evening. rachel maddow show starts right now. >> you're hiding your guests under people's seats? >> it is called a tease, and i'm speaking to the master, the master. i learned it from watching you. >> the only reason i deep tease things is because i run out of time and then say okay that's next. it's almost never intentional. >> you are michaelangelo paintig the cystine chapel with teases. >> i'm going to break in to figure out who your guests are. thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. it's turning out to be a very interesting election night tonight. off-year elections means there's like a little something happening electorally everywhere in and a few states there's a lot happening. for example, every two years on the off years we get every seat

in the virginia statehouse and senate on the ballot. you might remember in 2017, so two years ago, right, the last year we had a big off-year election in virginia, there was a huge blue wave in virginia. remember that? the democratic candidates running for statehouse in virginia two years ago got more than 200,000 more votes than their republican opponents who they were running against. but it was a fascinating thing to watch election results two years ago in virginia. because getting the most votes didn't translate into democrats getting the most seats in the virginia house that year. because the republicans had gerrymandered the state so badly to make it easier for them to win more seats even when they didn't have more votes, when the results came in virginia two years ago tonight, republicans even though they'd had 200,000 fewer votes than the democrats, they had won 50 seats in the statehouse while democrats had only won 49. it was nuts. it was like a perfect

distillation of how gerrymandering works. get all the votes you want, we're still taking all the seats. in the virginia house a couple years ago there was one race outstanding that actually took weeks to call. the winner of that last race ultimately decided who got to take control of the statehouse. that last race in virginia state in 2017 came down to a literal tie. each candidate had received the exact same number of votes. and so to break the tie which ultimately decided who got that seat which decided partisan control of the house, they ended up writing the candidates names on pieces of paper and they slipped them into film canisters, they drew the winner out of the blue ceramic bowl. it was the republican candidate who ended up with control of the statehouse even though therapy wildly outvoted by the democrats in 2017. that was virginia last time. that's the crazy way the balance

of power then statehouse of virginia got decided two years ago. democrats winning more votes, democrats not therefore getting more seats and ult matimately t whole thing being decided by scraps of paper and a bowl. and now two years later it's election day again. among other places in virginia every single seat on the virginia legislator is on the ballot. and this time for the first time since the drawing names outof a bowl election, virginia voters will head to the poles in a state that has been unjerry un- mandered. if democrats again win tons more votes on their republican opponents those votes have a much better shot of actually translating into democrats taking seats in the legislator and thereby taking control of the state government. to win democratic control in virginia democrats would have to flip just two seats in the statehouse tonight and just one seat in the state senate.

if they pull that off tonight democrats would be ultimately taking full control of virginia's state government for the first time in about a quarter of a century. so off-year elections are always interesting. they tend to be sort of be bellwethers. people tend to extrapolate on them a lot. for states all over the country having elections right now tonight is turning out to be a very intriguing evening. for example, we're keeping an eye on two big governors races tonight. one in mississippi. and as of right now that is too close to call. it's only 4% in, so don't get yourself too excited there. but the difference there is less than 300 votes between the two of them. again wildly too early to call with only 4% in the republican candidate there tate reaves.

and also watching the race in kentucky. this one is so interesting it's got me worried about steve kornacki's blood pressure. matt bevan has been the governor of kentucky since 2016. in theory on paper it shouldn't be an open question whether a republican governor can get re-elected in a deep red state like kentucky. but matt bevan is a special kind of guy, a special kind of republican governor in the sense that people don't seem to like him very much as governor. he has pushed hard to claw back medicaid expansion in his state, and that may sound like a wonky issue if it's not something you are up on. but at the bottom line what he has been trying to do with medicaid expansion would throw hundreds of thousands of kentuckiens off their health insurance, and the governor has championed that.

he's also picked aggressive fights, sometimes dirty fightwifights with the public schoolteachers and also with the law enforcement community. when you pick fights with those kind of folks who tend to be heroes with most regular americans you end up as matt bevan is being pretty wildly unpopular as an incumbent sitting governor. he's one of the most unpopular governors in the entire country. so there have been sort of low-key rumblings for several weeks that governor matt bevan of kentucky might be in trouble as he tries to hold onto the governor's mansion. last night president trump held a rally in kentucky to try to give matt bevan a boost. president trump of course won in deep red kentucky by 30 points. this was the map of his electoral victory, right, just a beat red swath in kentucky from november 2016. president trump himself last night basically warned matt bevan that he shouldn't blow the

enormous built-in advantage that trump was throwing his way in this plus-30 trump state. >> if you lose they're going to say trump suffered the greatest defeat in the history of the world. this was the greatest. you can't let that happen to me. >> the president schlepping to kentucky to support republican governor matt bevan last night, again a state trump won by 30 points. it would have been a huge push to get matt bevan over the finish line. not to mention the fact it's a red state, not to mention the fact he's an incumbent. it may not have been enough, though. this is what we're watching. right now the kentucky governor's race is too close to call. and 99% of the vote in. with 99% of the vote in, it is the democrat who's in the lead. it's a slim lead, less than 10,000 votes. he's the attorney general right now of kentucky. kentucky is as red a state as they come. but kentucky has had a

democratic governor before and not that long ago. the last democratic governor also happened to be named beshear because it was his dad. it looks like tonight they might make him their next governor. they may have him ousting the state's incumbent republican. again, too close to call at this hour. joining us to make sense of all of this is steve kornacki, our elections wizard. what can you tell us? >> to put this in some perspective here, you say 99%, we can show you exactly what the margin is, not sure why the pen is green, but we'll go with that, 9,947. and there are two pieces of gray on your screen. there's no vote here. now, this is republican county. here's what i can tell you, we

can do a bit of a math here and figure out where this may be going. in 2015 he won grayson county, his margin here was about 1,500 votes. we've been seeing much higher turn out across kentucky today. we've been seeing bevan do well. so his margin we can expect will be significantly higher. let's say it was 2,500, okay? let's say she got a 2,500 or so. remember that number because the other big county left is ballard, the other outstanding piece of real estate. and here his margin was 322 votes in 2015, a small county. again, let's say higher turn out, let's say he got that to 600. so remember the numbers i gave you were 2,500 and 600. what does that add up to? that would add to up about 3,100.

he'd get a 3,100 vote plurality. that would eat about a third of beshear's margin. you look at those counties and you say if you are the beshear campaign you like where you are. there's a scattering of about a dozen other precincts left throughout the state. i just checked, they're basically all in republican counties. these precincts are producing about 350 votes each give or take. so they're very small pieces of real estate. so it is -- i know our decision desk has not called this. they want to make sure there's no big surprise out of ballard county. they want to make sure there's no big surprise out of grayson county, out of any of these other precincts. but if you look at the math and just extrapolate for everything else we're seeing tonight there's a reason why democrats are feeling better than republicans about where this may

be going. >> when you talk about those dozen precincts yet to come in, and those being largely republican precincts, just sort of enveloping the math here in terms of what you just said about the total number of votes that would be, seems to me what you're saying about what you expect in grayson and ballard evenae even in a good scenario for matt bevan, even if he sort of cleaned up in those outstanding republican precincts, he still wouldn't be in beshear's lead. if you want to be sure about this from the standpoint of certainly nbc and calling this race, you want to make sure when the precincts don't start reporting there isn't some major surprise, something totally unforeseen. for you just extrapolate from everything we had, bevan will get closer, he will eat into this. and the other thing is when it gets this close, everyone starts

asking you within 1% is there going to be a recount? kentucky law on this is there's no automatic trigger for a recount. any losing candidate can request a recount. they have to go to court for it, they have to go to a judge for it. a judge would then decide if there was going to be a recount. >> in terms of how these things ultimately get shook out, is there anything we should know in terms of fighting over the actual mechanics of voting? election board politicization, these sorts of fights potentially have an impact if this does become a knock-down-drag-out, particularly if it becomes a court battle. >> there's nothing that's jumped out today, and if bevan were to fall short, let's say if he were to fall short and decide to challenge this, it's unclear what the grounds would be he would cite. i haven't seen anything today that would obviously jump out. obviously lawyers are paid to come out, but i haven't seen

anything tonight that jumps out in that regard. this is an extremely high turn out. look at the numbers. if it ends up 1.4 million give or take the last gubernatorial election in kentucky 2015, 973,000. in the 2016 presidential election, 1.9 million. so you're right in between, presidential election and sort of off-year gubernatorial election, that's extremely high turn out. and we've been seeing that across the state today. >> if beshear does end up pulling out, a higher turn out gives -- >> as you asked that question grayson almost entirely came in. bevan 96% in. let's do the path that 2,698. we said 15, 14 was his margin in

2015. he could probably get that up to 2,800, 2,900. you see what that did to the overall lead statewide. 72%, 49%. one more will come out of grayson and then we'll get ballard where it was 322 votes last night. >> as all eyes are on ballard county and watching that last precinct let me ask you while i've got you about virginia tonight. last year they had a fascinating thing happen in terms of their state legislative races. what should we be watching for in virginia or what are you expressing? >> i'm going to press this graphic and see if it works. there was a vacancy, a democratic vacancy. it was essentially 51-49 in the house of delegates. either party doesn't want a tie. democrats needed to get a two seat gain out of the house of

delegates. nbc news is not characterizing individual state legislative races. we're sort of deferring to the associated press. the associated press right now with more to come has called one flip, one republican seat in the house of delegates going to the democrats. democrats need to end up with two. according to the associated press at this hour they have one on the state senate side. again, it's a 40 seat body. it's a republican vacancy so it's really 21-19. here the democrats just need a net gain of one. a lieutenant democrat would break the tie, sort of like the u.s. senate. and right now the associated press has called one flip republican to democrat. so right now democrats are where they need to be on the state senate side. >> although with the state senate in virginia there's always craziness. so in terms of people declaring themselves independents, we'll have to watch that closely. steve, i know you've got more math to do. right now i actually want to stick with this drama in

kentucky tonight. vaughn hilliard, the political reporter for nbc news and right now he's at andy beshear headquarters in kentucky. i know it is a bustling room behind you. what can you tell us about the mood there and what you're hearing from beshear's folk snz. >> good evening, rachel. as this evening is going on, you've got two different time zones. folks are watching the polls close one hour and seeing more results come in that next hour. and slowly over this while the room has been bubbling here. 99% of the precincts coming in. i've been talking with the campaign this evening has been going on. the area reporting there as steve was talking about was kentucky. this democratic party used to rein in kentucky and there was one name steve beshear, that would be the father of andy

beshear. what you see in those numbers so far -- >> vaughn, i never like to interrupt anybody for any reason, but we have a collin this race that andy beshear -- andy beshear according to nbc news is the apparent winner in kentucky. that is brand new declaration with 99% of the vote in, and a difference of 6,251 votes between the two candidates. vaughn, again i apologize to you for interrupting to you while you were talking to us but as this news filters out to people there i imagine things may go a little nuts. >> reporter: well, also we haven't got that announcement on stage yet, but i think this is going to spawn the conversation about this republican party today, rachel. earlier today i had the chance to talk with matt bevan. for anyone who listened to his

campaign speeches or listened to his tv speeches here it's been about donald trump, impeachment and donald trump. essentially he's tried to nationalize this race. as you look at andy beshear he talked about education, health care, and jobs. he went with that approach basically separating himself. there were no national damns that came to this state to campaign for andy beshear, rachel. but matt bevan earlier when i asked him why did you nationalize this race, and he said did you just come out of a rock, and i said you're not running for the house of representatives for the senate, sir. and he said the people here care about donald trump. he is going to campaign and talk about donald trump. and what you're seeing here is essentially a 30 point swing, rachel. this is place donald trump won in 2016 by 30 percentage points. to put that in perspective go back to the mid-terms. if you look through some of that

voter data there, essentially 5% of voters that voted in the 2018 election, about 5% as trump voters as you would call them ended up voting for house democrats. in kentucky, a state where mitch mcconnell was on the ballot last year, and you're talking about a 30 point swing, this is enormous. and i mention mitch mcconnell because there's a lot of talk about democrats here about what this election would mean. and mitch mcconnell's approval numbers were about the same level as matt bevan here. matt bevan is somebody who as i mentioned tied himself to donald trump, speaks like donald trump. i just want to mention one conversation. in with suzy campbell, i talked to her last year. she's a grain farmer out in spencer county. i called her up. she voted for donald trump in 2016 merchandise she also voted for matt bevan in 2015. i called her up and said what are you going to do tomorrow? and she said i'm going to go to the polls and vote for

democrats. she said andy beshear had tied himself too much to the president and said he was a bully, he's not talking about issues. and when you're looking at across the state here the northern kentucky area, those suburbs around cincinnati where you saw 10' point swings and not only 10-point swings but also voter turn out about 150% from what they were back in those 2015 numbers, rachel. >> those turn out numbers are going to be a huge part of the story. also those dynamics in terms of the national things at play or not at play. great reporting, political reporter at andy beshear headquarters. ycht to reiterate we have just had a collin this race. nbc news is declaring the apparent winner of the kentucky governor's race is the democrat in the race, andy beshear, upsetting matt bevan, the incumbent republican governor of kentucky.

the thing to keep in mind about kentucky not just it is a red state but a state that went for donald trump by 30 points. president trump in kentucky as recently as last night throwing the full weight of his presidency behind incumbent republican governor matt bevan who appears today to have been ousted. again, nbc declaring andy beshear the democrat to be the apparent winner of the governor's race. tell us what else we have learned. >> we said we were waiting on those two counties. this is what finally triggered the call, i believe. ballard the final outstanding county came in. you see bevan wins and wins it by about a thousand votes. obviously nowhere near what he needed to turn this around. about a 6,200 vote margin here for beshear. one point i want to emphasize because i think to me in addition to the high turn out it's the story of the night,

it's sort of an extension of the national story we've been telling. we certainly saw this in 2018 in the mid-term elections, the suburbs -- the suburbs moving away from the party of donald trump towards the democratic party. yes, that's a story in kentucky as well, and it's a story right here. these three counties in northern kentucky, you see them kind of jutting outright here. those counties actually make up about 10% of the population of the state of kentucky. cincinnati right across the river there. these are traditionally republican areas and they swung farther than just about anything i saw on the map tonight. bevan does win boone county, 56% of the vote. this was the first sign tonight bevan was in trouble. because in a county this size, he needs a big number. he got 66% last time. donald trump got 68% of the vote here in 2016. tonight down to 56% there for matt bevan in boone county.

go next door to kenton county. here's the 2016 result. trump got 60% of the vote here. bevan when he ran a couple of years ago wasn't far behind. you go one more after that, campbell county right next door. again, a solid beshear win. you can see trump by 25 points in 2016, and bevan himself won this by double digits when he ran in 2015. so these were the biggest shifts we saw, and not just shifts in terms of the percentages changing, keep in mind these are high population areas and if you're matt bevan and losing that kind of ground in a densely populated region that accounts for 10% of the state, it goes as far as anything else i can think of to tell you why that number turned out like it did. >> steve, let me just ask you stepping back from the mouth of this a little bit, i think vaughn also raised an important question about the senate

majority leader mitch mcconnell who's facing probably one of it stronger challenges he's ever faced in his senate career next year. obviously every race is specific. matt bevans is a specific incumbent. and the winds in the country may be blowing differently than they are tonight. but do you think it's fair for people to start extrapolating from these results tonight to think about what mitch mcconnell may be up against. >> i'd be cautious. if you're mitch mcconnell you're not happy with what you're seeing tonight. if you're mitch mcconnell and you look at the poll numbers and think also of the standing bevan h had, you might be nervous too. the thing mcconnell has going for him, i think you have to keep in mind number one it will be a presidential election year. trump won this by 30 points last time. the other thing is you go down ballot in kentucky tonight, the

result is looking a bit more different, more favorable to republicans. so i think what you'll hear from mcconnell's side is still a trump state. you'll have trump on the ballot next year, and there were specific problems with bevin that made him one of the least popular governor offense the country. sometimes voters distinguish those. so you still would look at mcconnell and you'd say running in kentucky he's probably more favored than underdog. but, yeah, you see a result like that. >> it's a statewide race. >> make you a little nervous. >> i know we've got a lot more to cover over the course of the night as we keep watching results come in. we're going to get in a quick break right now just because i actually want to go back to kentucky after the break. we are covering this breaking news, developing political news just fascinating. nbc news has declared the apparent winner is democrat andy

beshear upset and ousting incumbent governor matt bevin. it's a close race. nbc has made their call of an apparent winner in this race. we'll be back with more from kentucky, and also watching the mississippi governor's race and what's turning out to be a fascinating race to control the state legislator. among other elections were watching tonight. stay with us. lots to come. watching tonight stay with us lots to come and right now, t-mobile has the best deal on iphone. get 4 lines of unlimited with 4 iphone 11 included for only $35 a line. all on a signal that goes farther than ever before. that's right. get 4 unlimited lines and 4 iphone 11 for $35 a line. only at t-mobile. (mom vo) it's easy to shrink into your own little world.

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if you lose, they're going to say trump suffered the greatest defeat in the history of the world. this was the greatest. you can't let that happen to me. >> that just happened to you. that was president trump speaking last night in kentucky where he was campaigning for incumbent republican governor matt bevin. andy beshear is the apparent winner of the kentucky governor's race which would mean

he's both upset and ousted an incumbent governor in that state. president trump won by 20 points in 2016. it was his fifth best state after only west virginia, oklahoma and north dakota. he won by more than 30 points tonight after he won pulling for the republican candidate there, and the candidate seems to have lost. thank you for joining us tonight. i appreciate you making time. so nbc news is calling andy beshear the apparent winner. i have to ask you how much of a surprise that is covering politics up close and this election in particular? >> i have to say i was surprised. i expected andy beshear to do

better than any of the other candidates. but it turns out the antipathy for governor matt bevin which is so strong that not even donald trump himself could come in -- in fact it was one of the worst counties for bevin in the election. he was blown out -- where democrats are heavily in those cities. >> you're saying the president visiting those cities on matt bevin's behalf might have actually energized the other side? >> yes, i would say so. it motivated democrats and i should note that governor bevin is an atypical kind of candidate. he's very brash. in 2015 he won and before trump

in 2015 when he won -- when trump won in 2016 for kentuckiens it was very familiar because bevin acts very similar to trump, very bombastic and doesn't apologize for it, and it turns out altogether they swept -- matt bevin couldn't survive. >> joe sonka, political reporter for the louisville journal joining us tonight. i know there's going to be more the come but thanks for joining us. while it was talking to joe sona, we got is more news. the associated press has just made an interesting collin

virginia. we've been talking earlier about how virginia always has off-year elections that every seat in the statehouse and every seat in the state senate were up tonight. just two years ago in virginia we saw an incredible turn out of democratic voters, democrats in the statehouse, for example, received 200,000 more votes than the republicans they were running against. nevertheless, the state was so jer jerry mandered the republicans ended up in both houses of the state legislator. the associated press has declared the democratic party has gained control of the virginia state senate. we are still watching the house to see if democrats will also be able to flip the house. can we bring steve in on this or are we going to take a break and bring in steve? we'll take a quick break and have steve kornacki look at this. you should know in virginia, though, this has potentially huge policy implication in the state because democrats right now already hold the big

statewide offices in virginia, governor, lieutenant governor, ag, those things. they have not controlled the legislator. virginia republicans have had narrow control of both the house and senate. if the democrats are able to flip both houses of the legislator in particular, again the ap saying they've already got the senate, that would put the democratic party in control of every major statewide office and state legislator in virginia. that would have huge implications in terms of policymaking in the state whether or not people still consider virginia a purple state. ap is calling the virginia senate for the democratic party. we're waiting on the news out of the house in virginia. it's turning out to be an interesting off-year night for democrats. again with the news we continue to cover out of kentucky that the democratic challenger has taken the governorship from republican matt bevin in kentucky even as kentucky republicans were able to hold on

or take some other statewide races in that state. we'll be back with the latest from virginia and more. stay with us. latest from virginia and more stay with us ♪ (dramatic orchestra) performance comes in lots of flavors. there's the amped-up, over-tuned, feeding-frenzy-of sheet-metal-kind. and then there's performance that just leaves you feeling better as a result. that's the kind lincoln's about. ♪ i need all the breaks as athat i can get.or, at liberty butchemel... cut. liberty mu... line? cut. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance

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president trump of course won by 30 points in 2016. now, in virginia the significance here is sort of more than just the state legislator. virginia democrats control the big statewide offices in virginia already. but it has been the republican party that has narrowly held both houses of had legislator while democrats have controlled the governorship and other statewide seats. well, one of those two houses, the state senate has now flipped to democratic control according to the associated press just moments ago. we're still awaiting more results rights now to see if democrats might also have a shot at flipping the house as well. if they're able to do that, that would give the democratic party complete control of the state government in virginia for what i believe would be the first time in a quarter century. joining us once again is steve kornacki. steve, tell me what i need to know about virginia. >> we just got another call from the ap. i can show you two parts to this. starting in the house of delegates coming into tonight

51-48, there was a vacancy. so essentially 51-49 coming into tonight. what was just called in the last minute on the house side, right now the ap says democrats have flipped three seats, a net of three seats on the house of delegates side. remember they needed two or more. right now they're exceeding the number. they're hitting their number basically. there are still -- i want to get the exact number here -- there are 19 races in the house of delegates that have not been called by the associated press. so there are still 19 outstanding. but right now the current net gain for democrats is 3. they need to end the night at 2 or more to control that. on the senate side the net gain they have is 2 for the democrats. again, this was a vacant republican seat. this basically pushed the democrats, as you see that puts them -- excuse me, that was 2019. i knew that number was wrong. it was 21-19 that essentially puts the democrats in control there. if this holds and this has been

called as you say complete control for democrats, and just the bigger picture in all of tis, just think of the change in the state of virginia and how that has accelerated recently. look at this. this is the every presidential election result going back to '68. we used to call virginia a safely red state. all these years republicans winning the state. it changed with barack obama in o2008. i remember i was down in virginia, election day 2012, it was a big swing state that year. it was right on the national margin. it is moving from swing state to blue state status and certainly having dmz emocrats in control the governor would really solidify that reputation as a state, not really even a swing state anymore maybe. >> let's go back to that issue of the house and senate races. what you described there in terms of the number of seats that have flipped already, according to the ap that has flipped to democratic control.

in the house you said there's been three seats already -- >> correct. >> that have flipped to democratic control. and what that means with 19 seats still to be called, if none of them flipped, if they stayed in partisan terms what they are now, that would be more than enough for democrats to take the house as well? >> yes. if they stay the same, democrats get the house. if republicans pick up, that would knock down to 2 for the democrats, still enough because you need two or more if you're a democrat to get control of this. so really in what is outstanding on the house side, those 19 seats, republicans in that pool of 19 need a net gain of 2. you could look at it that way. a net gain of two in those remaining 19 if this made sense would knock the net gain for the night down to one, which wouldn't be enough. democrats if they end up at 2 or more here, they've got control. >> we're watching associated press tallies on the seats as they come in. but right now the senate is

cooked -- >> democrats are up there in the house. >> it's going to boony exciting night still to come. there's lots going on, politics and other news and i actually have no idea what we're going to do after the break. let's see. we'll be right back. do after the break let's see. we'll be right back. pain happens. aleve it. with aleve pm. the only one to combine a safe sleep aid. and the 12-hour pain relieving strength of aleve. so...magic mornings happen. there's a better choice. aleve pm.

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in the midst of all the other things that are happening right now including tonight in the news, this is the main banner headline right now at the front page of "the new york

times." quote, key witness revises testimony, citing quid pro quo with ukraine. sondland says he told ukrainians aid was held up over inquiry demand. gordon sondland, the envoy to the european union said he told the ukrainians they needed to comply with investigative requests by rudy giuliani. here's the companion piece in "the washington post" tonight. quote, with revised testimony sondland ties trump to quid pro quo. in a supplementing declaration to his earlier testimony, the ambassador to the eu said that aid was linked to the opening of an investigation that could damage 2020 presidential candidate joe biden. just in case there wasn't enough going on in your news night, joining us here on set now is eric swalwell. sir, nice to have you here. thanks for being here. >> of course. >> first of all one of the things we're covering tonight is this sort of surprising electoral news the democrat nbc news projects is the apparent

winner in the kentucky governors race. it appears democrats have taken at least partial control of the legislator in virginia. as a democrat and someone who was recently running for your party's presidential nomination, that has to be good news to you. >> it's exciting am. i think it started in 2017 after trump was elected. we go to alabama and pick up seats -- dug jones -- and we pick up seats in the midwest, iowa, texas. and to make it really hyperlocal i just learned my wife's hometown, hometown of vice president mike pence, their city candidate just went majority democratic. i think a lot of these issues are local, and we can't read too much into what impeachment means for these places. in kentucky, for example, the governor there, governor bevin was working overtime to reverse the affordable care act, and that was on ballot there and kentuckians like the apparent

winner tonight his father had worked to put kentuckians on the affordable care map. >> campaigns matter, local elections matter. and off-year elections i think it's easy to extrapolate from them when you're in favor of the results and easy to write them off if they're not. >> yes, wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania, those are going to be important. but look everywhere. there's opportunities everywhere. >> let me ask you about the impeachment proceedings right now. obviously it's factoring into -- at some level factoring into every race in the country. it also still appears to me in its early stages while it's also moving fast. how quickly do you expect we're going to be moving into the public hearings part of this? >> we're moving expeditiously. and i think it shows there's enough evidence to have public hearings. we want to do that as soon as possible. we have john bolton and mick mulvaney supposedly coming in this week.

they've been asked to come in and we're kind of getting to at least on the end of this ukraine shakedown, who's relevant. if they don't come in, we're not going to do what we did earlier this year, go to the courts, fight their resistance. we're just going to file that away as one a consciousness of guilt. if the white house thought those witnesses would help them, they would let them kpl in. and two they're defying a lawful subpoena and the president telling them to defy a lawful subpoena is something that should be an article for congress. >> you have spoken about the legitimacy, appropriateness, even the wisdom of starting with these behind closed door depositions. you've made the points specifically that witnesses shouldn't have the opportunity to basically line their stories up with each other, to tell each other how they want each other to testify to make sure their stories line up. do you think that's been effective? >> yes, but we've seen efforts by witnesses to still get around

that. as prosecutor, i learned you want to have a close hold in an investigation to keep the integrity of the investigation. otherwise the facts get out in the public that could compromise whether a witness really knows something or heard it from someone else, or they're trying to manufacture an alibi. here in ambassador sondland's testimony you see the night before he testified to us he's on the phone with rick perry. >> about the events in question. >> yes, about the events in question. and a couple days after that rick perry gives an interview with "the wall street journal." republicans are also leaking parts selectively of kirk volker's testimony in the days leading up. and that's what we want to protect against. >> ambassador sondland's testimony came with a remarkable addendum, that just yesterday he changed his story on one of the main questions at the heart of

this. he came in and told you -- as far as i can tell you he came in and told you a couple of weeks ago basically, yeah, there was a quid pro quo of there being a white house meeting for the new ukrainian president, he wasn't going to get that unless they pursued these investigations. when it comes to military aid, no i'd never be involved in that. now he's admitting yes there was a quid pro quo for military aid and he was involved in it. >> and ambassador sondland told him everything's on the table, it's not only the meeting at the white house, also the military assistance. and rachel, if all the president did was ask the president of ukraine to investigate his political opponent, that would be an abuse of power, but he did much worse, he leveraged the white house meeting. and i have a different take on ambassador sondland where people are reeling beating him up for his original statement. and that's really for

prosecutors to determine what that means. but in investigations it's oftentimes the case that people will want to do the right thing and tell the truth. and i think it's important if other witnesses have not been truthful to us or not come in because they've been told not to do that, we should give them the space to do the right thing especially before these public hearings. >> let me ask you something that's kind of a part hypothetical about that. when i was looking at ambassador sondland's testimony today, particularly this revision, he still insists he has no idea why the military aid was withheld or who did it. at the same time your committee also released these 75 pages of text messages in which we see ambassador sondland being directly informed by bill taylor that omb was holding up the military aid per the president. >> that's right. >> and so he's still telling you as of today i don't know who did it with withholding the military aid. we can see him respond in realtime on his phone to being

told that the president was doing that. he responds to that i'm all over it as if i'll work on it. if it turns out that these witnesses are lying to you, even if they're not trying to but they are lying to, shouldn't they expect there will be some consequences for that for them not just in terms of how it playse paper, i feel like with some nuances like gordon sondland saying i have no idea who did that or why, it doesn't seem that believable to me -- with those nuances set aside it does seem all these witnesses, state department, national security council, former officials, current officials are all telling the same story of rudy giuliani leading an effort at the president's direction to get information that president trump thought he could use against his political opponents. and yeah, it was a request but there was also leverage behind in terms of white house meetings and in terms of military aid. i feel that story now that we understand it, i do neal like every witness we know you've heard, has backed that up.

has any of them contradicted the core narrative? >> no, all the arrows point in the same direction. i do think it's important that we focus on the president's conduct because we have two sharp straight lines now from the president to rudy giuliani and the president to ambassador sondland where he is saying that for the ukrainians to get this aid and the white house meeting, they have to investigate the political opponent. and focusing on his conduct and understanding that rudy giuliani is the president's lawyer and lawyers don't act outside the interests of their clients, that those two are connected. >> yeah, that this is -- >> you can't separate them. >> nobody was freelancing here. that this was all being directed by the president and it's a pretty simple and now very understandable scheme. >> evidence will be tested. that's important. evidence is not a conclusion but we have enough evidence certainly to bring this forward publicly. >> congressman eric swalwell,

it's great to have you here. i have to say i enjoyed your presidential run, but you seem healthier and happier. >> i'm very happy. >> we'll be right back. stay with us. ery happy. >> we'll be right back stay with us great riches will find you when liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. wow. thanks, zoltar. how can i ever repay you? maybe you could free zoltar? thanks, lady. taxi! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ performance comes in lots of flavors. ♪ (dramatic orchestra) there's the amped-up, over-tuned, feeding-frenzy-of sheet-metal-kind. and then there's performance that just leaves you feeling better as a result.

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nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for all-day all-night protection. can you imagine 24-hours without heartburn? get a good night's sleep, you're going to need it. the roger stone trial expected to get under way in earnest tomorrow. the president's long time advisor is charged with lying to congress and witness tampering. today was jury selection and even that was a lot, somebody in the courtroom collapsing, a person, a pespectator to be oka. and roger himself collapsing after claiming he had food poisoning. and offering stone imodium. opening statements set to start some time tomorrow. but if today was any indication, this is going to be coo coo for

cocoa puffs. there's still election results coming in. for now though it's the "last word" with lawrence o'donnell. >> we have the big results in kentucky where according to the republican party their view of the case in kentuc