closet we might not want anymore or need do i want to clutter all of this or let it go? >> declutter your gender. thank you so much. the book is for the love of men. get it on amazon right now. "hardball" is up next. bolton, you're fired. let's play hardball. good evening. i'm chris matthews. watching from the outset oit wa a marriage made in hell and an erratic president who promised no more stupid wars. it's amazing this hellish duo of national security advisor john bolton and president trump stuck together this long.

and last night the marriage ended apparently because donald trump cannot stand to be challenged at least least of all by a cabal of the mustached bolton and a mike pence. the national security advisor how to deal with china, north korea, iran, he or she supposed to be the remark tect of the grand plan of moving our country forward in the 21st century. with bolton getting kicked out the door so casualty, so pathetically today we have to wonder if we even have a strategy or is donald trump deciding each second what wild ticked off impulse to go with. to take one more shot in the cheek for his pal vladimir or send one odd duck signal -- john bolton was trump pfs third national security advisor in less than three years. on twitter president trump wrote

i informed john bolton last night his services were no longer needed at the white house. i disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions as did others in the administration and therefore i asked john for his resignation which was given to me this morning. a short time later, of course, bolton insisted it was his decision to leave. in a text message to nbc news bolton wrote i offered to resign last night. he never asked for it directly or indirectly. i slept on it and resigned this morning. his national security advisor had similarly abrupt exits. mike flynn later pleaded guilty for lying to the fbi about his communications with russia. h.r. mcmaster was forced out in march of last year after disagreeing on several of the president's foreign policy issues. and echoed the explanation for bolton's being gone all of a sudden. >> john bolton's priorities just

don't line up with the president's. and any sitting president has the right to put someone in that position that can carry out his agenda. that became no longer attenable so the president made a change. >> but nbc news reports that bolton's status had been eroding. bolton had few allies internally, he's clashed with the administration a few times including mike pence and secretary of state mike pompeo. i want to start with peter. i guess i'll go back to what i started with tonight in my opening. i thought this was an odd marriage, a marriage made in hell to begin with featuring a war hawk who wanted to attack every country he didn't like immediately and a guy who's somewhat feckless about what he does believe but does say i don't like stupid wars like this guy stands for. >> that's exactly right. if the president's first national security team of rex

tillerson and h.r. mcmaster and those folks were seen as trying to restrain a bellicose president, here you have the opposite. here you had a combative as you say hawkish. either way as we've now seen the president doesn't like it. he didn't like being restrained or attempting to be restrained by mr. bolton. in fact in private he joked that john bolton was going to get him into multiple wars. from the very beginning this was an unlikely partnership but the real question is how it lasted as long as it did. >> was this a deal, charlie? was this some effort to pay off the deal who helped him in the campaign? why did he pick this guy with the mustache, this guy who just wanted to go to war.

he wanted to go over syria, libya. he's always wanted to go to war whenever there's a chance to get a fighting star because he won't be a part of it. he's a chicken hawk if there ever was one. your thoughts. >> this a president tv centric and tv focused. he watched john bolton on television, liked his performances on television and despite all the differences, the differences in temperament, ideology, the differences in world view he decided to pick him and that's what makes the whole thing so strange. the irony is john bolton did have a strategy. he has instincts and impulses. it was never going to work but you do wonder, again, whether or not there's anyone in this white house or who in this administration who is going to be able to say no to the president, say no to ideas like hosting the taliban for a withdrawal surrender ceremony on the eve of 9/11. i mean, nothing says never forget than having the taliban

come to camp david. so at least on this particular issue john bolton tried to be the restraining voice and that's what cost him his job. >> do you think bolton is going to walk casually into that good night or play like amrosa or mooch? what's he up to? i don't think he's going to take it. >> no, he's going to be much more mooch than mattis here. the fact he was texting immediately, has every reporter on speed dial, he wants to make it very clear he was not in fact fired. and i think it's interesting the president felt the need to fire and humiliate him rather than risk having him do what general mattis did which was write a letter and resign on principle after this foreign policy fiasco involving the taliban. he wanted to in a sense pre-disgrace him and be able to characterize him as a disgruntled ex-employee. >> so the smearing has already

begun. the way charlie describes trump's thinking he makes him sound like a tadpole, someone not even a person, an idiot. you described him as a guy who watches on television that peter seller's character in being there, i saw him on tv, i guess i should make him my national security advisor because he agreed with me. >> it's very clear he liked bolton's tough guy attitude but didn't like the policies he was pushing forward. he was taken in by that swagger. what's really interesting to me about this is there's no constituency anywhere in the republican party left for bolton's interventionism. the regular republicans, the bush republicans rejected him when he came up for confirmation in that conversation. bolton is a guy with a policy and no home to go to.

but not if he's hitting trump every day on fox news because they don't like the disloyalty. >> president trump's tweet announcing bolton's resignation came less than an hour after the white house announced a briefing where bolton was scheduled to appear alongside secretary state mike pompeo and treasury secretary steve mnuchin. spoke briefly about bolton's being gone. >> i mind say this, the president's entitled to the staff that he wants at any moment. there's a staff person that works directly for the united states and he should have people he trusts and values and whose efforts and judgments benefit him in delivering american foreign policy. >> that's how bad it is. at any given moment. at any given moment he said the president -- he's secretary of state talking about a guy so impulsive you've got to keep up with him every moment. and reports out suggest the relation team of pompeo and bolton had become strained. "the washington post" reports bolton's relationship with pompeo becoming tense in recent months with bolton privately

accusing pompeo of spending too much time further his own political ambitions. the associated press reports in recent months tensions have risen between bolton and pompeo for influence in the president's orbit and how to manage the president's desire to negotiate with some of the world's most unsavory actors. peter baker, you're the big foot at the times. it's not just a personnel or hr issue. this guy can't keep national security advisers. number if you is coming up. the secretary of state is on two or three. the fact is he doesn't seem to have an architecture that is fragile or even matters. if he fires people it doesn't seem to matter because there's nothing to fire them from. there is no architecture or strategy to collapse in these cases. >> you're right. no president has had four national security advisers in his first three years in office, none. and i think you're right whether ulike him or don't like him,

john bolton had a set of principles and he was consistent in advocating them. he thought it was unwise to make bad deals with north korea and the taliban and iran. and the president knew that when he hired him or he should have. everybody else knew that. where's he going to go with his next pick? he's looking at a number of possibilities. steve vegan is a special envoy to north korea. if he were to pick steve vegan then that would signal he really wants to pursue this diplomacy and see vegan as somebody who will held enable him on those kind of policies. you're right to focus on mike pompeo. i would say there happen no tears shed. he was grinning, didn't seem to disguise the fact they had been rivals inside. they had a similar political outlook at times but they did approa approach president trump differently and mike pompeo now is the strongest person left

standing in that national security team. >> he will not swear off running for the senate next year in kansas. and cleatly he can win that seat. it's a republican seat. that's pretty appetizing for a guy who wants a regular job and not stay on this buck board that could knock him off the back any time the president's finished with him. >> it generally ends badly in this administration as you just look around, you know, what is the scenario. but i would like to push back on one point that there's no constituency for the kind of things bolton talks about. there's still a constituency for the people who talk about bad deals with the russian, bad deals with the iranian and a lot of anxiety about that. now, it hasn't been overt. but if he becomes more outspoken and begins to warn against this -- the president's, you know, pension for these flamboyant contentless appeasement summits you will see

that in fact there are people i think on both sides of the aisle who are going to be listening to that. >> well, this is very disturbing administration. i love that comment by pompeo. you have to keep the president happy at every moment to keep your job. given some of president trump's recent comments about their differences, here we go. >> john is a -- he has strong views on things but that's okay. i actually temper john which is pretty amazing, isn't it? no one thought that was going to -- i'm the one that tempers him, but that's okay. i have different sides. i have john bolton and other people that a little more dovish than him. i have two groups of people. i have doves and i have hawks. john bolton is absolutely a hawk. if it was up to him he'd take on the world at one time. but that doesn't matter because i want people on both sides.

before it happened i was against going into iraq. >> we'll see if that ever pans out to be true. it seems to me this president runs his entire foreign policy on an impulse, whim, moment by meet and he thinks he can charm people through his abilities to personally get into a room with someone like kim jong-un and charm a guy who's obviously a u neurotic crazy person, and he thinks he can charm the guy. >> trump seems much more at ease with autocratic leaders who rule into a high-handed manner and through fear than he does our democratically elected allies. >> what does he resent merkel and macron and people like justin trudeau? why does he hate it seems like people who look like they belong where they are? >> those are all leaders who reflect the will of their people

and trump is someone who became president after losing the popular vote. so he's not actually liked by a majority of the people he governs over. so he's relating better to autocrats and people who don't really care what their public thinks. because if he actually cares what the public thinks he'd see he's very unpopular. >> we'll see next year. i think he wants to leave the government in exile. he wants to spend two or three years holding rallies without any responsibility. what a perfect life for donald trump. thank you so much, peter baker for the big thoughts as always. and thank you mieke eoyang. charlie psyches i like your very wary attitude about life. coming up, spy games. a senior russian official was secretly working for the cia. what he knew about russia's meddling and why it suddenly became necessary to exfiltrate him from russia to the u.s.

and a tight race in a district president trump won by 12 points, expecting to get the first results in this hour. we've got much more to get to tonight here on "hardball." stick with us. i have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. now, there's skyrizi. 3 out of 4 people achieved... ...90% clearer skin at 4 months... ...after just 2 doses. skyrizi may increase your risk of infections... ...and lower your ability to fight them. before treatment your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. tell your doctor if you have an infection... ...or symptoms such as fevers,... ...sweats, chills, muscle aches or coughs... ...or if you plan to or recently received a vaccine. i feel free to bare my skin. visit skyrizi.com. that's ensure max protein, with high protein and 1 gram sugar. it's a sit-up, banana! bend at the waist! i'm tryin'! keep it up. you'll get there. whoa-hoa-hoa! 30 grams of protein, and one gram of sugar. ensure max protein.

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welcome back to "hardball." explosive new reporting today has revealed how u.s. intelligence managed to uncover the extent of russia's role in our 2016 election. this blew my mind. "the new york times" among several outlets reporting today that for decades the cia had a valuable russian source thereicide the russian government whom they extracted from that country in 2017. exfiltrated just like in the americans tv show. most importantly this russian source was instrumental in confirming key details about the kremlin's election interference in our election. number one, he gave us the information that vladimir putin himself ordered and orchestrated the whole thing. number two, this source told us

that putin affirmatively favored donald trump's election. so he was not just intervening, he was helping trump. number three, that putin personally ordered the hacking of the dnc. all this reporting we got from this one source, a russian turncoat basically. "the seattle times" reports that according to people familiar this cia informant was outside of mr. putin's inner circle but saw putin regularly and access to high level kremlin decision making. so this person was meeting in the same room with putin telling us what putin's up to, what a source they had at the cia. cnn reports we could even provide images of documents on the russian leader's desk. he could take pictures of what it looked like. this was how close we got. this wasn't made up by the intelligence agencies. they said a spy. they had somebody who was reporting from russia. astounding revelation a testament to the incredible

reach of the cia intelligence gathering effort. the cia ultimately decided to exfiltrate the informant following mounting concerns that the individual could be discovered by the russian government. i'm joined now by shane harris and david corn. i'm going to go with shane first. this is staggering because for months now, almost three years now trump has been in a battle with the agencies saying they make up all this like he does with the media. but it turns out they had a source very close to vladimir putin to find out the role he was playing directing the whole interference operation in 2016. >> yeah, that's right. and that's a source worth gold in the intelligence business to have somebody that close that can give you the intentions and decision making processes of a senior leader and someone who the agency, the cia was running for more than ten years. so this long predates donald trump's position in the white house. this is somebody who the cia would have guarded very closely and who we should remember would

have had to have proven a track record of credibility for the agency to give him as much weight as they apparently did when it came time to pin the 2016 election interference directly on vladimir putin as having directed it. >> the fact that this guy is a character out of "the americans." he's a russian, we can imagine him. he is a russian accent, a russian perp and he was the one giving us the lead on tacking putin in this whole kabob. >> and remember there was lots of other intelligence and we certainly saw and the whole world that the russian attacked -- there were a lot of intercepts. the cia or the national intelligence community collected phone conversations and interactions between russian officials hi-fiving each other.

the news happened so the question was whether this was done by intelligence operatives at a low level. they wanted someone inside who could give them a flesh and blood take on this. >> how can trump continue to deny this? he keeps denying it. >> he doesn't care about truth or intelligence. he was briefed as a candidate in august 2016 during the campaign that this attack was happening, they pinned it on russia and what did he say again and again, i don't see any evidence of this. >> you know, shane, mitch mcconnell who become a tool of this president and also using him for cover, now says he won't do anything for cyber security going into 2020 because it might offend the sensibilities of this president, because it makes it look like there was something like reality in 2016. >> and that's such a huge vulnerability rights there that so clearly needs to be

addressed. and outside the white house the fbi, the national security agents, they are taking this threat of election interference very seriously and they're doing what's they can to try and particularly get states ready to make sure we don't see a repeat and they know how to be on defense from what we saw in 2016. but when you have a president that consistently refuses to acknowledge what is so clearly a demonstrated reality now from so many different sources, that's like a headwind that these agencies are facing. so for all the hard work they might try to do to get ready for 2020 when the guy at the top is not even acknowledging what might happen in 2016 and not willing to talk about it, it makes that work much harder. >> hearts have pointed out that cia's exfiltration of this asset took place some time after the president divulged his highly classified intelligence to russian diplomats in the oval office in may of 2017. they may have pulled him out of russia because they're afraid

trump is talking about all this stuff and might give away. another current american official insisted that media scrutiny of the agency source alone was impetus for extraction so they're worried the press would uncover him. additionally the cia reports the president was informed of extraction. the president knew this guy was being pulled out, our guy over there whether he's being paid or whatever his motivations or just a change of heart. how does trump know all this and still deny the russia role? that's a dumb question. >> i'm not going to say you've asked a dumb question, chris matthews. but we've seen time and again he doesn't want to address this reality because he thinks it taints his presidency. putin knows everything but trump doesn't want to acknowledge he was elected president with help from the russians and that during the campaign he helped the russians by denying they were doing this. he basically amplified and echo

the russian disinformation campaign. and so the question i have is, yes, we're told that the cia told trump that they were exfiltrating this guy. i want to know how long before the opposition did they tell him? did they tell him 20 minutes beforehand? remember this came about at the time when comey was fired and people in the fbi and justice department were worried trump was too close to russia. >> shane, do you know the answer to question why we pulled him out, and our number one source over why we felt we could get all we could out of him without endangering his life? >> at the end of it, fall 2016 is when details start coming out both from obama administration and official statements but also from news reporting that is very clearly pointing towards putin as the director of this campaign and it's becoming more evident including explicit in some reports that there was a source deep inside the kremlin

providing this information. as this gets out, our understanding is that people in the intelligence community became more and more concerned that putin was basically starting to figure out who in the inner circles may have had access to him where where she had a mole and the decision was made to get that person out. my colleague bob woodward reported in his beak "fear" last year this individual was reluctant and didn't want to come and the agency had to lean on 4i78 him to do it. >> he would endanger all his family members, extended family. this russian guy over there in moskow telling us what's going on as the russian leader of his country was screwing with our elections, the one great prize we is have is our democracy and he told us what is up. what a great person. up next president trump hunkered down today with republican and congressional leader guess who mitch mcconnell to plot strategy for doing

absolutely nothing. well, the mayor's two cities hit by those mass shootings join me next. they're going to tell us what it's like on the grounds in those places in our country where the president is not coming to help. you're watching "hardball." oh! oh! oh! ♪ ozempic®! ♪ (announcer) people with type 2 diabetes are excited about the potential of once-weekly ozempic®. in a study with ozempic®, a majority of adults lowered their blood sugar and reached an a1c of less than 7 and maintained it. oh! under 7? (announcer) and you may lose weight. in the same one-year study, adults lost on average up to 12 pounds.

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looking good, patrick. i know. (vo) go national. go like a pro. welcome back to "hardball." the polls have just closed tonight as the ninth congressional district, a district president trump won by 12 percentage points in 2016,

well, tonight's results could we a signal. we're all looking for signals of what's to come in 2020. nbc news reported the race is too early to call right now at this point. the polls just closed a half-hour ago. we'll have the first results as soon as we can. maybe ip15 minutes we'll have a sense of who's going to win that one. the winner will immediately jump into the congressional debate over gun control. the president remains silent about specific measures he might support. and again today senate majority leader mitch mcconnell said he will not act until to president acts. >> my members know the very simple fact that to make a law you have to have a presidential signature. and so we are -- we had a briefing at lunch from eric down at the white house. they are working on coming up with a proposal that the

president will sign. until that happens all of this is theatrics. >> he said it. today mcconnell along with other members of the congressional leadership met with the president, gun violence was expected to be on the agenda. after the meeting, however, mcconnell said he had no announcements to make. joining me right now are two democratic mayors who had to face mass shootings. mayor, thank you, first. what do you think of what's going on? are we going to have another one of these dry wells where nothing comes up? >> i think we come to washington not expecting anything really different. this is the only place where the background check is actually partisan. we still have to keep on pushing. >> why do you think republican leadership -- they control u.s. senate. why won't they bring up the measure without the president

saying i'll give you cover first? >> i won't pretend to understand the relationship between mitch mcconnell and donald trump. people back in dayton all they see is nothing happening. on the night of the vigil when they shouted down governor mike dewine, they said to do something. i don't think the people in dayton and the 289 places who have had a mass shooting just this year, now it's not like this idea you can just say oh, they're going to forget because a week later another shooting happens. >> i wrote a letter to my congressman back in 1968 when bobby kennedy was shot on gun issues. >> yeah. >> we've been trying to make this happen. it seems like synagogues or attacked, christian churches are attacked, kids in first grade are attacked, politicians are assassinated like any another country in the world we've had assassinations by gunfire. it seems every time we say this

will do it. >> we were reminded today by tommy cochran who's been the director that this has been on the agenda -- the bipartisan agenda of the conference of mayors. we are in the streets, we know the family members. >> we see the blood. >> you guys go to the hospital and spend a night there. >> we often will be not only with law enforcement but many times with victims who are innocent and with their families as well. so there's a very, very real connect. and in washington there's a very real disconnect. >> who's protecting these senators from the public who 9 out of 10 cases say do something on background checks? >> i don't know who it is that's protecting them, but i can tell you at least from the pennsylvania perspective that about, well, after sandy hook

you saw in the eastern philadelphia suburbs republican areas that supported background checks. >> even toomey. >> even senator toomey. senator casey completely changed his position. but in western pennsylvania the gun culture is still so strong that you didn't see that. after tree of life you started to see it in white suburban areas throughout southwestern pennsylvania. and these aren't the most affluent areas. these are the blue collar working class-airs. >> what do those regular people want done on guns, because they do like hunting, they do like gun culture? >> and we're not talking about taking away those guns. what we're talking about is right now there's a limited window in order to be able to do as nan said two something, but that something is two things. it's universal background checks and red flag laws which when put

together will help law enforcement officials to be able to proactively stop a crime from happening instead of just reporting and going after -- >> this has been the president's m.o. by the way promise right after a mass shooting and then betray. in the immediate aftermath of the mass shooting and calls for actions and backs off when he thinks the coast is clear. and he's doing it again. no announcements tonight. here he is after the mass shootings that took place in dayton and pittsburgh. here he was right afterwards. >> and it's a terrible, terrible thing what's going on with hate in our country, frankly, and all over the world. and something has to be done. something has to be done. i have had plendy of talty of t the last few days and i think we're going to come up with something really very good beyond anything that's been done so far. >> every time there's one of these mass shooting situations they say let's not act now, it's

just politics and when it comes down they say don't act at all. they have this catch-22. don't act right after it happens and don't act five, six weeks later and therefore don't act. >> i think what you're seeing now from the public is the public is calling for action right away and that's really changed from parkland moving forward. >> who should be voted against? >> everybody should be held accountable on background checks. we don't need to make this complex. you know, 9 out of 10 americans support it. and if nothing moves by 2020 people will be held accountable. and i do think there are senators that are vulnerable because of suburban areas that are moved in a huge amount this way. so you can see this playing in the colorado race, the arizona race and you see it playing in ohio as well. >> let's talk about mitch mcconnell's position. he said i like when the president tells me and so i won't do anything. >> mayor waly and i are part of

a delegation over fen mayors, republican, democrats, independents representing 278 mayors who have all signed onto supporting background checks, 50 states, puerto rico and washington, d.c., from the reddest of the red to the bluest of the blue. and leader mcconnell made it clear to us today that that's exactly what his position was. >> did he seem embarrassed by this weakness of his? >> he did not. he seemed to make it a position of practicality when it is in fact a position of abdication. >> right. >> we created a legislative branch in this country and we created leadership within that branch to lead, not to follow. the u.s. senate does not work for the president. if it did, this country would not have been able to survive this long. >> you should be in the senate. thank you. >> no, i wouldn't want to be.

the fact is that right now there is this opportunity, this is what the american people want. and as mayor waly said the only place this is political is in washington. >> was he so petty not to invite you into the medal of valor for police officers? >> i'd expect nothing less from the president. >> thank you very much mayor dan waly. i think you're such great spokespeople for your people and people of executive responsibility, which this president doesn't always have. thank you, mayor of pittsburgh. beautiful green city. up next the polls have just closed in that special congressional election down in north carolina. we hope in the next few minutes they'll tell us who's won. you're watching "hardball." the exercise. the fiber. month after month, and i still have belly pain and recurring constipation. so i asked my doctor what else i could do, and i said yesss to linzess. linzess treats adults with ibs

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welcome back to "hardball" where the polls actually just closed at 7:30 tonight in thereat special election in

north carolina's ninth congressional. right now the race is too early to call. president trump beat hillary clinton there by nearly 12 points in 2016. and last week some aides told politico if north carolina's goes democratic tonight so does the presidency next year, of course. yesterday the president told reporters just the opposite. >> no, i don't see it as a bellwether. they always ask that question. >> well, the election redo, that's what it is this time, was ordered after state officials discovered absentee ballots were tampered with last time in the 2018 results. the democrat trailed his republican challenger in that first election by 900 votes. president trump making a hard sell by turning up his toxic rhetoric. >> tomorrow is a chance to send a clear message to the american hating left, and it's got to be. and by the way we're building

that wall and it's going up very big. a lot of illegal voting going on out there, by the way. a lot of illegal voting. with the support and encouragement of the mccreedy jurisdictions in north carolina have released thousands of dangerous criminal aliens into your communities. our evangelicals are here tonight and they're all over the place. and what we've done for them and for religion is so important. you know, the other side, i don't think they're big believerers. they're not big believers in religion. >> you can't match that. what a horrendous display of rulickdor ridiculousness. have you noticed maybe he's worried he could end up a one term president. he should. the latest numbers on trump just out today.

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president trump, sort of near the low, 2 points above his low of 38 back in january which is actually the low of his presidency. he's he's a little bit bopping above his lowest level. trump didn't like the news tweeting, one of the greatest and most poufrl weapons used by the fake and corrupt news media is the phony polling information they put out. many of these polls are fixed. late this afternoon a new cnn poll shows 6 in 10 do not believe trump deserves to get re-elected. everything he says is nothing's on the level. judges, juries, don't trust them, everybody is out for themselves, nobody is being fair. everybody about him, elections are rigged, polls are rigged, newspapers are bought and sold and nothing is to be believed. he want to get into this i think

the word is dystopian world where everything is awful and that somehow benefits the angry, resentful electorate he's cultivating. >> the polls have long been something he's teed up. this has long been his stick that the elections are rigged. he's starting to lose in some important core demographic groups. we started to see some of that slippage with his attacks. first there were the attacks on the fell maim congresswomen and then secondly it is always about the economy and especially so for this president because, chris, you were out there in iowa. i was out there in iowa and during 2016 talking to farmers, talking to regular, you know, average men and women. and the reason why they votes

didn't love the way he bullies on the pulpit but they thought he's a businessman and everything he touches turns to gold. and he gets in there, he's going to do that for us. and now they're seeing in fact we could be headed into a recession that he passed tax cuts that are cookie cutter from the conservative play book benefitting the rich. >> how could you pass a tax cut he just passed and argue it's good for the economy? when all that money is going somewhere. >> exactly. you don't see it. it didn't come back into the economy. it certainly did filter down to people in the form of salaries and money to pay their -- >> they're all buy backs for corporate leaders. >> he bought back stock and by the way that trillion dollars that was smoeds to be repatriated, whatever happened to that. >> and the trade war. >> let's talk about the toxing stuff last night. he was really going with all the dirt balls last night.

everybody's evil. >> it was like the greatest hits. >> the democratic party is bunch of socialists. >> he wanted to push every button, every button he could possibly push to drive turn out in a special election, in a trump plus 12 district, and he's down there playing -- >> he wouldn't have gone if he didn't think he would win, but it is risky. that race was tied the last time. >> he wants to be part of a narrow victory not part of a narrow loss, does he? >> either way it shouldn't be that narrow. >> according to the associated press trump advises worry that moderate republican and independent votes have been willing to give him a pass on some of his insend injury

policies and rhetoric would blame him. i know some of the press have been talking down the economy. some of them just don't like trump. but how do you think people are getting a sense it's slowing down? is it sales, what is it? >> i guess it's sales. it's uneven employment numbers and just the fact that we saw a sugar high off of the tax cuts which has not extended into -- it has not led to wages, wage growth. and if you remember with the way the president sold this was as a middle class miracle. it was not supposed to be a corporate welfare miracle. it was to help middle class people and to increase their wages. and so i think that's -- >> and came out with some new economic numbers today. and just parsing the numbers it seems people are worried about salaries. they're not feeling, you know, there's gdp growth, but they're not feeling it. and they're worried about health care because they're paying more

for their deductibles, for their -- you know, you name it. and as a matter of fact access, the number of insured or the number of uninsured went up this last year for the first time since the affordable care act. >> so how does trump get back to numbers that manage to squeak him back into office in 2016? he has to do something to win pennsylvania, wisconsin, michigan. he has to hold of course north carolina that we were talking about today. he has to win on the numbers. there's always going to be a lot of angry white guys out there, some angry white women but the numbers decide this thing. there has toby enough to win with. what makes anybody think he was as big as he was three years ago. >> he didn't get a ton more votes in a lot of these states that mitt romney did or a other presidential candidates got. what happened was the democratic vote was depressed. >> why? >> well, some people say it was a lot of the negative attacks on

hillary clinton, others blame comey, the clinton campaign certainly blames comey. but there was a certainty in places like detroit and places like flint, in places like milwaukee the african-american vote in particular was depressed. in some states they also blamed voting irregularities and access. >> we had stacey abrams on last night. she's wonderful in terms of personality but then you realize yeah, law, you know her background is incredible and a novelist. she's written five novels. she's everything, a renaissance person and it put her on the ticket with somebody and it looks a smart move. >> it could happen. she's available. >> she is saying, no, right? >> she keeps saying no, i don't want to run for senate. >> then you've got to carry the ticket. let's go to steve kornacki, my

colleague for what we know on north carolina ninth. >> north carolina is one of these states it reports its results extremely fast? why is that inmore than half the voters tend to cast the votes early, some mail them in, a lot of them go to polling places and usually by this point we'll have half the vote in north carolina or in a district. so why are there no votes reported yet from this ninth district race everybody is watching, because there was a gas leak at a precinct in mecklenburg county, suburban charlotte part of this district. in a single precinct there, there was a gas leak. therefore the state board of elections decided 20 minutes ago to extend the polling time until 7:55 p.m. that's about a minute ago. and they said after that they believe they will begin releasing the results. so literally we are expecting now based on the latest guidance we've gotten that any minute now we're going to start getting the results. what you're going to be seeing and they should come in, once

they start they'll come in fast. and what you should be seeing are the early votes. and the early votes tend to favor the democrats. how much so i can tell you in the 2018 mid-term last year mccready won the early votes by 5 points, lost by 7. the state board of elections told us 7:55 they'll shut that precinct down and get to reporting these votes. >> my question to you is why can't we get it right? you know, we've had the problem in florida, we've had the problem in different parts of the country. why can't we learn how to hold elections so we don't have these irregularities is a wonderful code word for it, where we don't get results on time? >> hopefully this one will be a

truly truly minor blip. it's literally one polling station. it's not all of mecklenburg. we talk about the gerrymandering taken place, and this is a traditionally republican district. very clean in reporting their election results. as i said i'm kind of looking at this very few seconds expecting it see some numbers pop up. by this point in 2018 we had a pretty clear idea of what was going on, so there's one glitch at that polling station. but that is going to be crucial the minute we get a result there. and why because that portion of the district it's a microcosm of the story we're telling nationally. this is suburban swath that donald trump won by three points

in 2016. he got elected by winning this portion of the district by three points, 2018 in the mid-term. the democrat mccredy carried by 10. >> how big an indicator will this give us, if this district were voting in 2020, the ninth congressional and it were going the way it's going to go tonight how much would it lead the state next year? >> keep in mind trump won the district like we say by 12 points in 2016. so use that as a baseline in where's the erosion for trump, where's the erosion for republicans in 2018. that is major spot right there. the mecklenberg county portion of it, here we go we've got our first results, chris. let me interrupt this and see where they're from. and i can tell you mccready got a big batch in there early.

it's in robinson county. this is the early vote. the early vote in 2018 was 61-37. so we said mccready needs to be at or above his early vote le l level. >> it looks to be a squeaker. this one could be really close. thank you, steve. you're the best. and eugene robinson. what an exciting night to find out which way north carolina goes. watch out. all in with chris hayes starts right now. tonight on "all in." >> it was a very close race. i think it's getting less close. >> what we already know from the early results in north carolina 9. >> we've got a chance to change this country. plus the president bounces his national security advisor. >> you're fired. >> or did