the head of the fbi. he fired james comey. presidents, of course, are allowed to fire the fbi director or any other presidential appointee. but they're not allowed to do it for the corrupt purpose of stopping or averting an ongoing investigation that the president feels threatened by. when president trump fired comey, his white house did go through the motions of creating a pretext, right? creating a cover story for him for why he had to fire comey. the president stuck by that for about five minutes then he quickly abandoned it. he told visiting russian officials in the oval office firing james comey would relieve a great deal of pressure on him over the fbi's investigation. he famously did an interview

with lester holt when he asked him about firing james comey. he didn't ask about russia. russia was not part of the question. he blurted out when he fired comey, in fact, what had been on his mind were his own objections to the russia investigation. he volunteered that the firing was intended to affect the investigation. he basically volunteered that that firing was obstruction of justice. and those circumstances around the firing of fbi director james comey and what the president blurted out and admitted about why he did it, that is how what started off as an fbi investigation into the russia matter ended up ben koyacking an investigation run by the special counsel's office looking both at what russia did and also related crimes, including potential efforts to obstruct the investigation into what russia did and whether trump helped. well, now we have just had the next iteration of that same pattern. a few hours after last week's

election, the president fires the attorney general and then tries to pull off this unprecedented maneuver of bypassing rod rosenstein, the deputy attorney general overseeing the mueller investigation, putting in this new guy in charge who was literally a cable news pundit whose job was arguing against the mueller investigation. matthew whitaker's appointment as acting attorney general of the united states has proved to be legally problematic. it's also proved to be just an embarrassment for all sorts of reasons related to matthew whitaker and we'll have more on that at any other time. but there remains this core issue that, like with the comey firing, there is this core issue, this core question. was this guy installed specifically to to mess with the ongoing investigation into the president. right? the principle here is simple. the president can certainly replace anyone in his cabinet. there's nothing wrong with the

abstract. there is nothing wrong with getting an advantage over a criminal investigation that the president fears might hurt him. but now today, like he did with the comey firing, the president has simply and bluntly volunteered that that's, in fact, what he did. that that's in fact what he was thinking about when he in125ustd this new guy at justice. they released a full transcript of the conversation with him. you remember in the lester holt interview after he fired comey, he didn't ask trump about the russia investigation. he asked about comey. trump volunteered i was thinking about russia when i did that. trump just did the exact same thing about putting matthew whitaker in about replacing attorney general jeff sessions. this was the question from the daily caller. they said, quote, could you tell us where your thinking is currently on the attorney general position? i know you're happy with matthew whitaker. do you have any names? chris christie? the president responds, matthew whitaker is a very respected man

and he's very importantly, he is respected within the department of justice. just somebody that is very respected. i knew him only as he pertained -- you know, he was with jeff sessions. look, as far as i'm concerned this is an investigation that should have never been brought. it should never have been had. it is something that should never have been brought. it is a legal investigation and it's very interesting. when you talk about not senate confirmed. mueller is not senate confirmed. nobody was asking about mueller. nobody was asking about the russia investigation. in fact, you were asked about chris christie and whether or not you were thinking down the road about who might ultimately get this position after matt whitaker. but nevertheless, the president volunteered his response, yeah, he put whitaker in there. you know what? the mueller investigation, that's a problem. so that was, that was late last night 2they released that transcript after we were off the air.

the president started tweeting in all capital letters about the mueller investigation. it's the first time he's done that in a few weeks. he hasn't done that since september. in general, i try not to care too much about things the president says online. it's very rarely a means of him conveying factual information to the american people. i usually think it's designed to be provocative and it can therefore be ignored. in this case what the president posted online this morning, after volunteering to the daily caller last night that he installed malgt yu whitaker at the justice department because of the terrible mueller investigation that's illegal and never should have been started, right after that this morning, it is worth noting that this is what the president posted online. 7:14 a.m. quote, the inner workings of the mueller investigation are a total mess. they have found no collusion and have gone absolutely nuts. they are screaming and shouting at people, horribly threatening them to come up with the answers they want. they are a disgrace to our nation. hold on, wait now.

the inner workings of the mueller investigation, did you say? how do you know about that? as i mention, the president has not tweeted about mueller for a few months now, but he has never before tweeted about having access to the inner workings of the mueller investigation. he's never tweeted anything like that or said anything like that ever before until today. one week after robert mueller's investigation stopped reporting to rod rosenstein at the justice department and started instead reporting to this guy, trump's new hand picked pundit who he now admits was installed at the justice department because of the president's objections to mueller's investigation. so, in the space of 24 hours the president has admitted that the reason he replaced the attorney general is because of his objections to the mueller investigation. now he's bragging that with his new person in place, in charge of the mueller investigation, he has new access to the inner workings of that investigation that he never had before. now, best case scenario

here. it is possible that the president is just lying. it's also possible, though, that the president has just, once again, openly confessed to obstruction of justice and using a political appointment to skew, and in this case spy on an investigation that poses a real threat to him. senator lindsey graham today met with matt whitaker. he came out of the meeting saying whitaker told him he has no intention of recusing from overseeing the special counsel's office. there is now reason to seriously question whether in his new role acting as attorney general matt whitaker is already feeding inside information about the investigation to the white house and to the president. in federal court right now, some unknown defendant who is being treated with incredible deference by the federal court system appears to have entered into a hard fought "end game" secret negotiation with mueller's team as to whether or not he or she must, i guess testify or hand over, whatever mueller is demanding.

for now all of those proceedings are under seal, for what it's worth. we now know the one judge on that court appoint bid trump and who worked for the trump white house, who recused to matters which we know included the russia investigation. he is recused from that case and he is the only judge who has done so. we know that the president this week since he returned from his disastrous overseas trip. he has been having long meetings, hours long meetings e with his lawyers on the 34u8er investigation. they say they have been meeting on the question of collusion between his campaign and russia. in the middle of this we have the president bragging about he has inside information about what's going on in the investigation. in other words, this is probably the moment we've been waiting for. this is what presidential historians like michael

beschloss has been telling us. a saturday night massacre which, of course, became the beginning of the end for president nixon in watergate. when a president tries to control the justice department in order to make an investigation that dooms him go away by corruptly influencing the course of the investigation, that's usually the end. michael beschloss joins us next. ♪ the greatest wish of all... is one that brings us together. the lincoln wish list event is here. sign and drive off in a new lincoln with $0 down, $0 due at signing, and a complimentary first month's payment. only at your lincoln dealer. and a complimentary first month's payment. hey, what are you guys doing here? we're voya. we stay with you to and through retirement.

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i just said we are going to have michael beschloss here. i mean that, but we have a little bit of breaking news first. we just got this new filing that is news that actually fits exactly what we've been talking about, but this is brand-new. this is a new filing from robert mueller's office from the special counsel's office tonight in the paul manafort case.

it was nine weeks ago, i think nine weeks ago tomorrow, that the trump campaign chair pled guilty and agreed to start cooperating with mueller's office. we had been expecting mueller's team and manafort's lawyers to file tomorrow a joint status report to the court updating the judge in manafort's case on basically how it's going with manafort cooperating. when prosecutors might be done with him cooperating, when they're willing to essentially hand him over to the judge so the judge can move on to sentencing him for his crimes. and again, that joint status report was due tomorrow, but they have just filed early tonight. and here's the part that makes the ominous music start up in your head and makes us put the red banner on the bottom of the screen. in this new report they file, mueller's prosecutors asked the judge to please give them ten days before they tell the judge what's up with manafort's case right now. ten days? that is very strange. they say they're not going to

make tomorrow's deadline. they would like a ten-day extension. that is unusual. here's exactly how they say it. quote, at the hearing on september 14, 2018, the court ordered the parties to submit a joint status report on november 16th, 2018, which would be tomorrow. the parties have been meeting since the hearing date. the parties believe a brief extension of the status report date until november 26th, 2018, will allow them to provide the court with a report that will be of great assistance in the court's management of this matter. it's greater assistance, not great assistance. that will be greater assistance in the management of this matter. paul manafort has been cooperating the last nine weeks. what's going to happen in the next ten days that will give the court a better picture of how paul manafort has been in something is going to happen between now and ten days from now that will allow them to be of greater assistance in the court's management of this matter? what's going to happen in the

next ten days? there is a palpable sense right now, with the president firing the attorney general hours after the election, bragging today that he did that because of his own objections to the mueller investigation. the president bragging today since he installed his new guy, he has inside information on the inner workings of mueller's probe. with the president meeting for hours with his russia lawyers day after day this week and cancelling many other major events in order to make time for that. with sealed proceedings related to the special counsel's office unfolding in a d.c. courtroom with mysterious extensions like this one tonight for cooperators like paul manafort and rick gates who ran the trump campaign. there is a palpable sense right now this is the time we have been expecting. this is the thing for which we have been all reading up on our history. nbc presidential historian michael beschloss is on deck right when we need him. that's next.

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try my all-american made with 100% ribeye beef fresh spring mix, and provolone cheese on a potato bun. it's a burger as american as bald eagles. i get it, i'm bald. fast food's first and only ribeye burgers are back, america. try them today. joining us now is michael beschloss, nbc news presidential historian, author of the new book, presidents of war. thank you for being here. you go hither and yon to be here through the snow. one of things i'm not great at and i know you really are, and that is looking at presidents as people, seeing them as human

beings and recognizing the influence that that may have on historical events. we are having a lot of reporting right now about the president essentially being in emotional trouble. the president being in acute highly ee motorcycles highly emotional state, people afraid to be near him. and i know that that's been reported about other presidents at times of stress in the past. but how do you contextual eyes reporting like that? >> well, i think you have to see -- we've seen that face and we've seen the way he's been behaving this week. and the amount of time which he's been spending publicly on duty, which is not very much. so you have to assume this is a president who is filled with rage, it seems, especially when you read these tweets. and also maybe a lot of depression and perhaps this is a reaction to -- i'm speculating here -- but if matt whitaker has gone to find out what robert mueller has been doing and what he's got and what he's about to do and communicated that back to the president, which seems to be the main reason why trump would have appointed someone as

unqualified as matt whitaker as acting attorney general, then donald trump may now be tonight confronted with what his life may look like the next couple of months and it may not be a very pleasing sight. >> so that's a totally different take on what the president was, i think, sort of bragging about today with this online outburst this morning. i say it was an outburst because if it's emotional tone, all capital letters and intemperate language. the president was bragging he has access to the inner workings of the mueller investigation now. he said a lot of things about the mueller investigation -- >> can you imagine him bragging out loud? it is like the lester holt thing. why is it remotely in his interest to say something like that in he a that's how i'm seeing it. the president appears to be volunteering that the motivation, the corrupt intent behind this personnel move was obstruction of justice. >> right. like wearing a sign. >> yes. and now he's bragging about how he's reaping the benefits of that, how he is obstructing the investigation or he's getting inside information to it which

he shouldn't be getting. but you're saying we might also see a consequence of that, if whitaker is conveying true information to the president about the status of the investigation, what the president may be learning may be scary to him. >> i think it could be scary to him. and remember what he wrote in the tweet just this morning about destroying innocent lives. those may be lives of people around him. i'm speculating here again, but maybe even members of his family, and that suggests that he has to be beginning to think about what he's going to do. you and i have talked for months over a year about the time when the mueller investigation might be stopped involuntarily and we could be nearing that moment. >> the historical example that we've all got top of mind when we think about a president trying to basically throttle the justice department in order to stop an investigation that could hurt him. the investigation or the historical event that comes to mind always is the saturday night massacre. >> right. >> where nixon ordered the firing of the special prosecutor, the attorney general

and the deputy attorney general, in turn each refused and resigned in protest. when presidents try to pervert the course of justice, when they try to obstruct, whether it's that example or others, does the justice department usually squeal, or does the justice department sometimes go along with it? >> well, there are inspectors general and there are people in the justice department who will object to it. but usually you've got career people who know that this is not the way that it's supposed to happen and they get their back up. for instance, nixon appointed when j. edgar hoover died in the spring of 1972, acting director guy named patrick gray who is an old political hack who had been a supporter of nixon since the 1950s. exami and it reminds me a little bit of whitaker because nixon wanted someone on the head of the fbi to pull files of people who criticized him and tell him what's going on with the investigations of his friends. the good thing for history is a

year later, when he came up to be confirmed, patrick gray was, it was discovered that gray was so stupid that he had abided by a demand from the nixon white house to destroy incriminating watergate documents, which if you want to get confirmed, was not too intelligent. and the nomination was pulled and after that nixon was forced to take a permanent fbi director who was a professional. you have to pray that the system corrects itself. >> so even when you can get people in place who will do the kind of stuff a corrupt president wants in a circumstance like this, the system tends to catch it. >> there are an awful lot of people who will blow the whistle. let's hope if that happens, we will see that whistle blowing. >> michael beschloss, nbc news presidential historian, author of presidents of war is really good and chock full of stuff you thought you knew about and you really don't and it will prove it to you when you read this book. michael, thank you so much. >> appreciate it. >> much more to get to tonight. stay with us.

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hey, so i said we would have an update for you on what's going on with ongoing election results. since i said that moments ago, even a little more news has broken on that front. tonight democrats have picked up another seat in congress. just within the past hour, a.p., associated press, has called another california congressional race. the associated press now says that democratic challenger katie porter has turfed out incumbent republican congressman mimi walters. now, i am saying specifically that the associated press has called this race. nbc news has not called this race. we will let you know if that changes, but the a.p. is now projecting this as the final result. in the great state of maine, you may have heard democratic candidate jared golden has unseated republican bruce. it gave democrats 35 seats in the house, the most since the aftermath of watergate.

again, if that california katie porter race turns out to be called in the end, that will bring that number up to 36. beyond the continued pile up of democratic wins, all eyes tonight remain on georgia and florida. the georgia governor's race democrat stacey abrams is trying to get enough votes to force a runoff election against the former secretary of state republican brian kemp who has been a very controversial stuard steward of this election which he has been a candidate. a judge ruled georgia has to count absentee ballots. if voters forgot to fill in their birth date, with that judge ruling, there will be more counting and more waiting ahead in florida. meanwhi meanwhile -- in georgia. we're running out of adjectives to describe what is going on in the election there. we're seeing headlines that made it seem like broward county would make the 3:00 p.m. deadline today for a statewide machine recount of votes, 3:00 p.m. deadline today. turns out broward county missed

the deadline by two minutes. reportedly the person from broward who was submitting the county's data was unfamiliar with the state's website. it took an extra couple of minutes. palm beach county missed the deadline because of their machines overheating. hillsboro county decided ton submit new results at all after the power went out and the recount showed a drop of 846 votes from the first time through. alligator ate your ballot. what does that mean? the state instead is going to use whatever those counties submitted to the state on saturday alongside recounted totals from all the other counties in the state. whatever they end up counting right now, the governor's race looks more out of reach for democrat andrew gillum than the florida senate race would for democrat bill nelson. tonight the republican and the governor's race ron desantis declared victory over andrew gillum. called himself the governor elect. andrew gillum is not conceding. he continues to say every vote needs to be counted and there

are more votes to count. in the florida senate race we are going it looks like to a second recount. there was the machine recount that almost all the counties finished today, but rick scott, after that recount -- after that machine recount, he appears to lead democratic incumbent bill nelson by less than 13,000 votes and that is definitely close enough for there to be yet another statewide recount. this time not a machine recount. this time it will be ballots being counted by hand. so elections officials will be looking for ballots that the machines might have had trouble reading because a voter skipped a race or candidate in the race. lawyers for bill nelson's campaign tell us they are filing a new motion in state court asking that all the votes in at least one county, palm beach county, should be recounted by hand. all the votes, not just anything spit out or marked as trouble. that would be over 580,000 ballots in that one county. that hearing is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. tomorrow. i don't think how long it take to count 530,000 ballots by

hand. if you've been holding your breath for the florida senate race, you should rethink your strategy. we'll be right back. ♪ the new capital one savor card. earn 4% cash back on dining and 4% on entertainment. now when you go out, you cash in. what's in your wallet? now when you go out, you cash in. means they won't hike your rates over one mistake. see, liberty mutual doesn't hold grudges. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise their rates because of their first accident. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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for a full week now, thousands of californians have been living in shelters or with family and friends because they've had to flee their homes to escape what is now the deadliest fire in california history. as of tonight, officials in california say the camp fire, as it's called, in butte county, california, has killed at least

63 people. that death toll continues to rise. we have continued to see that death toll rise day after day, alongside the death toll rising, it has been particularly worrying to see the number of missing persons climb as well, higher and higher as each day goes by. as of right now, survivors looking for neighbors and loved ones, they're now going off a list of 631 missing people. that one fire in butte county has burned through 140,000 acres thus far. firefighters have only been able to contain that blaze to about 40% this far. smoke from this enormous fire has led to terrible air quality problems across big parts of northern california, even quite far from the site of the flames. for example, schools in the good size city of oakland, california, are going to be shutdown tomorrow because of terrible air quality. never seen purple air quality

alerts in the bay area, san francisco, before. there are two other fires blazing in southern california as well. three people have been killed in the southern part of the state. should i tell you tonight the president apparently plans to visit california the day after tomorrow, on saturday, to meet with survivors. that is what ought to seem like normal news on a night like tonight. ♪ ♪

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before we grow -- before we grow. before we go and before we grow, we put up a screwy graphic a

moment ago. we put up that main graphic again. talking about the fact this race was called by nbc news for the democrat jared golden defeating the congressman in maine's second district, it cruises ranked choice voting which means maine voters pick their first, second and third choices when they go to vote. and if neither candidate gets 50% on the first round of voting then what they do is go see who other people voted for. were there other people who voted for the green party candidate or libertarian candidate? who'd they pick second? those second choice votes then get retabulated for the top two contenders. it was that rank choice voting process which resulted ultimately in the democrat in that race unseating the republican incumbent. our graphic looks screwy because we all had the first round of voting on that. sorry. now it's time for the "last word" with lawo'