my thanks to john, elise, eugene, rick. his new book "information wars" is of the moment and a must-read. most of all thanks to you for watching. that does it for our hour. "mtp daily" with chuck todd starts right now. welcome to tuesday. it is "meet the press daily." do you have a transcript you want to change? i'm chuck todd here in washington where a key witness just changed his testimony in the house impeachment inquiry, now describing both a quid pro quo and his part in it. neither of which he acknowledged the first time he was questioned about it. that person is gordon sondland. he's the u.s. ambassador to the european union and one of the president's so-called three amigos who was unofficially overseeing ukraine policy for the president. he now remembers telling a top aide to ukraine's president that military aid would not be delivered to ukraine without a

commitment to investigate the 2016 election and the bidens. in other words, there was a quid pro quo and ukraine knew it. sondland made those changes to his testimony yesterday, on the same day that house democrats began releasing closed door testimony to the public. in a three-page declaration, sondland says by the beginning of september 19 and in the absence of any credible explanation for the suspension of aid, i presumed that the aid suspension had become linked to the proposed anti-corruption statement. that explicitly included the 2016 election and hunter biden's company, burisma. he goes on to say, quote, i now recall speaking individually with the zelensky aide that rudy giuliani met with in madrid, mr. yermak, where i said that resumption of u.s. aid would likely not occur until ukraine provided the public anti-corruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks. again, remember, one of the talking points from the white

house has been if ukraine didn't know the aid was being withheld, how could it be a quid pro quo. this now says ukraine knew. investigators released sondland's testimony along with that of kurt volker and the text messages that volker released last month included that the president wanted no quid pro quo. now, sondland later testified that he was just repeating what the president had told him. and in his new declaration, sondland says his memory was, quote, refreshed after reviewing opening statements given by taylor and tim morrison, the former white house advisor on russia and european affairs who testified late last week. joining me now, msnbc correspondent garrett haake on capitol hill, nbc news white house correspondent hallie jackson at the white house. so let me start with you, garrett. what's amazing to me is that we had some hints that gordon sondland wanted to change his testimony almost as soon as bill

taylor had testified. we had gotten reports he was reviewing his testimony. what i found interesting is that he apparently made all of these changes effective yesterday, not sooner. do we have more details on how all this came about? >> well, he didn't have a ton of time. we know sondland has back here last week reviewing his testimony and the testimony of morrison was just towards the ending of last week. so, yes, the letter from his attorney was dated yesterday. it got to the committee yesterday. adam schiff announced yesterday that sondland and kurt volker's testimonies would be coming out today. it's not clear to me what came first, the schiff notice that, hey, this is coming out tomorrow or the attorney's letter. i've reached out to the attorney and the committee and neither side will comment on the exact timing of that, whether sondland knew that he had a deadline by the end of the day to get this in or whether this was something they had been working on through the weekend to try to clear up. but throughout sondland's

testimony notwithstanding this apendi appendix that was added, he's got a lot of memory problems. there's the exchange with yovanovitch about whether she should tweet support for president trump which he doesn't remember. there's several other meetings and conversations he claims to not remember. and he admits the night before his deposition he talked with rick perry, another would be witness to all of this, to refresh his memory. so there's a number of issues with sondland's testimony that still remain here despite that appendix. >> and he's going to make quite the public perhaps witness at some point. garrett, tell me about everybody else today who didn't show up for depositions. we kind of knew that was going to happen. what updates do you have on that? >> not a lot. a couple of nsc officials today were the highlights. the rest of the officials this week read like a list of people who house democrats want to be able to say they called, want to be able to say they invited. there's an advisor to vice

president mike pence who they added late in the game to try to testify on friday. there's perry, there's bolton. there's a number of these officials who would be great gets for democrats but who are unlikely -- mick mulvaney added today as an invity, but unlikely to cross the firewall at the white house but could be in the lack of their appearance still useful for democrats in saying, look, we knew there were 40 witnesses, we invited or subpoenaed all 40 on the only 30 showed. these are ten elements to add to our obstruction article of impeachment when they get that far. >> and we are going to have more transcripts tomorrow we assume. are they going to go two witnesses at a time? is that the goal here? >> the committee isn't talking about the specifics of what they'll release tomorrow, but it's clear they are crafting a narrative. they are using the release of these transcripts as a way to tell this story, much to the frustration, by the way, of republicans on the committee who have complained they would like to see these things released all

at once. if yesterday you got the introduction of rudy giuliani meddling around the edges of ukraine policy, in the two depositions released today, his name comes up more than 400 times combined. so giuliani becomes a central figure in the depositions today. i suspect we will see that kind of story telling continue in the depositions that come out tomorrow. >> let me go down to the other side of pennsylvania avenue. hallie jackson, i'm going to put up on screen here stephanie grish grisham's statement so we can start with that and go from there. both transcripts released today show there is even less evidence for the illegitimate impeachment sham than previously thought. ambassador sondland clearly states that he did not know and still does not know when, why or by whom the aid was suspended. he also said that he presumed there was a link to the aid but cannot identify any solid source for that assumption. no amount of salacious media-biased headlines, which

are clearly designed to influence the narrative, change the fact that the president has done nothing wrong. clearly the white house is upset that gordon sondland has messed up an important talking point that they wanted. which is if ukraine didn't know the aid was being held up, how can you call that a quid pro quo. sondland has changed his story. >> that was like a five-day-long talking point. i don't think you'll see the resurgence of that. the statement from stephanie grisham should surprise nobody who has watched the way that this white house has conducted what you could call its strategy of defiance here. neither will what i'm about to tell you. there had been a question, you heard garrett question mick mulvaney on capitol hill later this week being requested. he's not going show up, that's according to another press secretary here at the white house, hogan gidley. i want to read this to you. he's telling us past democrats and republican administrations would not be inclined to permit senior advisers to the president to participate in such a ridiculous partisan illegitimate proceeding and neither is this one. if you had bet dollars to doughnuts that mulvaney wasn't

going to show, you would be awash in either dollars or doughnuts. there was never the expectation that he would suddenly begin cooperating with the house investigation after we have seen the white house take this tack of working on administration officials, letting them know that they should not appear. now, what you have seen are some state department career diplomats, people in that area, defy the white house and show up over these past couple of weeks as garrett well knows. that is changing this week. you have people that are much closer to president trump, much closer to, for example, mulvaney. mulvane, himself and others who are closer with the president who are saying, no, no, we're not going defy the white house. when you talk about gordon sondland, this is a tough needle to thread because this was a guy that was a one-time trump donor. he was picked by the administration to be in this role. and so if -- as the white house potentially tries to distance themselves from the eu ambassador, it's going to be a tricky puzzle for them. >> it is, and i don't know how they're going to pull that off.

garrett haake and hallie jackson kicking off the day. thank you both. with me now ambassador michael mcfaul, former ambassador to russia, now an nbc news international affairs analyst. so the story is now -- what's interesting about gordon sondland's decision is all he does is essentially back up bill taylor's testimony and back up the testimony of others. it reinforces the narrative that we thought was out there, and now the white house is missing a key important talking point, which is ukraine never knew. clearly ukraine knew. >> that's right, and i think -- i agree completely that that's what this is. two of the three amigos, i would say, i would also add mr. volker, ambassador volker's testimony, they don't like going along with this, quote unquote, drug deal as the nsc advisor john bolton called it but they do it because they think it

advances u.s./ukrainian relations. it's clear as day there was a quid pro quo. i also want to keep reminding everyone, chuck, even if there wasn't the holdup of military assistance, the ask to help the president in his re-election efforts in and of itself is also using the public office for private gain. so remember that. i know it adds even more to it that they held up this military assistance, but that is also true. >> you know, mike, one of the other talking points i hear is, well, he didn't do anything illegal. my response always is, well, i think there were some things we didn't think we had to pass a law for because there was only one person you'd be passing the law to deal with, one entity. but what would you say to that -- because i can tell you that is the new republican talking point, whether it's lingd s lindsey graham, tom cole. well, i don't know if he's technically committed a crime. how would you answer that? >> well, i'm also not a lawyer,

i'm not a constitutional lawyer, but i did work at the white house. i worked in the state department. one of the first days on the job at the white house, maybe it was the first day, was i was read into what's called the hatch act. and we were told by our legal advisers that you cannot use your public office, you can't even use your nsc email to do anything that has to do with elections. you had to be very careful about that. by the way, chuck, i have the same rules here at stanford. i can't use my stanford email to go out and help a candidate for an election. so maybe the hatch act doesn't apply to the president of the united states, i don't know that. but most certainly it is wrong and most certainly it is something that every u.s. government official knows is wrong. >> no, but i do believe it's not. i mean that's been part of the issue of the executive branch is that it applies to everybody but the two elected officials at the top, right? all of these -- the compliance

that cabinet officials have to do, the president and the vice president don't. now, the president can sign an executive order saying it applies to them, but that's a whole other story. let me ask you this. who else would know -- when you're now doing this, you've got sondland knowing this. we're in this sort of two tracks of ukrainian diplomacy. if you were telling house democrats, where else would you want to go that you haven't heard from? who else would you want to hear from that we haven't had a chance to hear from that we might actually hear from and might be willing to testify? >> you just added a separate clause. of course i want to hear from the vice president and i really want to hear from secretary pompeo. >> i don't think we will hear from either. >> well, but hopefully the press will keep pressing him. hopefully we'll keep getting to this. i just find it -- he seems like a -- i don't know secretary pompeo personally, but i have friends who do. he's a smart man. he knows that there's no server

that's been stolen away. and then when he says things, and he keeps -- you know, he implies that he was in on this deal. i would like him to fess up one way or the other, which side of this are you on? was this wrong but not impeachable? if he said that, that would be an advance on the story in and of itself. >> and on rudy giuliani, he seems to be the one in the most legal jeopardy. he's the one that there may be plenty of laws they can find that he broke even whether it's the lobbying laws about not filing, if he ended up acting like a foreign lobbyist in a way that he wasn't. but what would you -- what would you be pursuing with giuliani? what laws do you believe outside of the lobbying laws that they could get him on, what else could he have broken? >> first i just want to keep underscoring how crazy and kooky this is. reading ambassador sondland's testimony, he says we think the

state department should be in charge of u.s./ukrainian relations, not the private lawyer of the president of the united states. it's crazy. you know, the lawyer is supposed to be defending the president, why is he involved in u.s./ukrainian relations? by the way, even the state department shouldn't be involved in investigating corruption in ukraine. that's the job of the department of justice. we have people that do that. but what for me is most interesting in terms of the future is i just don't -- i'm not quite convinced that mr. giuliani and his two side kicks were just interested in fighting corruption. i'm interested in what were their material things that they were pursuing. there's been some innuendo, there's been some hints at that. i want to know why giuliani was being paid by his lieutenants to do this kind of work. i suspect there is a material financial gain that they were seeking to achieve. that's what i would like to know next. >> and it's under -- apparently one of them has decided they would like to perhaps cooperate a little bit more with the

federal government. i think that was mr. parnas. if that happens -- >> not good news for mr. giuliani. >> who knows. who knows. again i've said if you started a company called fraud guarantee, i don't know -- as mr. parnas did, i don't know if you're ever going to be credible. if the company you started was fraud guarantee. ambassador mcfaul, as always, sir, thank you very much. joining me now to unpack all of this today, betsy woodruff swan, michael steele, former rnc chairman, and ruth marcus, also an msnbc contributor. well, betsy, the weirdest thing about the gordon sondland today, is it was the most predictable thing to happen. he was setting this up. when he went back to review the transcript. and everything you read about this guy, he clearly, oh, my god, what have i gotten myself into.

this was painfully obvious this was going to happen. still it happening is a big blow to the president. >> and it's also, to state the obvious, a big problem for sondland's testimony because it indicates that maybe if other people jog his memories in the right way, some of those other "i don't recall" answers might turn into, oh, well, now you mention it, maybe i know more than i did. the fact that he now has copped to telling the ukrainians that they needed to open these investigations in order to get military aid. >> is he the one to tell the ukrainians that? >> i don't know. i think it's very likely volker might have told them that. i'm fairly confident perry didn't say anything like that to the ukrainians. sondland is one of the ones that interfaced with them the most. i think the black box is whether giuliani told them that and his relationships with senior people in kiev. >> ruth. >> i think one of the most interesting things about this sondland revising and extending

his remarks is it's an explanation of why you want to do these depositions behind closed doors, why it's important to get people on the record, to have their testimony unaffected by what other people testify to, because if others -- if he knew going in that others had testified, he would have shaded his -- how others had testified, he would shade his testimony differently. i want to say one really quick thing about whether you need to have a crime to have an impeachable offense, having covered a previous -- >> no, wait. no, there isn't one. but it is a pr strategy. >> there's two arguments that we're hearing. one is, well, where's the crime. you know, when the framers wrote the constitution, they didn't say -- there wasn't a federal criminal code so there were no crimes to refer to. so done with that. and the second is this isn't serious. i thought our friend did a very good job of explaining why this is really serious to use your

political office, hatch act or no hatch act, to use your public office for political gains. >> michael steele, i know that the elected republican -- i mean let me -- do we have mark meadows in here, guys? let's do -- i think it's an on camera statement. let me play mark meadows for you, because -- well, you'll see. >> mr. sondland made pretty clear at this meeting between the ukrainians and the president was conditioned on working with rudy giuliani, who was pushing for these investigations. why is that not a quid pro quo? >> well, my understanding is, is that that was his understanding, but any time that he actually talked directly to the president, so we have that on ambassador volker's testimony, obviously on ambassador sondland's testimony as well. any time there was direct conversations with the president, there was no linkage. >> that didn't look like a guy that was comfortable.

full confidence that the story he's telling is going to know the truth tomorrow because the story could change. >> yeah, the story could change. the fact of the matter is whenever these members come out to the cameras and reporters like betsy and others with their head down, you know the conversation is not going to go the way they want it to. it's that sort of i can't look directly in your eye because they know the narrative they're trying to propose and push out to the american people is for just one person, because everything else, every other component of that narrative speaks against the very thing that they're standing there saying. and that's the truth that they can't overcome. >> and yet none of this seems to yet penetrate the elected republicans on capitol hill, mostly because, you know, they see their primary poll numbers. >> part of the problem is that democrats have to get a handful of big new facts before they get republicans to flip of the and what we have today with sondland's sort of memory recall is certainly a new fact, but it's not going to be big enough to get republicans to change their minds. one thing to keep an eye on

going forward as more of these transcripts come out is to bookmark the sondland transcript from conversations with folks close to the process over the last couple of weeks, one thing we've been hearing over and over is that future -- or witnesses that came after sondland may have contradicted him on a handful of issues. so if that's the case and new transcripts emerge pushing back against what he claimed, it's possible we'll hear from him again. >> by the way, the committee seems more than happy to let sondland continue to revise. >> sure. >> sometimes you would say, oh, it's an opportunity to prosecute him. >> well, who is going to prosecute him exactly? i do not think this justice department is going to leap -- >> you mean criminal referral for lying to congress? >> correct. but the more he turns himself into a witness that simply bolsters your other witnesses and takes away whatever little bricks he had in defense of the president, the better off they are. so come on, come back, read your testimony, keep going. i think we should not lose sight also of the real outrage of

failing to hear from administration officials who have clearly relevant testimony to give here. imagine watergate without testimony from nixon administration officials. >> it took a while to get that testimony. sometimes -- this goes back to the calendar problem democrats have. they could use more time here to essentially let the court -- i mean i think they're filling their time pretty well this week, releasing transcripts, building a list of people not cooperating. they have got to be able to do both at the same time, but this is a problem that they have. >> it's a huge problem, but there's also a huge problem of the white house press secretary dismissing this as sham impeachment proceedings. what is sham about it? if there was a question about whether there were adequate procedures going forward, we now have procedures. explain to me what the difference is between the procedures that govern clinton and nixon and these procedures. so it's a simple just dismissal -- >> the procedures are john boehner's processes an

procedures that he put in place. so the very thing that these republicans are railing against, the rules per se, are the rules that they put in place. the democrats are just following it. which makes all of this sham conversation a sham. >> but not just a sham, it's an outrage. >> and we're probably going to deal with this more later, but betsy, i don't disagree with you, if the democrats could find shiny new facts that really like, whoa, you know, type of thing, and i think john bolton testimony, if it -- he has the star power to change things. if i were the president, i'd be nervous about that. he's a big enough name that could capture the imagination. but this is a republican party that's more and more devoted. i mean the polls showing as the country becomes more concerned about the president's behavior, republicans are becoming less. >> and the republican strategy going into november 2020 of course is to galvanize the people who already support trump. >> that's all they want to do. >> rather than persuading folks

about him. everything about the way republicans have responded with this impeachment process makes total sense if you think about it that way. >> michael, they have made the decision they're all in. >> oh, yeah. >> they're all going off a cliff together if indeed the president leads them off a cliff. >> put a bow on that, that's exactly what the situation is. this is about two things, one is protecting the president and holding the senate. and so mitch mcconnell has his marching orders and he's pursuing that approach. the house did what they needed to do. they all stood arm in arm in the well of the house and said we're not budging. but the question ultimately for the party is how does the country perceive this and perceive republicans right now and how does it translate next year? >> does anybody care that we're never going to be able to legitimately govern again if 50% of the country doesn't believe the other 50? that to me -- >> that's the test of the

question of who we are right now. >> and those republicans that are knowingly exploiting the cynicism of the public -- of their public on the press, they're the ones -- >> a democrat in the house acting like trump. >> the professional manipulators here in washington know exactly what they're doing. betsy, michael and ruth, stick around. up next, if it's tuesday, somebody is voting somewhere. there's a lot of somewheres today and a lot of voting. i did it. this year all politics is national. sorry, tip. impeachment politics, it gets even more nationally, if that's possible. it's the first real test of voters right now in three states, just one year from the big day in 2020. ♪ i thought i was managing my moderate to severe crohn's disease. then i realized something was missing... me. my symptoms were keeping me from being there.

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welcome back. turning now from the big news on impeachment to the politics of impeachment, which gets its first significant test with voters tonight. it could bail out a couple of republicans who were struggling a week ago. in the next few hours polls will close in virginia, kentucky and mississippi. all politics is national these days. the president or the issue of impeachment has been featured prominently in many of these races across these states, particularly in the last ten days. so the results tonight can tell us a lot about the president's support, his ability to survive impeachment or even possibly win

re-election. the most interesting race tonight is perhaps in kentucky where the state's gubernatorial contest has been very competitive, pretty much from the day matt bevin unexpectedly became governor. the incumbent republican is a junior trump-type of candidate. he's closing his campaign by unabashedly tying himself to the president. he rallied with the president last night who lashed out at the investigation. today he had quite an exchange with my colleague, vaughn hillyard, when asked about his re-election strategy. >> why nationalize this race so much and talk about president trump so much? >> i don't know if you -- do you watch the news? >> yeah, last night i saw a lot of your ads. >> awesome. do you watch the news other than political ads? have you ever heard anything about president trump anywhere in the last, i don't know, two, three, four, five years. >> and you're running for governor of kentucky. >> i am. but here's the irony. the fact that you ask why this is being nationalized and why people are talking about president trump would indicate to me that you really have sort of maybe come out from under a rock because here in america,

that's pretty topical every night. talk to the average person. ask the next 100 people who come in here if they care about this impeachment process, and they will tell you almost to a person that they do because they find it to be a charade. it's an absolute sham. >> vaughn joins us now from kentucky at election night headquarters of a democratic gubernatorial candidate, andy beshear, the son of the former governor. all right, vaughn, all politics is national. we were talking about this and you had that exchange with him, bevin's campaign, he has transformed himself into essentially a trump surrogate and it may have saved his re-election. >> reporter: yeah, and my follow-up question as that exchange that went on for a while, but my follow-up is you're not running for the house of representatives or the senate, you're running for governor. what impact do you have on impeachment? he came back and answered that he was focusing on donald trump

because it works. because this is a state where donald trump won in 2016, chuck, by 30 percentage points. if you look at the tv ads, just last night on the tv, essentially you see ads from the bevin campaign and the republican governors association running ad after ad with donald trump narrating for matt bevin as well as ads tying andrew beshear to alexandria ocasio-cortez and hillary clinton. when you look at this map, this is a 30-percentage makeup that steve beshear is trying to make up in this case. >> he wanted to make this race about health care, local issues. fill in the gaps here. i've not seen any national democrats. does andy beshear talk about national democrats? not many have helped out. it's not what we've seen on the mississippi side of things but you haven't seen a lot of national democrats, have you? >> reporter: no, you haven't seen any of the 2020 democratic

presidential candidates here. it's kind of reminiscent of doug jones' alabama run. i talked with steve this morning and said how would you compare your two campaigns and he said he's tried to focus on education, pension reform, jaukz and health care. he's been trying to separate himself from the national party. i talked to a source close to this campaign and looking at the turnout figures and putting a reality check on what this campaign will ultimately see at the ending of this night. what you're seeing from a donald trump turnout and matt bevin tying himself to donald trump, they're seeing high turnout numbers over in the rural parts of this state. and that's where folks may not have been aware of coming out. by donald trump showing up, everybody across all the local markets of kentucky saw donald trump and were reminded to come out. so yes, you may close the gap over in the suburbs outside of cincinnati and northern kentucky or you may have a surge turnout in those blue corridors of lexington and louisville, but if

donald trump was effectively able to help out matt bevin in these rural parts, again, 30 points is hard to make up. >> a strategist with the republican gubernatorial campaign in mississippi said 62% of all local news coverage in the last ten days has been trump rally related, so it tells you everything there. vaughn hillyard on the ground for us in kentucky. thank you. we're going to take a quick pause here and then we're really going to break down how impeachment is playing in these key states. by the way, here's something to ponder. the death of local news is what contributes to all politics being national. if all politics are national, then bevin is right, it's all about trump. we'll be right back. about trump. we'll be right back. ce is to me. yeah? so what do you see? i see an unbelievable opportunity. i see best-in-class platforms and education. i see award-winning service, and a trade desk full of experts, available to answer your toughest questions. and i see it with zero commissions on online trades. i like what you're seeing. it's beautiful, isn't it? yeah. td ameritrade now offers zero commissions on online trades.

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to upgrade for a great low price - or go online today. matt bevin will defend your kentucky values. he loves his state. from an all-out assault being waged on you from the extreme left, not good. i can't even imagine. how can you vote for somebody

from the extreme left, you know? this guy, beshear, is a major lefty. you know that, right? beshear doesn't represent you, he represents the washington swamp, and he's backed by the same people trying to overthrow the last election. >> welcome back. that was president trump last night trying to tie impeachment against him in washington to tonight's gubernatorial race in kentucky. as we mentioned, the results of tonight's elections in kentucky, mississippi and virginia will be viewed as the first meaningful test of impeachment politics with voters. still with me betsy, michael and ruth. here's the most important poll number and why i think it will save matt bevin. support for impeachment and removal. the number went up overall to 49%, up 6 points since early october. but among republicans, the number of people in support of impeachment went not up, went down. so as the trend line went up, that went down, and ruth, what

did vaughn say? rural turnout is up. this i am convinced that we're going to find out, and we'll see, but if the republicans sweep these three red state gubernatorial races, two tonight and the one, i think you'll have nothing but impeachment to thank. >> that may be, though interestingly i spent some time on this. the most recent "washington post"/abc poll, support for impeachment among republicans was 18%, which i thought was surprisingly high. it was just a snapshot. >> it was down from what it was. >> well, we did not have an apples-to-apples comparison. we had asked in july whether you supported even an impeachment inquiry and that number among republicans was just 8. so it was 8 for a more moderate approach. 18 for removing him from office. so that may be an outlier but i thought it was interesting. we'll see -- we'll get a glimpse tonight. >> there's a lot of the "post" poll that people are wondering

how it is with that 18-point biden lead. >> chuck, to your point if i'm a democratic operative and working at the dnc, i'm looking at tonight and looking at the numbers that you just shared and i would need to be concerned about how we approach this upcoming election. i don't like the whole bellwether thing. >> none of these are bellwethers, and that is important to note. >> what's important to note, and i've been in this debate with lanny davis about polling versus the movement of people. polling will not tell you what people will do. it just tells you what they think at the moment you ask them a question and that may not necessarily all be true. so what people do, the fact that they're turning out in those suburban areas, they'll turn out in other places that you haven't even thought they would turn out from, that's going to be an interesting sgletest. >> let me put up a bevin super pac ad. >> president trump and governor

bevin are making kentucky great again but socialists in washington want to impeachment trump and take us backward. andy beshear is part of the resistance. he doesn't share our kentucky values. defeat andy beshear. >> it's still possible beshear wins this race tonight. no one should discount it because bevin doesn't poll well. he's been upside down for a while. but he was the canary in the coal mine in '15 that showed us, oh, boy, there is some anger out there. he won despite the republican establishment in kentucky not being in favor of him. i have talked to some democrats like michael has that is nervous. they can't localize a race anymore. >> two things about this particular moment with bevin. first, he benefits not just from broad support from trump in kentucky but from actually having a personal rapport with the president. that relationship that the two of them have, which is close and friendly, is not as easily

replicable in some of these other states. >> mitch mcconnell, we have no idea if he did the same thing for mitch. >> by the way, bevin and mitch were not buddies. remember, he ran against mitch. >> he called him a pain in the rear. >> the second point that i think is really important is not just the nationalization from the pro-trump perspective but from the anti-alexandria ocasio-cortez perspective. we've seen this earlier in this year with special elections where members of cortez, members of her squad have shown up in some of these ads. clearly republicans think in some of these red states, red districts, they can capitalize on the prominence of these women to try to excite the republican base. >> it's a mirror image of virginia. here's the other way and here's an ad that a virginia democratic party ad hitting the republicans in a state senate race.

>> democrat john bell will stand up for our values. he won't back down to the gun lobby, to attacks on women, or to out of touch extremists like trump republican gary higgins. >> there you go, putting the hat on. so each side thinks this really works well in the other base, which is true to a point. >> in the other base but also in the other state. you do not see in kentucky the democrats running an ad anything like that. >> you might have some robo calls in very democratic areas. >> targeted things. >> correct. >> but not statewide tv ads. >> virginia tonight, if democrats can't win at least one of those chambers if not both, this would be a real downer of an election night. >> it would be a downer. you know, the thing that's really amazing is we have a situation now where the president is in the middle of an

impeachment proceeding and he is a political plus in some states. it will be interesting to see whether he's a political minus in states like virginia. >> well, michael, there would be an easy way to test this. to me democrats winning kentucky would be -- this is a coin flip race the whole time. i think they should win it. >> they should win kentucky. >> impeachment is the only reason they may not. >> right. >> but if the democrats won mississippi and kentucky tonight, then our conversation tomorrow flips from -- to oh, my god, the republicans can't even win races in mississippi. >> yeah. >> and by the way -- >> we always overcompensate, by the way. >> we're probably talking about it is a small slice of probably about 20,000 voters, 20,000 votes that will be the difference between impeachment is a plus and impeachment is a disaster. >> and what drives that, talking about that small margin, is because this is an off-year election, it really speaks to the whole point you raised about nationalizing the election. that's the driver. i mean typically you would not see the national play in an

off-year election like this. >> normally the party in power would be afraid of it. i don't want to get my hands dirty. >> in 2009, the last thing we were trying to do is nationalize with 70% barack obama sitting at the white house. so it does matter in that regard. >> and congressional republicans will be watching tonight really closely. because if republicans have a strong showing, especially in virginia, if they can kind of shore up the power that they have there, it's going to send a message that impeachment might not be penetrating broadly with the electorate in the same way that folks in sort of the washington echo chamber think it does. >> or it's penetrating but not in the way they want it to penetrate. >> exactly. >> which is maybe even scary. but again, it's amazing. a handful of votes will dictate tomorrow morning's narrative: betsy, michael and ruth, thank you very much. up ahead, the president's insistence to unmask the whistle-blower and why i'm asking the same question over and over and over again. ng ago ♪ ♪ we would walk on the sidewalk ♪

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that's what the president and many of his supporters really want to talk about. let me ask you what's more important, what happened on the president's call with the ukrainian president or who made it public? especially when you consider all the other people corroborating the whistle-blower's claims are under oath. and therein lies the president's true political talent. the art of distraction and manipulation. the tactics are not hard to spot. that's why it's sometimes frustrating to watch, because if you know what to look for, it's right there. step one, come up with a message that's quick and punchy and don't let the facts get in the way. >> all they have is a whistle-blower who's disappeared. where is he? he's gone. then they have a second whistle-blower. the second whistle-blower has got -- oh, where is he? he disappeared. >> step two, he already did it there, repeat that message. and then just repeat it some more just to repeat it. >> the whistle-blower seems to

have disappeared. seems to have disappeared. the whistle-blower, he disappeared. and i also wonder what happened to the second whistle-blower. where is the second whistle-blower? if they all disappeared -- >> everybody sort of disappeared. >> of course step three is get your friends to repeat this message as well. >> the whistle-blower. who is this person? >> an anonymous whistle-blower who has a bias against the president. >> this whistle-blower? >> whistle-blower. >> i'm not like that whistle-blower. hearsay. >> so-called whistle-blower. >> we call it a whistle-blower but it's really more an anonymous informant. >> i even think that's a stretch of a term. >> the president of the united states is the whistle-blower. >> and suddenly a whole bunch of trump supporters are focused on something that's totally irrelevant, not what the president did, what he did in the lead-up to the call, what he did after the call, but who claims he did it? where's the whistle-blower? it's not magic, people, it's just linguistic misdirection.

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welcome back. while democrats are attempting tonight to win the governor's mansions in two states carried by president trump, there's just one candidate in the democratic presidential field who's done that before and he's not among the front-runners right now. joining me is presidential candidate steve bullock. governor bullock, welcome back to the show.

>> chuck, it's great to be with you tonight. >> it's an election day, two red states, kentucky and mississippi. louisiana will be in a couple of weeks, virginia obviously a blue state. but it is -- and i'm sure you're probably trying to figure this out. there's no demand for any democrats to help democrats in those two states. if anything, you have jim hood down in mississippi who won't even confirm that barack obama did a robo call for him today. i'm not quite sure what's going on in my campaign all the time. i mean is it this bad to be a democrat in montana? >> it hasn't been that bad to be a democrat in montana, when i can win re-election when trump wins by 20. but this is part of the point. >> do you think you can do it again? >> yes, i do. >> things have changed. >> actually there's a montana poll that had me beating trump in montana by four points. >> okay. >> and i think that's one of the challenges we have as a party right now. there's a lot of states that are saying we don't even wanti the

connection with the national party. then we need to have a national party that can connect with people in red and purple states as much as we can the blue states. >> what does not mean the party on one hand. do you need to sell progressive politics better in red states? is the party moving too far too quickly on cultural issues? isn't part of the problem you can't really equivocate these days. there isn't a lot of room for it because unfortunately, or fortunately, all politics is national. you can't have a montana message, a kentucky message and a florida message anymore. >> yeah, but you can actually have a message that bridges some of these divides along the way, that recognizes that two-thirds of the people in this country don't have a college degree. we have to be helping them. recognizing that everybody ought to have affordable, accessible health care but that doesn't mean taking away health care from 156 million people. we are now 90 days out from the iowa caucuses. i think folks are now really starting to focus on who can actually win the places that we need to win. if we run up the sloevotes by

another 2 million in california, it's not going make a difference. >> let me ask you about your candidacy. as much as you can't get on the debate stage and this stuff, at what point does this become futile to you? >> i think iowa. you know, look -- >> you want to get through iowa. you want to see this -- >> iowa has always been the great sorting hat that takes this big field and narrows it down. i think that will be the same case this time. i think most folks -- yeah, some watch the debates. that's not what's going to define it. and i guess i'm not telling any deep secret because other campaigns are starting to invest more into iowa as well. >> it does seem as if the type of message you're preaching is a message pete buttigieg is breaching, is a message joe biden is preaching too. how do you make room for yourself? >> i think that, yeah, as the only one that actually won in a trump state that's been able to bridge divides and get meaningful, progressive things done. as we get into this and we'll just go up on television

starting tomorrow in iowa. i think as people actually start looking at what the one real question is this election, i mean i hear from more single issue voters than any other time. >> what is it? >> it's beating donald trump. and we actually have to be able to win back places that we lost if we're going to be able to do it. >> has medicare for all somehow become a litmus test for different people? meaning they see it sort of like it's either a litmus test to be a progressive democrat or a litmus test to say that's a bridge too far? >> i think it is a litmus test for some people for sure, but i don't think it's one that can win back places like michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania. i think if you even look at -- senator warren is talking about spending $2.6 trillion a year in new spending. what, our overall federal spend is $4 million even though we raise $2 trillion? >> why are you using a republican talking point? that's how she's trying to shame

people like yourself, pete, others that are hitting her on this. >> and actually being able to deal with the here and now of people's lives. obamacare was not a republican talking point. it was actually the greatest expansion of health care that we had had since medicare. so any time somebody turns around and says i actually have to live in a world where i have to get things done. i think this town has become a place where speeches are the substitute for actually doing things. and from the perspective of how do we actually impact people's lives without turning off a whole lot of folks, i don't think those are republican talking points, those are what's grounded in reality of this country, and this country expects us to bridge divides and get things done. >> i am running up against the clock so i'll have to leave it there. governor steve bullock, governor from montana, a red state. how bad of a hit tonight if the party can't win one of these two gubernatorial races? >> i think it will just show we need somebody at the top of the ticket that can help in places like that.

>> steve bullock, i will leave it there. that's all we have tonight. we'll be back tomorrow. "the beat with ari melber" starts right now. good evening, ari. >> good evening, chuck. we begin "the beat" with breaking news. new bombshell testimony in the impeachment probe out tonight. a trump ally telling congress, listen closely, there was a bribery plot and also telling congress there was a bribery quid pro quo. and also telling congress, u.s. funds, taxpayer dollars, were withheld from ukraine to get the political investigation that donald trump wanted. let me stop right here. if you're thinking this sounds like a turning point, it is. and that's as much about the who as the what, because this damning, breaking news bombshell testimony against trump that i'm telling you about is coming tonight from a trump loyalist, or at least he was a loyalist in the eyes of everyone at the white house until today. trump ambas