trump. >> all right. on monday it was all about trump. you could hear him. he said it's all on me. you can't do this to me. you can't do this to me, and then, oh, my goodness, they did it, and don jr. says it has nothing to do with donald trump, the president. really? okay. good morning, and welcome to "morning joe." it is wednesday, november 6th. along with joe, willie and me, we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle, national political correspondent for nbc news and msnbc and author of "the red and the blue" steve kornacki with the maps today. columnist and associate editor for "the washington post," david ignatius joins us and nbc news correspondent heidi przybyla joins us now. >> they're two stories that for people who are just stupid enough to like watching dogs

chase their tails. do we have two stories for you? you saw the first. don jr. saying this had nothing to do with donald trump, and donald trump the night before saying you have to do this for me, basically saying this is all about me. this is all about trump. bevin has to win or if he doesn't this will be the biggest loss in the history of american politics. >> bevin campaigned on trump's name. >> and another we're going to be talking about, our second story -- >> excuse me in a state that trump won. >> oh, by 30 points. >> wow. >> so you'd think he'd had all the momentum. >> we're going to get to what happened again in the suburbs, in the cincinnati suburbs, which, again, once again shows that donald trump is toxic. the second story this morning more dog chasing tail as you actually had lindsey graham a month ago going, well, i suppose if they showed quid pro quo,

well, then that would be really, really serious. >> yeah, we'll deal with it. >> and so sondland yesterday came out in a shocking -- this is a shocking development basically turns -- we're going to show you how that moved forward, and now lindsey graham, what is he saying? he's not even pretending to be an honest man or a fair dealer. i'm just not paying attention to it no more. i'm just shutting my brain down. i'm just going to stop. >> and nor will fox news. they won't kor cover it. what the heck. >> a couple of prime time shows refused to cover it. >> just stayed away from it. >> two huge stories. it gets old saying this was the worst day of the trump presidency. i don't know that this was the worst day of the trump presidency, but the sondland testimony, willie, was absolutely devastating and losing the reddest of red state

devastating, and watching all of the red bleed out of virginia. so now it is a completely blue state again after a trump plea to vote for republicans there. i mean, this president had three huge strikes against him yesterday. >> yeah, he did. we know it's a huge mortganing because steve kornacki is here. matt bevin very unpopular governor. the entire impetus of his campaign is he is like donald trump. donald trump of course came in on monday night and made that speech. donald trump last night after the results came in and matt bevin lost said, well, he lost, but he picked up 15 points just in the last few days after i started talking about him. that's not true of course, but you know that. he was a trump candidate. he did get routed in the suburbs of cincinnati and even started to lose some of these rural counties that trump swept up

when he won kentucky by 30 points, donald trump won by 30 points in 2016. donald trump can't run away from this. republicans cannot run away from the fact that a donald trump backed candidate probably lost. he has not conceded yet but probably lost the governorship in a state that president trump won again by 30 points. >> you know, yes, he was an unpopular governor, but unpopular governors and senators lose all the time and win all the time. in this case, though, just looking at the specifics here what has to be especially difficult for donald trump this morning and for all republicans, they have to -- here's the thing, before donald trump went to kentucky on that last night and had those stupid shirts that said read the transcript printed up. by the way, which of course the document he was talking to said up top this is not a transcript. the stupidity. it's really shocking, and we're sitting there how do people get

away with that? they don't. here's the thing, they don't get away with it. he doesn't get away with it. he's going to be impeached. his party lost the biggest landslide vote lost in the history of the united states republican 2018 for following him blindly. and then bevin, get this, oh, so unpopular. this had nothing -- bevin was ahead by 5 percentage points in the polls before donald trump came to the state, before donald trump -- donald trump cost him 5 1/2, 6 percentage points by that one rally. think about it, if you're donald trump you're waking up this morning and you know donald, donald come here. get a little closer. >> he likes to say he doesn't watch. >> but he's watching.

donald. >> i know. >> bevin was ahead, son. he was ahead by five points before you went to kentucky. right? look at this. >> messed it all up. >> donald, look at that. i know you don't like reading, donald, but look. that stands for republican. he had 52% before you went and did that rally for him, and he got those poor folks wearing that shirt that said read the transcript when the piece of paper itself said this is not a transcript. donald, this is not working for you. you should just stay home and watch like those cage fuights, right? sit down, drink some tang, the drink of the astronauts and maybe have some coffee, stir it up. this is what happened after you showed up in kentucky. donald, my friend, you lost the

state for republicans. >> poor guy. lost his race. >> they said of bill clinton in 1994 that some candidates were thinking about putting antiaircraft guns up along state borders to keep his plane from coming into town to campaign for him. it was a joke, but it's pretty dark humor now for republicans. donald, he was ahead by five points and then you went there and he lost because of you. >> i think he get it is. >> god dang that's hard. >> can you believe that? >> republicans will watch these developments. >> can you believe that? >> yes, i can. >> it's the reverse midas touch. >> all right, so we'll talk more reverse midas touch in just a moment. >> that's tough. >> as well as that major development in the impeachment push as trump donor turned ambassador gordon sondland changes his testimony and says actually the message to ukraine

did involve -- it did involve a quid pro quo. he was involved with it. >> donald, this is a bad development. >> that's also bad news. >> you could just go to a channel that doesn't cover it most of the time. here we will. >> he likes that or network right? >> more on the two big results in yesterday's elections with potentially big implications for next year's presidential race. in the governor's race in kentucky nbc news projects the state's democratic attorney general andy beshear is the apparent winner and will unseat republican governor matt berch. >> you already explained this. >> little known fact, mad bevin was ahead by five percentage points before donald trump went there. >> willie, help me out here. >> matt bevin who aligned himself closely president trump and who framed the race as a referendum on trump and the issue of impeachment,

interesting, the race was close separated by about 5,000 votes, a difference of less than half a percentage in a state that trump carried. yes, we mentioned this, but it's worth mentioning again by 30 points. bevin was the only republican running statewide to lose in kentucky last night. he is currently refusing to concede the race. >> let's talk about this. we at the virginia legislature. >> it's a good one. >> it is. >> in kentucky i -- >> you can't get over kentucky. >> i'm just absolutely shocked. >> well, it happens. >> donald trump lost five percentage points in one day. so let's talk about it steve kornacki really quickly. obviously it wasn't just that donald trump and his candidate performed poorly in the cities and in the suburbs. they didn't run up the totals even in some rural counties that

they had -- you know, that the republican gubernatorial candidate had run up four years ago. it was mainly those suburbs, those campbell and the suburbs up around cincinnati, wasn't it, that really changed? >> yeah, they did. i mean, look, when you have a democrat winning in kentucky and the margin is 4/10 of one point, it sort of ends up being a perfect storm and everything that needed to go right if the democrats went right for them. it was the first sign last night that bevin really was in trouble. if you look at a map of kentucky, the northern group of three counties that kind of juts out. cincinnati's on the other side of the ohio river. these are the cincinnati suburbs. in each one of those counties relative to what he did four years ago when he got elected governor, bevin was ten-plus points behind that pace, and he was also ten-plus points behind the pace that donald trump set when he won in 2016.

so that was significant movement, pretty large in terms of population part of the states, about 10% of the state's population is just in those three counties. that was a major problem getting really just monster turnout, monster numbers out of louisville and lexington, the two sort of democratic parts of the state. that was key. there were, if you look really in the eastern part of the state, the eastern side of kentucky, rural, blue collar, you saw a bunch of blue counties there, and a bunch of red counties where it was close. that's a major reversal from what happened in 2016. it's a fascinating story in that part of kentucky. what you have there, if you look on paper in rural eastern kentucky. there are still more registered democrats than republicans. it's just incest ral democratic is the term you'd use. their father was a democrat, they're a democrat, but they voted big for donald trump in 2016. they're culturally conservative,

and the hope of sending trump in for that rally in part was in places like that where they still have old time ties to the democratic party but the voters really like donald trump in 2016, that you bring trump in there and then those counties perform for bevin like they did for trump or something like that. that's where it fell short as well. >> steve, you talked about turnout. it's estimated 1.4 million, that's 400,000 more people turning out than the last fw gubernatorial election in 2015. let's talk about the trump effect on this race. obviously he's running for the hills. don jr. running the hills. donald trump said he made a 15 to 20 point difference in this race. that's of course true. his rhetoric on the trail, his ads, how much was this race about president trump? >> to the extent he could. bevin could read the same polls

we could. his approval rating was measured at 34%. the pollster, they do every state, all 50 states. he clocked in as the second least popular governor in america when they took that poll at 34, 54. he had all sorts of controversies around teachers, around medicaid expansion. there were a lot of issues with bevin before this race that made him extremely vulnerable. he saw tying himself to trump and trump's popularity in kentucky as his only chance to defy that. there was a lot of baggage weighing him do. >> we want to go to louisville, kentucky. vaughn hillyard is there. good morning, the city where you're standing, perhaps the suburbs there, kentucky suburbs of cincinnati and louisville as well, made all the difference in this race last night. >> reporter: exactly. let's look at those two personalities of these actual individuals running this race. you have matt bevin, the republican incumbent who is known as a rather brash

individual. many votered wou ers would call bully and talking to folks is the fact of what he said about teachers. during the debate over pension reforms he called them selfish. accused them of throwing temper tantrums. everybody knows a teacher, and that seemed to really percolate not only in the suburbs but across these rural areas, and then you've got andy beshear, the son of the former governor of the state, a much more soft spoken man. i talked to him yesterday, up until the polls closed he was talking about jobs, health care, education, pension reform, and so i asked matt bechk who predicted a 6 to 10 point victory, i asked him, why did he nationalize this race? if you watch the televisions it was all about donald trump, donald trump, and impeachment. i put that question directly to him yesterday. this is what he told me. >> why nationalize this race so much and talk about president trump so much?

>> i don't know if you -- do you watch the news? >> oh, 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 in the last two, three, four five years? >> you're running for governor of kentucky. >> exactly. i am. >> 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 come out from under a rock. 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. >> nice guy. >> reporter: that back and forth went on for a little while. i asked him, you're not running for the house of representatives. you're not running for the senate. just trying to get clarification how you can help president trump and you clearly understood by what he said politically, this is a place donald trump won by 30 percentage points. not only is it the suburbs but

also i think what steve was talking about eastern kentucky, this is a largely rural area, coal country, an area that is looking for jobs and talking with the campaign of andy beshear where they told me it was that part of kentucky, it was that little incremental crunching of those margins in that eastern part of the state that ultimately saved them, put them in this race and gave them the victory here this morning. >> we saw in the interview some of the charm that got him a 34% approval rating. >> vaughn hillyard, thanks so much. we should point out that governor bevin has not conceded the race. the attorney general in kentucky, the democrat, she says beshear has won the race. the senate president who is a republican says we might staten island -- decide this. this thing is still up for grabs. right now by 5,000 votes, andy beshear is the governor-elect. >> you did see the campaigning

charms he shares with donald trump and why he really was trying to focus in, and again, just being difficult, rude, insulting, very trump like. >> and for the first time in more than two decades, democrats in virginia have taken control of the state house. >> do you all like the color blue? i said do you like the color blue? because i'm here to officially declare today, november the 5th, 2019 that virginia is officially blue, congratulations! >> amazing, thanks to unusually high turnout especially in virginia's suburbs. >> there we go, the suburbs again. >> yesterday marked the third election in a row in which democrats made significant gains since president trump was elected. before trump was elected, republicans held a 66 to 34 majority in virginia's state legislature. >> before trump was elected they

had an almost 2-1 margin, republicans did over democrats in virginia, and now they're in the minority. that's breathtaking. >> the sweeping victory will give virginia democrats control of the legislature and governorship for the first time in 26 years. that's incredible. >> david ignatius, you know a little bit about virginia and virginia politics. what a dramatic change. a state that was on the state level the legislature especially just one of the reddest in america, it's taken three years of donald trump and his policies to reverse that, and now democrats firmly in control of everything that moves in the commonwealth state. >> i think virginia is a combination of donald trump who just really is not the candidate of the new suburban tech centered virginia, and this

virginia result also shows demographic changes. virginia's a very different state from the place that mika grew up in, was across the river from where i grew up in. it's a state that really has benefitted from the tech boom t. you don't think of virginia as a silicon valley spinoff but in many ways it. i can't help but think looking at these results tonight, another few years we're going to be looking at a blue texas, the same process of economic growth, we're going to have a very different texas. you can go around the country and look at places that have been traditionally solid republican that i think are in the process of change. the virginia result is overwh m overwhelming, and it shows something's going on for a while. here it is tonight or today. >> yeah. for sure. >> you know, there was of course that terrible mass shooting in el paso where that paranoid mass shooter focused on immigrants

coming in to texas from mexico as being the reason why texas was changing. you also have some republican ka candidates and republican leaders fearful of those demographic changes, but texas is changing. it's like virginia in the suburb. you look at so many of the suburban seats in dallas and other areas that went from red to blue, that's really as we go into 2020, if you're a republican, that's where you really have to be concerned, in florida along the i-4 corridor, in virginia of course the suburbs of d.c. you go up to philadelphia, the suburbs of philly. mike barnicle, you look around the suburbs of detroit. you look at all of -- you look at these suburbs, and republicans are just bleeding support because of donald trump. >> joe, there's no doubt about it, and you know, the kentucky story is big. about that, but

the virginia story is huge. you control the state legislature, democratic governor, democratic legislature, they can move on things like gun laws, on redistricting on health care. so if you're a republican strategist looking at last night measuring last night's results, looking forward to a year from now, your next year's election, the canary in the coal mine, if you're a republican strategist, can you tell your clients got to watch out because the canary is dead? >> i mean, look, it tells you in the suburbs, a traditional republican strategy, sort of a pre-trump republican strategy of relying on those suburbs, those sort of more upscale college educated suburbs, to allow republicans to stay in the game, you need a new strategy. the strategy i think that trump is trying here is to drive up support from non-college white voters. to drive up support from rural

areas, to drive up support from voters who didn't participate in 2018, didn't participate in 2016, and to sort of add them to the republican coalition to undo the losses in these suburban areas. the cautionary note in 2016 there was that famous quote, i think it was chuck schumer a couple of weeks before the election. they looked at pennsylvania and he was basically asked what about that strength in western pennsylvania, the rural part of the state, and schumer's answer was for every vote we lose they were going to get two more in the suburbs. there was enough strong rural support to give trump pennsylvania in 2016. has there been further movement in the suburbs since then? has there been further mobilization? i think that's the story for 2020. >> all right, so heidi przybyla, what are you looking at? one of the things it's hard not to notice the shifts that are happening here given these elections. you wonder if republicans might start changing their tune because isn't this the missing

link when they go back home and face their constituents? >> given that this has been such a dramatic shift like joe outlined, you have to wonder how republicans are going to respond in these swing states. kentucky was really special just because in the last election in 2018 we saw all these suburban moves primarily in mid-atlantic and coastal states, but kentucky is like deep red trump country. but my home state of virginia, i just want to underscore, there were really two dynamics at play hear. first is the suburban shift you are all speaking of. the perfect example of that is fairfax county, which is one of these counties that used to go republican a lot. it would switch back and forth, and now there's not a single republican representative there. it is a clean sweep. secondly is the role of gerrymandering. there was a court ordered redistricting of packed

gerrymandered districts around the tide water region where republicans had drawn the maps to kind of pack african-americans, and this is one of these court rulings that have been successful for democrats so they were operating under a different map there. the truth is that republicans haven't won statewide here since 2009, but you see here the role that gerrymandering has played in allowing republicans to maintain control at the state level despite the fact that those overall numbers of support are not there for them. so those demographics are definitely catching up, and to mike barnicle's point, this is going to have huge ramifications on a policy level in terms of gun control, the minimum wage, and then secondly with that big 2020 redistricting around the census. >> i think it's very important to remember that the nra lobbyists, the three lobbyists for the nra who of course are mired in a lot of investigations

right now and charges of corruption, they're based out of virginia, and virginia governors, virginia lieutenant governors, virginia attorney generals, virginia legislators have been running for rational gun safety laws whether it's background checks or whether it's the banning of military style semiautomatic assault weapons. they've been doing that, and they have been winning. at the home, again, of nras national lobbying force where their three lobbyists are who are mired in just unbelievable corruption charges. but steve kornacki, you know, we took note several times after president obama left office that the democrats' biggest problem at the time wasn't just the loss of the presidency, it was the hundreds and hundreds of state legislative seats and congressional seats that were lost during barack obama's eight

years. what we've seen over the past three years is a complete reversal. donald trump appears to be responsible for an equally dramatic loss of republican seats, and he's giving democrats statewide across the nation pretty extraordinary opportunities here and really did the same thing in the house of representatives last year, which again, we can't underline it enough. the greatest landslide loss for republicans in terms of vote totals in the history of our republic. >> one of the things we've learned, i think, in modern politics, there is nothing better in some ways for a political party than losing the white house. going into opposition. i mean, we've seen this time and again. you go back to the 1990s bill clinton becomes president, democrats get complete control of washington. two years later republicans get the republican revolution, massive gains that had eluded them for decades, george w. bush

becomes president. in the 9/11 election in 2002 it was good for republicans but in 2006 complete total white house, by the time bush is leaving office, total low ebb for republicans. barack obama comes in, magically republicans have a massive midterm 63-seat gain in 2010, tough years for democrats when obama's president outside of the presidency, and then of course trump comes in and boom, 2018 the democrats come back to life and you get all sorts of results like we're talking about in kentucky last night. it's been very hard for my party to get power in washington, to get the white house, to get the house, to get the senate, to act on that power, and then to get rewarded by the public for their decisions they make. we haven't seen that piece of it basically at all. >> so let me ask you, steve, one final question. what's the one takeaway? what's the canary in the coal

mine for people looking at these results trying to predict 2020? what did you -- what was your big takeaway last night? >> my question was basically look, what can you look at in kentucky that you could potentially extrapolate nationally? that's why i thought those suburbs of cincinnati just jumped out at me. you think think of places like that in a lot of different states. when you look at those three counties where bevin was running way behind where donald trump ran in 2016, if you replicate that in other states, huge trouble for trump. i think it's a question. what you'd hear from republicans this morning, from trump folks this morning, hey, the other republican candidates who were on the ballot in kentucky, there were five other republican candidates who won yesterday, most of them convincingly didn't are those struggles in those three suburban counties, but bevin did. maybe it's not as dire as it seems this morning, but if something happened there with bevin that can be extrapolated

with trump in places like that around the country in 2020, that's a huge problem for donald trump. >> and by the way, also a huge problem, mika, for mitch mcconnell. moscow mitch as some of the kids are calling him now around lexington and louisville. moscow mitch has stuck for him. >> just said it one day. >> everybody's saying bevin has low approval ratings. his approval rating's almost double that of moscow mitch. moscow mitch has 18% approval rate in his home state. you look at that map and suddenly that race looks competitive. we need to put steve kornacki back in the austin powers style cryogenic egg msnbc has for him during elections so he can be rested for tonight. >> the energy's always there. he walked in 45 minutes asleep, he's got the sneakers on, always ready to go. that's the kornacki edge, the rage. >> it's the rage. >> the kornacki edge. >> i love it when he does

hardball except for the open. steve kornacki thank you so much. still ahead, there's another huge story this morning that we're actually -- we're not going to ignore it. >> it's massive. >> because you can't. >> a key witness in the impeachment -- >> unless you're state tv. >> impeachment inquiry completely rewrites his testimony, there are times this needs to be done. you need to reverse your testimony, maybe, i don't know, to avoid jail? >> stay out of jail. >> so he now admits there was a quid pro quo, member of the house intel committee. congressman shawn patrick maloney joins us next on "morning joe." we call it the mother standard of care.

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all right, so back in october the trump picked u.s. ambassador to the european union

gordon sondland, a wealthy trump donor turned diplomat outlined his opening statement to congressional investigators that he did not have any advanced knowledge of a scheme to use u.s. foreign policy to promote trump's political interests and that he was not aware that releasing foreign aid was conditional to ukraine launching the desired investigations. according to text messages turned over to congress by kurt volker, the state department's former special envoy for ukraine, sondland had said in an early september text message exchange with william taylor the top american diplomat in ukraine that the president had been clear there was no quid pro quo between the aid and investigations of the bidens. taylor had said that it was crazy the aid was being withheld for help with a political campai campaign. sondland called trump after a career u.s. official in kiev

rang the alarm about trump allegedly leveraging military aid for political favors from ukraine. that call occurred within a roughly five-hour gap between a text from taylor after which sondland instructed taylor to stop putting his concerns in writing and to call secretary of state mike pompeo or a pompeo aide if he wanted to discuss the matter further. throughout his october testimony, sondland frequently said he could not recall key details and events under scrutiny by impeachment investigators. apparently all of that has now changed. yesterday sondland provided additional testimony to house impeachment investigators that updates his deposition from last month. in a sworn statement released yesterday, sondland says he now remembers telling a top aide to ukrainian president volodymyr zelensky that the country would not receive u.s. military assistance until it committed to

investigating the 2016 election and former vice president joe bid biden. in his updated testimony, sondland told congress that his memory was refreshed after reviewing the opening statements given by bill taylor and former adviser for russian and european affairs tim morrison. and that he now recalls telling the zelensky adviser, quote, that resumption of u.s. aid would likely not occur until ukraine provided the public anticorruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks. sondland said he believed withholding the aid was ill-advised but did not know when or why or by whom the aid was suspended and presumed that the aid suspension had become linked to the proposed anticorruption statement. once again, sondland's admission appears to directly contradict his testimony to investigators last month when he said he never thought there was any precondition on the aid and

peers intended to insulate him from accusations that he intentionally misled congress. according to a "washington post" analysis, there are now six public confirmations of a quid pro quo between the trump administration and ukraine, six, and i do not see a box there that includes the whistle-blower, which the white house is obsessed with at this point. and lindsey graham, he's got it all banked on the whistle-blower. he says, you know, you can't have this one source that you can't see and you don't know who the source is. look at these six people under oath. >> all the whistle-blower did was confirm -- or say what he had heard, and these people all firsthand. the fact they're still going after the whistle-blower, again, is asinine. >> these six are public confirmations. >> all public confirmations, so the only reason you would go after with these six out there the only reason you would go after the whistle-blower is nothing more than retribution,

and of course the fact that you have u.s. senators now calling for it publicly in political rallies, they're publicly calling for the breaking of american laws. think about that for a second. i love jonah goldberg's tweet this morning, and he says this, until we hear from the shepherd who found the dead sea scrolls and cross examine his motives for finding those dead sea scrolls, how can we trust what those scrolls have to say. which is really the idiotic position that donald trump, his white house, and republicans have put themselves into. but david ignatius, let's talk about just how dramatic this sondland switch was. he refreshed his recollection, which by the way, attorneys across the nation from time to time when they believe their

client is not telling the truth or perjuring themselves will ask if they can be excused and then refresh their client's recollection to keep them out of legal trouble. i suspect that perhaps it was sondland's wife or someone else who said, you know, being loyal to donald trump is one thing. going to jail is another. you may want to call michael cohen and see where lying gets you. but the thing about sondland, david, his testimony is especially powerful because like john bolton, he is not a deep state player. he is the trumpiest of all trump supporters, hotelier who gave a million dollars to donald trump. he was rewarded this position. he ran around introducing himself as the ambassador to europe instead of the ambassador to the eu. he stepped on everybody's toes across western, central, and eastern europe coming in and demanding that he be recognized as the ambassador to europe, and

even lied for donald trump until yesterday, until we find out yesterday he did not. talk about the significance of this testimony and what it means for this whole ordeal. >> joe, as you say, gordon sondland was all in for the trump program in europe. he was a vocal self-confident, almost brash emissary. the fact that he decided to amend his testimony in a way that confirms the quid pro quo nature of the trump phone call with the new ukrainian president zelensky and the general threats of policy, i think just illustrates the way this case is firming up. you now have a series of people, your graphic just showed six people who publicly have endorsed this idea of a quid pro quo, but it goes beyond that. each new piece of testimony,

whether it's our current ambassador bill taylor who's in kiev, whether it's the former ambassador marie yovanovitch and her testimony, her really tragic testimony about how she was attacked, driven from office by donald trump with secretary of state pompeo, her boss doing nothing. whether it's the testimony of mckinley who was the senior adviser to pompeo who just finally walked out on him, said i resign. i can't abide this abandonment of a career official. one by one these pieces of testimony now interlock, and so it's not surprising that sondland knowing that this is now a serious legal matter, potential jeopardy for him, comes back and amends his testimony. one other thing we haven't noted in our summary, which is that as he watched this process, process he's in the middle of, he said it became more and more insidious over the months,

meaning it moved more and more towards this direct exchange, which he's describing looking at his testimony, i presume that aid suspension become linked. aid suspension means delivering weapons to these ukrainians who are desperately trying to fight the russians. aid suspension had become linked to the proposed anticorruption statement. that means the proposed statement attacking vice president biden and going back to 2016 issues. so here's the guy who was most pro-trump now really deciding to get well in terms of the narrative, changing where he stands, and i think it's a sign that the entire case now firms up, and the question we should all watch for is what's the next public phase? who will be the first public witnesses in this process? will john bolton testify? will mike pompeo testify? but that's what's ahead is the public phase taking these facts and then making them clearer to the public. >> let's bring into the

conversation a member of the house intelligence committee, democratic congressman shaean patrick maloney. good to have you with us. it's amazing how the process of perjury refreshes one's recollection. on one hand this sort of just confirms everything we've heard from a series of other witnesses. on the other hand as joe and david point out, this is someone who was a political appointee who gave a bunch of money to the president's political campaign who effectively has flipped here. what's the significance of this testimony? >> apparently a million dollars was enough for this ambassadorship, he didn't want to also pull a perjury charge. that price apparently is too high. look, once the testimony of all these other highly credible witnesses pointed in one direction ambassador sondland has now aligned himself with that really now undisputed version of what happened. this is the individual, by the way, who delivered in person to the key aide to the ukrainian

president quid pro quo. you're not getting anything from the dwhieunited states until yo issue a statement that explicitly, the negotiation was an explicit reference to burisma, the 2016 elections. that was the giuliani demand in those negotiations. you have the four corners of the quid pro quo. it will be interesting to watch the republicans move the goal post because that defense they set up has been detonated by ambassador sondland's change of heart. >> you mention republicans. i want to play the evolution of senator lindsey graham. he's not alone certainly, but perhaps the most prominent who's changed what he says he needed to see to take that step toward impeachment. let's watch his changing of mind over the last couple of weeks. >> if you're looking for a circumstance where the president of the united states was threatening the ukraine with cutting off aid unless they investigated his political opponent, you would be very disappointed. that does not exist. >> show me something that is a crime. if you could show me that, you

know, trump actually was engaging in a quid pro quo outside. phone call, that would be very disturbing. >> the president of ukraine said, no, i was never told if i don't do this, i don't get the military aid. so until you can show me that something else, i'm just -- >> here's the bottom line mueller meant something to me. i'm not impressed with this whole line of impeachment. i've looked at the phone call. i find nothing wrong here. i'm not going to entertain impeaching the president over this matter. period. done. >> but you said in the past that if there is quid pro quo -- >> yeah, show me where there is. we've got some guy presuming something. at the end of the day this doesn't get it for me. >> you've got some guy presuming something. we have several guys presuming something very specific. linds lindsey graham also said quote, i've written the whole process off. he demanded these transcripts, make these public or else.

your committee made them public, and now he says i'm not even going to read the transcripts because the process is a sham. that seems to be where republicans have landed. >> it's embarrassing to watch. it's hard to watch. that's not a person with any credibility anymore. that's a person asserting that they don't care, that the clear and convincing evidence they're being presented with soon in public, by the way, and soon in a trial in had his body of the united states senate is something that does not interest him. he is immune from facts and evidence. that's what's happening in those trump strong areas of the country, and it's a real problem and guys like lindsey graham, well, god bless his heart as they say in the south. >> that's the chair of the judiciary committee lindsey graham who says i will not look at the evidence. >> right, he's not going to read the transcript. that raises the question of your fellow members of the intelligence committee listening in the skiff secure facility, republicans sitting there, do they pay attention to what's being said? do they read the transcripts to

your knowledge? are they there present to hear these people respond to inquiries? >> very few of them but those people have included the president's most ardent defenders, jim jordan, mark meadows. most of the intelligence committee members have not been as active in these proceedings, and most of the republicans -- >> the republican members. >> and most of the members who were complaining about access and who had it never showed up. it's been a cynical exercise, their complaints on process. >> would you expect to hear from john bolton and mick mulvaney? >> look, i think they have important evidence, and the american public deserves that evidence. by the way, the state department is in possession of an enormous amount of documentation, contemporaneous notes, e-mails, other corroboration of the testimony of these witnesses. there's no excuse for withholding that. we need it, and i'd like the testimony of any witness to acknowledge. >> would you want to hear testimony from mike pompeo and rudy giuliani? >> i think both of those

gentlemen have a lot of o'questions to answer. whether it's going to be productive trying to get them in the chair under oath or whether we have sufficient evidence to move forward i think is a harder question. i defer to the chairman on that. i think the american public deserves to know what happened here plain and simple, fair thorough, but let's move it as well, and i think if we can explain exactly what happened with clear and convincing evidence, then that's the important thing. >> you know, willie, you do have the chairman of the judiciary committee making laughable arguments, humiliating himself, and maybe that will work in his primary in south carolina. that will not work in maine for susan kcollins, that will not work in colorado for cory gardn gardner. that will not work in north carolina for thom tillis. i don't know if he's a good enough politician to figure that out. he's going to run his campaign straight into the wall all so he

can lose for donald trump. the white house sending out talking points, last night on fox news sondland and ukrainian official were dismissed as some low level guy, and then willie of course lindsey talked about some guy. the some guy was the person that was running what john bolton described as rudy giuliani and donald trump's drug deal across europe. he was a guy that showed up. sondland was the guy that showed up across europe, and he was the president of the united states' point man on this, quote, drug deal, and lindsey graham is now claiming that he's a nobody after the guy himself has propped himself up as the ambassador of europe for the past several years? i mean, it's not -- it's not a sellable story by republicans, and they're fools if they think americans are going to blindly follow along with it. >> and let's remember, he's a political appointee, say it

again, gave a million dollars to the trump inaugural committee. he's a hotel guy from oregon. he was put in this job as an ambassador to the eu, having nothing to do with ukraine, he was deputized as a shadow foreign policy, a shadow effort outside the state department led by rudy giuliani to make this quid pro quo happen. he was the guy as the congre congressman points out. he was the guy talking to zelensky's aide and making the deal. this is as firsthand as it gets. totally predictable joe that the white house would dismiss him. that they've done it to anybody who's crossed them. they can't do it in this case. this was a hand picked guy placed add the eu, and then deputized to run this operation. >> they can't do it. the thing is, again, republicans need to look at the election results over the past couple of years including last night in virginia and the kentucky governor's race, and understand

again, you talked about his low approval ratings. they're about 20 points higher than mitch mcconnell's in that state. they can't play this game and get away with it, and how fascinating that sondland said that it got more insidious over time and could not even -- could not even testify that it was not illegal, suggested that what happened just might be illegal. now, heidi, let's project forward, talk about what's going to be happening as we go to the public phase of these hearings. what do the democrats have planned out? >> right, joe, so i've been speaking to democrats close to the impeachment process, and they say they are not waiting for these witnesses who continue to be no-shows, that they are already pushing into the next public phase, which will be public testimony, which they want to start no later than two weeks from now. and i am told last night according to sources that there are three candidates that they believe are the strongest witnesses at this point that they are going to be calling

for. those are the former ambassador marie yovanovitch who gave that compelling testimony about how she was essentially bullied out of her job in ukraine. also, taylor, ambassador taylor who essentially replaced her and testified that there was a quid pro quo, and it was his you s d understanding it was being directed by the president to withhold aid to a country that is essentially under attack from russia. the third witness would be alexander vindman, the lieutenant colonel in the army who still serves in the nsc who was on that phone call and who also can testify to the quid pro quo and that he was so concerned about it that he took it twice, he tried to take it twice to white house attorneys. now, what i'm told is that this is going to be very different from the mueller investigation in that democrats believe that the witness -- these witnesses going to be so compelling because they're actually fact witnesses, that it's going to make it very hard for a lot of

these republicans to look away from this evidence because they are going to be providing firsthand accounts. >> all right, heidi przybyla thank you so much. if only we're in a position to have someone confirm that reporting, oh, we are. what do you make of that schedule that heidi just laid out? >> sounds smart. sounds like a good schedule. look, those are credible career people who have very important testimony, and it should break people's hearts to hear this story in full. i'm glad the transcripts are coming out so you can all see what a lot of us heard in person already. it's not a pleasant story. it's a story of decent people crushed under the wheels of a political grimy operation designed to advance rudy giuliani's financial interests, the president's political interests, everything but america's national security. it's an abuse of power. these are good people with good testimony, and ask yourself why there have been no leaks of that testimony by the republican side. it's not because they don't

leak. it's because there are no facts favorable to the president from these people with knowledge, not because they have a bias or a point of view but because they have knowledge of what happened, and we should have the contemporaneous documentation of that from the state department. there are notes, there are e-mails. if there's any question about it, let's see it all. but i'm very glad the public is going to see this for itself. >> obviously mark meadows and jim jordan aren't going anywhere. do you see any cracks in your private conversations with republican colleagues friends you may have on the committee or in the larger congress as they look at this evidence? if lieutenant colonel vindman didn't do it for you, do you think sondland changes it for anyone? >> i think it's a sad statement when the people with the most concerns are the least vocal. there are members of the republican party who in private will hang their heads, say well, i don't know. i'm trying to understand what ambassador taylor is saying. i've seen it, yes. you don't hear them in public. now is the time for courage. now is the time for leadership

from those voices in the republican party because what's going to happen, i'm afraid, is you're going to see the elevation of extremists like mr. meadows, mr. jor ddan, and theye going to turn this thing up trying to discredit testimony that is credible. we know what happened here. it's not seriously in dispute. you want to have an argument about whether it's impeachable, about whether we should wait until an election. i guess that's something you can kick around. for me personally it's a clear abuse of presidential power. it cannot be okay in our country for a united states president, any president to go to a foreign leader and ask for help in his election. it's wrong. >> congressman sean patrick maloney of new york, thanks for being here with us this morning. we appreciate it. up next, the other big theme of election night is the collapse of republican support in the suburbs. from cincinnati to delaware, and chester counties in pennsylvania, and in fairfax county, virginia, where the last remaining republican was

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live look at capitol hill. it is getting close to the top of the hour. in just a moment we're going to dig back in on last night's big election results. two apparent huge blows to president trump ahead of 2020, but first let's bring in investigative reporter for "the washington post" and msnbc contributor david farenthold. david is out with a new piece looking at just how much the presidency is costing the trump brand, especially at his chicago hotel. david, what did you find? >> it's pretty remarkable. we looked at figures from the trump hotel and found its profits went down 89% in three years. it's a huge drop in profits from

what had been a pretty profitable hotel to one just staying barely above the red. the company itself said this is about politics, this is political backlash to the trump brand. >> david, again, for people that are just tuning in, did you say that the chicago properties, down almost 90%? >> that's right. we talked a few weeks ago about doral, the trump property where they were briefly going to hold the g-7. and the decline that place was in. we've seen between 2015 and 2017 doral profits fell 70%. we have one more year of data on chicago, and you see the same downward trend continuing. almost 90% drop in profits in just three years. >> yeah. >> no reports yet of bedbugs in chicago, i suppose? >> but you don't know because if it's the same chain, you know. >> he might be -- that -- >> when i hear doral, i think bedbugs. so david, can you talk about --

you have just, again, you've done such a deep dive over the past three, four years. can you just talk about the overall health of the trump organization and how badly it's doing, which of course might shine a light on how desperate donald trump is to get money from at least his organization from foreign sources since domestic banks, i guess, won't loan him any money? >> well, yeah, this is not like sort of a sideline. donald trump owns his businesses. he still can draw money out of them, unlike any president in modern history. while he's president he has these private relationships with his businesses with his customers. he knows what they are, his customers know what they are. we don't know what they are. until we really understand the financial position he's in, the people who are helping him, we can't really understand the full picture of his presidency. what we've seen is a steady decline in a number of trump properties.

the most important thing we've seen in the last few weeks, we've seen the trump organization start to do things they would never have otherwise done, one is selling the trump hotel in d.c., what appears to be one of their biggest and most profitable properties. trump never sells anything. number two, this is smaller thing, but it tells you about where their head is at in central park in new york they have a couple of ice rink with the name trump plastered all over them, they recently remodel them to down play the trump. the trump is in small type now. i've never seen them down play their own name. both of those are signals that they may have to change strategy pretty radically. >> yeah, the name is -- it's not only toxic for republicans politically across the nation, it's also obviously toxic for hotel brands commercially. david farenthold, thank you so much. of course we'll be reading your extraordinary reporting as always in "the washington post." still with willie, joe, and me we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle.

>> the beloved mike barnicle. >> we love him: and columnist and associate editor of "the washington post," david ignatius joining the conversation, columnist and associate editor of "the washington post" eugene robinson and white house correspondent for pbs news hour yamiche alcindor, senior writer at "politico" and co-author of the play book, jake sherman is with us. should we get to the big results from last night? >> we can do that in a ekd seco. willie, let's talk about yesterday, the big losses for donald trump. we of course can talk about virginia. that state house reversal is pretty extraordinary, the fact that republicans had an almost two to one advance there in the state house until donald trump got into the white house, and now the fortunaes have collapse and reversed. they take control of the state legislature in two decades, and they now have a monopoly in virginia thanks to donald trump.

the kentucky race, donald trump said personally that that race, his reputation was on the line with that race, that bevin had to win. he goes there and bevin loses six percentage points in 24 hours, goes from being five points ahead to losing. it embarrasses trump. it has to worry everybody else, and finally sondland's testimony yesterday the most shocking yet in the impeachment inquiry, three huge losses. >> yeah, and sondland's testimony in particular because he was a trump ally, is a trump ally, is a political appointee. he's not a career diplomat. he's not bill taylor or lieutenant colonel vindman. this is a guy very close to trump who went effectively and flipped on donald trump. the kentucky governor's race that is a fascinating question for republicans running next year, how closely should i hug donald trump. matt bevin hugged him as closely as steve kornacki said, as a candidate possibly could. donald trump was in the state on monday night saying you can't

let me louse. this is about me. if it was about him, he lost last night by 5,000 votes in that governor's race. nbc news does project that the state's democratic attorney general andy beshear is the apparent winner, will unseat republican governor matt bevin who aligned himself closely with president trump and who framed the race as a referendum on president trump and on the issue of impeachment. race is close separated by just over 5,000 votes, a difference of less than half a percent in a state that trump carried by 30 points. bevin was the only republican running statewide to lose in kentucky last night. he is currently refusing to concede that race. gene robinson, the significance there, matt bevins ran ads voiced over by president trump. he talked about him on the trail every day. he talked about socialists in washington. it was run like a national race. >> a national contest which turns out not to have been a great idea perhaps, you know, bevin had some approval problems

to begin with, you know, in kentucky, but this is really a huge deal, and you know, as you said, 5,000 votes. that's a tiny percentage, but that's not the kind of margin that gets overturned in a recount, for example, unless they forgot to count a county or something like that, some gross mistake. you do a recount and votes change in both directions and generally the result changes by dozens of votes or maybe in an extreme case hundreds of votes. it generally doesn't change by thousands of votes. this will probably stand up, and it is a bombshell. the president said it's about me, and okay, it's about you. >> yeah, it is about him, and mike barnicle, you know who else it's about, and we've talked about it, the guy that a lot of people in kentucky certainly around lexington and louisville call moscow mitch, even some

people in the rural areas starting to call him moscow mitch because they don't understand why he continues to do vladimir putin's bidding and not listening to trump's fbi director, not listen to trump's cia director, not listen to any military people that keep warning moscow mitch to put up these safeguards to protect american democracy, which all of trump's intel people say this is the greatest threat to american democracy, but moscow mitch keeps ignoring it. moscow mitch is at 18%, mike. 18%. everybody this morning is talking about what a bad approval rating bevins had. i think bevin was at like 34%. moscow mitch almost half as bad as bevin's, and i just wonder -- we keep talking about we have to worry about susan kol listecoll race in maine, the race in colorado, republicans got to worry about the race in north carolina. i'm sorry, i think again, and i'm only saying what they call

him in kentucky, i think you got to put moscow mitch now in the list of endangered candidates. you look at that map last night, you look at the fact that democrats turned kentucky blue. you've got a guy who has a lower approval rating than any other senator in america in his home state, and this same guy, i think people around the bluegrass state where my mom and dad went to school and where my dad was from to calling him moscow mitch now. that can't be good for moscow mitch going into next fall. >> look, joe, despite what you might think of double m, moscow mitch, he is a skillful politician, and he knows how to read the numbers, and i think one of the big stories in the next three, four, five months is going to be watching moscow mitch, double m tor, to see if does a slow but steady stroll away from president trump because of president trump's weakness now visible to everyone

in his home state of kentucky, especially in the suburbs. and the other senators that you mentioned, especially, you know, in maine, if you go to shopping centers in southern maine, you see a lot of pickup trucks in the parking lots of home depot, the trump bumper stickers, they're kind of faded, but the most popular bumper sticker you now see in the suburbs, especially around home depots and mini malls is any functioning adult 2020. that's the bumper sticker. moscow mitch sees that bumper sticker, and that's got to be a great concern to him. >> you know, those t-shirts that said read the transcripts, i don't know, was that like pro or anti-trump because if you sort of read all the information that has to do with the ukraine scandal, it doesn't bode well for trump, so he's having people buy t-shirts to take a look at the scandal he caused. >> of course the funny thing is that it's not a transcript.

donald trump declined so much that he doesn't know it's a transcript. it says at the top of the page, it's not a transcript. but the actual information is even worse. i do wonder david ignatius circling back to and again not -- a lnot my name for him of course, a lot of people in kentucky calling moscow mitch, moscow mitch. we have seen in this extraordinarily important thing, we have seen the secretary of homeland security. we've seen the director of the fbi, we have seen the director of the cia, we not only saw the last ndi but we saw the acting ndi, we sawmill tear intelligence people say that the greatest risk to american democracy -- they have said this -- trump's appointed intel people have said the greatest risk to american democracy is not a thermo nuclear blast from

north korea or russia. it is russia's interference with american democracy, and they say that threat is imminent, and i just wonder, david, what is the latest? i know moscow mitch has not done anything. i know that donald trump keeps swatting it away. can you -- do you have any information? is there anybody in washington that can convince moscow mitch and donald trump to protect american democracy like trump's own intel people are saying it needs to be protected? >> joe, there was a statement by the intelligence chiefs and senior military officials yesterday summarizing the state of preparedness for the 2020 elections and trying to send a signal that these professional intelligence homeland security and other agencies are getting ready. the question whether they need additional funding is a separate question, but they were trying to make clear that they get the seriousness of this whatever

president trump or political leadership on the gop says. another important thing that's ahead, the senate intelligence committee, which has managed somehow to stay bipartisan led by senator burr, the republican chairman and senator mark warner the democratic ranking member is going to issue a report in the next couple of weeks on the fundamental issue coming out of 2016. was there an organized russian effort to help donald trump and hurt hillary clinton is the basic issue president trump to this day continues to dispute. that's going to be a bipartisan support. i'm told it's going to be overwhelmingly clear. in some ways the strongest statement yet by a bipartisan group about what happened. so whether the person sometimes known as the senate majority leader mcconnell, other times known as moscow mitch responds to that with any new legislation i don't know, but there are this series of things happening anyway to reinforce the point

for voters around the country. >> according to the "washington post" robert costa, last night's results left some in the gop uncertain about their own political fates next year while tied to president trump. many allies of the president rushed to explain the loss of incumbent kentucky governor matt bevin as an anomaly while other gop veterans expressed alarm about the party's failure in the red state. texas republican senator john cornyn dismissed the loss saying quote, bevin's got his own problems. that's unrelated to national politics. can you do that in a state like kentucky? because he was doing well, wasn't he? >> he was five points ahead until donald trump went there, and yamiche, of course that's what's got to also concern a lot of republicans. here you have bevin who actually has an approval rating almost twice as high as mitch mcconnell, and he still loses the state of kentucky.

donald trump goes in and bevin's five-point lead evaporates overnight. >> well, the thing that's really kept president trump able to really weather a lot of these scandals, a lot of these issues, a lot of now being accused of leveraging his own political influence to try to force a foreign country to investigate a political rival has been that republicans have believed that the fate of the party is tied to president trump, and as a result, they've been able to try to really adjust and be nimble and change their messaging on the impeachment inquiry and all sorts of other things president trump has been doing. now kentucky in some ways could change that, could at least make them think twice about their own futures because president trump has been making the case that i know more about your voters than you do and as a result you'll be lucky if i can come to your state and help you. i will read this quote from president trump because i keep thinking about it all day, which is if you lose to -- he said to bevin, if you lose they're going to say trump suffered the greatest defeat in the history of the world. this is the greatest.

you can't let that happen to me. we know this morning it did happen to him. >> it did happen to him, and he claimed on twitter afterwards because he ran for the hills away from matt bevin that he actually made a 15-point positive difference in the last couple of days, completely invented number of course and not true. hopefully it goes without saying. jake sherman as you look around the suburbs, the cincinnati suburbs, what happened there last night, you look at louisville, you look in d.c. in these virginia races. you look in the richmond suburbs there as well. you begin to see a picture of suburban voters running away from donald trump, and you start to wonder about a year from now what happens in the suburbs of milwauk milwaukee and detroit and philly and phoenix and orlando and places like that. what's happening right now around donald trump and what did last night tell you? >> well, let's actually take the most charitable view of this situation. i'm going to try to tie in kentucky here too and say that bevin was unpopular, which he

was and democrats have held the governorship in kentucky for a huge chunk of the last 30, 40 years, and let's even take another data point here, which is obviously his approval rating's low, and donald trump could have been a drag with impeachment. let's say that, but like if you look at the suburbs of philadelphia, chester county, bucks county, these are seats when joe, when you were in the house of representatives made up the republican party. this was not a small part of the republican party, but in connecticut, new york, new jersey, philadelphia, all up and down the east coast, these suburbs made up the building blocks of the republican party that we've known for the last 30 years they've disappeared. and it's not only in the northeast and in northeast cities and in new england cities, excuse me, it's in the south. it's in the suburbs of atlanta, the suburbs of charlotte where you've literally seen districts that were built, that were drawn for george w. bush era republicans that are now going for democrats 70-30.

i mean, it's absolutely stunning. we saw in a special election, which republicans did win but the democrat won mecklenburg county, the wealthy parts outside of charlotte, 70-30 after republicans had won by that margin there for years. and the big question to me -- and i see no evidence this will happen -- does the president do anything to try to course correct? the obvious answer based on the evidence at hand is obviously not. he believes he cannot work with democrats. he does not have any interest in taking up popular legislation that has broad bipartisan agreement anywhere at any time, so republicans are kind of stuck in this position where they have to tie themselves to trump, hope that they could really rev up republican turnout and thereby win the election by just drumming up republican turnout in the reddest areas of their district while hoping that voters make a delineation between an unpopular president and the republican. doesn't work in a lot of places,

and that's why republicans on capitol hill are very, very nervous and the nrcc and republicans that are going to spend money on the house in 2020 are left wondering how do they win with a president who's in the 40s and 30s in approval ratings in these districts. and it's impossible to know because the math simply at this point does not work out. >> well, and it does. there is an ongoing debate inside the democratic party about whether ideology matters. if you look at the 2018 election returns, whether you're talking about in virginia, whether you're talking about in virginia, whether you're talking about in california, whether you're talking about texas, there were moderate democrats who made the difference there. and bevin last night lost to a moderate democrat as well that put kentucky in play. that will be interesting, and of course the democrats will have that debate. but you know, gene i was interested listening to jake

talk about the suburbs, and of course we started in philadelphia, and of course the philly suburbs have always historically been a bellwether for who was going to win the white house, and we talk about the suburbs of detroit, the suburbs of milwaukee, but we're now going south, aren't we? we're not talking about -- you know, it was the suburbs of d.c. a few years ago. well, that race is over. donald trump has destroyed any republican prospects in the suburbs of d.c. now we're going down to the suburbs of charlotte. that's suddenly turning blue. the suburbs of atlanta, we saw democratic gains in 2018 shockingly in the suburbs of atlanta around newt gingrich where newt gingrich's stronghold was up in alpharetta north of the city. we're talking about the suburbs of dallas, again, republicans are worrying about an invasion of body snatchers and hispanics, they need to be worried about the floor that is rotting out beneath them. as jake said, the very districts

that we republicans invented around suburbs that we knew were easy wins, donald trump has now made them easy wins for democrats. republicans are losing from all sides. >> yeah, and these suburbs are places where republicans objectively ought to be able to still do well. i mean, these are affluent areas. they like tax cuts. they like modest -- more modest government in a lot of cases. it's hard to argue against the case that donald trump is ruining the republican brand in the suburbs in this country, and the results last night that steve kornacki gave us very late last night from the kentucky suburbs of cincinnati were just absolutely left me on the floor.

that beshear was just killing bevin in those suburbs that traditionally as recently as the last election went republican. and that is -- if that's not a giant flashing warning sign to republicans in washington, i don't know what would be. i've had recent conversations, even before last night's results with some really savvy republicans in washington who almost take it for granted that they could lose both houses of congress very easily in this coming election, and they're talking about like what it's going to be like in the minority in the senate, and that's not something i would have thought three or four months ago was really in the cards, but you've got to see that as a distinct and very real possibility now. >> absolutely.

and before we go to break, "politico's" jake sherman the play book kind of writes itself today. what are you looking at? >> the big thing today is we expect david hale a top person at the state department to come to capitol hill to testify about why -- kind of the whole hullaballoo over the former ambassador to ukraine, why she was removed, how she was removed. i think the most interesting thing we found out overnight is that the number one witness that democrats are afraid -- republicans are afraid of in this meecimpeachment testimony bill taylor testifying publicly, a career public servant, graduate of west point. republicans feel like he could really drive a nail in the coffin of impeachment and really help out the democrats' case. >> all right, jake sherman, thank you so much, and still ahead on "morning joe," our next guest represents a state that shares a lot with kentucky including a border, from ohio senate democrat sherrod brown is standing by. he joins the conversation next on "morning joe." ♪

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i'm pretty sure how it's likely to end, if it were today, i don't think there's any question it would not lead to a removal. so the question is is how long does the senate want to take? i'd be surprised if it didn't end the way the two previous ones did with the president not being removed from office. >> okay, so they all talk about being jurors -- >> being what? >> being jurors, that was actually senator majority leader mitch mcconnell, the guy running the trial deciding already that

facts don't matter. >> come on, man. >> the evidence doesn't matter, that nothing matters, that none of the public testimony from career diplomats matter, that none of the testimony from a purple heart recipient a, an aii war veteran, that possibly the testimony of john bolton, a hero of rank and file conservatives for decades doesn't matter. that's like a judge actually before a case even comes to him going oh, nothing to see here. why, the defendant's going to be acquitted anyway. if you want to see just how rotten to the core the republican party has become intellectually, you could look at moscow mitch's refusal to listen to donald trump's own intel chief saying american democracy is at risk and he

decides not to do anything while russian oligarch money floods into his backyard or you could just look at that clip. mitch mcconnell, again, saying nothing's going to happen and even predicted that if the impeachment inquiry went to the senate, well, it wouldn't matter because the president's going to be acquitted anyway so much for being fair or impartial or intellectually honest. i know that he never has been. i'm just surprised he admitted it in public yesterday so blatantly. >> disagree with him on so many issues, but he is better than this to quote our good friend. >> you would think he would be. >> joining us now democratic senator sherrod brown, i believe, of ohio. there he is. you're the author of the new book "desk 88, eight progressive

senators who changed america." >> so senator let me just start by -- let's follow up with mitch mcconnell, what's your thought that you're a juror. if the impeachment of donald trump does, in fact, take place in the house of representatives, you're a juror, a potential juror, and yet we have mitch mcconnell already saying, you know, what's the big deal? this thing's going to end up, the president's going to be acquitted. how inappropriate is that? >> well, you're a juror. you said it exactly right. and i'm not a lawyer. some in the show are, some aren't. understanding of course impeachment is like indictment, and the senate is a trial deciding whether we convict and remove the president. i was at beechwood high school in cleveland last week, and a student asked about that, about the public pressure on all of us in the senate. and i said if you're a judge or a jury in a court of law, they sequester juries for a reason. judges don't listen to the e-mail, don't look at the

e-mails he got, don't read the mail she gets or the phone call she fetgets about these trials. she looks at the evidence. in both parties, i don't know for sure how i would vote in a senate trial. i think that speaker pelosi has done it right here, but that's for indictment for impeachment, but when we do this trial, we look at the evidence, sober mindedly look at the evidence and make the decision, and mitch mcconnell's just wrong to say he's already made up his mind and so have the other 52 republican senators and away with it. that's just not right. >> it's grossly inappropriate. and it's shirking his duties to the constitution. >> and mika says he knows better. >> he does. >> it's disgraceful. let's talk about last night in kentucky. of course there are some desperate trumpists saying, well, everybody else in kentucky, those republicans won. those republicans did not run with their arms wrapped around

donald trump. matt bevin ran, and it was for him, he wanted everybody to know this was a referendum on donald trump. it was a referendum on impeachment. it was a referendum on trumpism in general, and he lost a state that he should have never lost. i'm just wondering, senator, you know an awful lot about cincinnati, and you certainly know about the suburbs. cincinnati a very conservative place. northern kentucky even more conservative. how surprised were you with what happened in campbell county and what happened in a couple other counties? you can see the blue reaching up into ohio there, the southern cincinnati suburbs. how much of a shock was that to you, and what does that tell you about politics? >> it wasn't a shock. it was a bit of a surprise but not a shock. gene robinson pointed out exactly what happened. it's suburbs, suburbs in

washington, they're already there to the democrats. it's suburbs in richmond. we is that true, bsaw that. cincinnati has historically been a very conservative city. 2008 was the first democrat since johnson. obama was to carry hamilton county, cincinnati's county. now it's a county where we win by 60, 80, maybe 100,000 votes in 2020 against trump. in the suburbs across the river in northern kentucky, or as you say more conservative than hamilton county but moving in that direction, and so it's not just suburbs in the north in chicago and cleveland and milwaukee as you've said, it's suburbs in the south, and it's suburbs in states as conservative as kentucky. i mean, certainly jefferson county, louisville and the suburbs around lexington and now the suburbs around the growingly prosperous cincinnati, and that's the story of the change in demographics and change in elections, and it's why 2020's going to be a very different year from what donald trump's

expecting it to be. >> you know, senator conventional wisdom in washington usually wrong, it was always wrong in 2016, first starting by saying donald trump was not going to even be relevant, then saying there was no way donald trump was going to win, and certainly we said that time and again that, you know, he was too far out there to win. i said there are not enough white people in america to elect donald trump given what he said. i was proven wrong, and so now this year, this election cycle, conventional wisdom has become fixed around the idea, and i'll admit i'm part of that conventional wisdom that a candidate like joe biden or amy klobuchar or more moderate democrats would have a better shot of winning the election in swing states like wisconsin and michigan, pennsylvania, ohio, north carolina, florida, and yet i'm talking to a guy right now who has won a state where it

seems that a political neutron bomb has been dropped on the state of ohio, and all democrats have been wiped out, and only republicans are left standing. and yet here you are, a proud progressive, and you breezed to re-election in that state. can you talk about that a little bit and educate not only our viewers but educate me on the fact that sometimes it's just not about ideology. >> it's about a lot of things, and fifrst of all, i wouldn't sy i breezed to election, but i appreciate that verb you chose, joe. to me it's whose side are you on? our candidates and i like pretty much all of them. i think any one of them potentially could beat trump. i don't even know yet who i'm going to vote for. you run as a progressive by making the contrast, by talking about the dignity of work, respecting, honoring work. when i say workers, i don't mean just white male firefighters.

i mean people in hospitals in food service and in clerking and insurance clerks and people that are tellers in banks and all kinds of people respecting and honoring work, and if we talk about workers and talk about the dignity of work and whose side are you on, and you contrast that with trump who has betrayed workers in the midwest as he's betrayed our allies in the middle east and he's betrayed workers everywhere in the overtime rule and minimum wage on trade issues, on tax issues, and workers clearly have not gotten a fair shake from this president. you make the contrast. you advocate for workers in the work site, on the work site, in the workplace. you win votes that might have gone to donald trump in the past, and at the same time you're talking to young workers whom we need to engage to come to the polls, and that's workers of all stripes and all races and all both genders across the board. >> hey, senator, it's willie geist as we talk about this 2020 presidential race, you've said

to the field effectively that pushing for medicare for all would be, quote, a terrible mistake when you're going up against donald trump. obviously you've said it's a great aspiration. you believe that there should be medical coverage for everyone who needs it, but as a political matter, you believe it's a terrible mistake. could you explain that? >> yeah, sure, but let's step back a bit. i did say that. step back a bit. it's important that democrats who disagree -- all of us agree we want to get to universal coverage as you say willie, at different rates at different speeds, in different ways, but make the contrast with what trump's doing. trump came to the congress, tried to repeal the affordable care actment. lost by one vote, now he's gone to the most friendly courtroom he could find the northern district of texas trying to take away insurance. you have democrats trying to get to universal coverage from different paths, i would like to see on that debate stage democrats quit fighting over do

you want medicare for all, do you want to keep your urninsura, do you want to build on the affordable care act, you protect pre-existing conditions, consumer protections, you negotiate drug prices. you have medicare buy-in at 55. if you choose it, and you contrast that with what trump's doing to take away those consumer protections for pre-existing conditions to allow drug prices to go up, to take away insurance, and that's what the fight needs to be, and i don't admonish. i advise, i talk to a number of my colleagues running for president and make that case. you need to make the contrast with trump and the betrayal he's made of workers and consumers in the middle class. >> but the plan and the approach you just laid out is not the one taken by two of the front runners, elizabeth warren and bernie sanders. elizabeth warren is saying yes, we're going to eliminate private insurance, it's a $52 trillion plan. she claims that the middle class sm somehow won't be tax instead that plan. how does that play in the state

of ohio? >> ultimately, i think they've got to come to a place -- i don't want to destroy the obamacare, the affordable care act and start again. i want to build on it, and i think the strongest message and the way we govern come 2021 is to build on the affordable care act, build on obamacare, strengthen consumer protections for pre-existing conditions, and i said allow people to choose to buy into medicare at 50 or 55, negotiate drug prices directly the way we do at the v.a. that's the way to build on this. i think the democratic nominee will come to that position come the fall. >> senator, you know, as you know, there's sort of persistent rumors that somebody else might make a late entry into the presidential race. you decided not to give it a shot this time around. any second thoughts? >> no, none. i love the job. i love what i'm doing now. i don't have a great desire to be president.

i'm not thinking. i never thought i'd be a candidate. in january and february i thought seriously about it, i don't want to do it. i made that decision then. i stick by it. >> senator, i'm looking at the list of the senators that you chose for your book, desk 88, senators who made a huge impact on american life. and i was struck by at least -- well, a couple of them stand out to me, robert kennedy and jorch george mcgovern and their actions in the senate and their actions in their lives indicated that they knew that being poor then and now was perhaps the hardest job in america. you were talking about work earlier in terms of democratic candidates running for president today, and now some would suggest that being poor and being middle class is the hardest job in america, raising a family given all the confrontations people are surrounded with. so my question to you is how do you articulate that the defense

of the poor, defense of the middle class and the struggles that people endure is maybe an empathy towards them, empathy might be one of the toughest things to provide to people and one of the most important things to show voters that you have. >> yeah, thank you for that question, i really appreciate the way you asked it. the last two senators in this book of the eight senators i discussed, kennedy and mcgovern both had uncommon empathy, i think, for those with less privilege. kennedy obviously came from a different place and grew into that empathy if you will from his days working with bill mccarthy, unbelievably enough if people don't know the history. and mcgovern understood that people needed a break and needed opportuni opportunity, and again, i think in politics it's always whose side are you on. and if you show that in this day when they were in the senate,

you trade unionism was pretty strong this this country. today more and more people want to join a union all polls show. that gives them an opportunity to earn a place in the middle class, and i think making that populist progressive argument, populism, this phony populism out of the white house, racist populism never divides people to push others down but a populism with an empathy to it that you suggest is the way you run for office, i think, and the way that you serve governing through the eyes of workers giving them that opportunity. whether it's to join a union or not but at least to be able to get ahead and have that opportunity. that's the role of government. i wrote this book for the same reason i wear this lapel pin. it a's depiction of a canary in a bird cage, that the mine workers take the canary down in the mines because he had no protection other than himself really is about the role of government government, the power of government can improve people's lives. that's what all of these

senators in desk 88 understood as well. >> i'm sorry about the browns and the indians. >> wow, cruel. >> and then the red sox this year. >> i look back, though, i have to admit that when it comes to world series, if the red sox are in it, i route for the national league. if the yankees are in it, i route for the national league. if a texas team's in it i root for the other team. at least most of the red sox players did not go to the white house, and i wish i could say the same for the nationals players. what are you going to do? you've got to love what the relief pitcher did, the heartfelt way that he talked about why he wasn't going to the white house certainly made me a fan of him. the book is desk 88, eight progressive senators who changed america. senator sherrod brown, thank you so much for being on the show this morning. and david ignatius, before you go, if you could talk about your new piece for "the washington

post" entitled where is mike pompeo? he's hiding in fear of donald trump. is that really the case? what's going on with him, mike? >> mika, i tried to explore this column this morning. the question that we discussed on the show as the ukraine investigation has accelerated, where's the secretary of state? where's mike pompeo? why isn't he speaking out for his ambassador who's being attacked maliciously, marie yovanovitch? why doesn't he do something to defend her from scurrilous charges from rudy giuliani and donald trump jr. and the president himself when her name is mentioned by the president in a phone call with a phone leader and he attacks her as bad news and says something bad's going to happen to her. where is the secretary of state? why doesn't he say something? he's listening in on the call? why doesn't the secretary of state do something when one of

his most experienced diplomats, mckinley who's been serving as a senior counselor comes to him and says, sir, i am so upset about our lack of protection for our career diplomats like yovanovitch, i can't continue to serve you and resigns and according to mckinley's testimony, pompeo essentially says nothing. you know, he says, okay, thanks for coming in. that's it. and he says nothing when mckinley says, sir, i have to leave the department. for me pompeo has been one of the people in the administration who is smart. he was first in his class at west point. he's been, i think, trying to be an effective secretary of state. he reached out to the foreign service after the terrible rex tillerson period and tried to pull it apart and back together, but it's just such a disappointment to see him not

upstanding for the values that you thought he represented of protecting his people, of speaking out against lies and injustice against his own employees. it's been a real disappointment. >> it is really something to see. it's vexing at this point. i can't understand it. david, thank you, yamiche alcindor, what are you looking at today? >> i'm going to be waiting for more transcripts. i think what we're seeing is a steady stream of democrats really trying to stage these transcripts in a way to really highlight what they think is unfair and unethical behavior by president trump and the people around him. now, i've talked to a number of republicans who are very upset about the way that these transcripts are being released. they think they should all be released at the same time. that's them adjusting their message. just a few days ago, they were all saying where are these transcripts? now it's that these transcripts aren't coming out fast enough. before that it was that all of these depositions weren't unfair. i'm still also looking at how republicans are going to continue to adjust their message, especially after all these elections that happened

last night where democrats had some really big wins. >> all right, yamiche. >> thank you, yamiche. >> thank you so much. we really appreciate it. mike barnicle, i want to go to you for a second. mika and i have been going back and forth and not really have a debate. we have two viewpoints on whether institutions are going to be strong enough to stand up to donald trump's worst autocratic instincts. that's been played out. you can see how mike pompeo has of course not only let his country down but of course has let west point down, let everybody that's ever voted for him down by, again, putting the needs of donald trump above that of the country, but you look underneath and see him ambassadors, foreign service members have stepped up to the call, just like john bolton did in that meeting. i want carol ryan just tweeted out that the "new york times" says it's on pace for 10 million

subscribers by 2025 and the times announced it has 4.9 million subscribers right now. the constant vicious attacks against the media has only led to the "new york times," "the washington post," "the wall street journal" having some of its best years ever. certainly "morning joe" had its best year ever. it seems that the more that the media is attacked by donald trump, the more these institutions stand up, like the "new york times," like "the washington post," like "the wall street journal" and provide great reporting. the power of the press stronger than ever. >> joer, you know, the ultimate question will be will it with only the strong who survive, the "times," the post, the journal, the l.a. times, the west coast they will survive based upon the incredible reporting and documentation that they're providing. but then you see the little insidious things that happen out of the spotlight. i was reading a story yesterday

that a small town in florida the town library requested about $2,000 to subscribe to online "times," "washington post," and they were rejected because the chair of the board said that's fake news, so they're not going to get those papers in the library for people to read, and the ultimate question is other institutions that we're all familiar with and we talk about here every day, we just talked about about tthe state departme. what's happening in those departments? are they being slowly destroyed by the behavior of the attorney general, the secretary of state led by the president of the united states? can those institutions be repaired having been so damaged over the past three years, and how long would it take to repair them? those are questions that are going to have to be answered. >> yes, coming up, the case for nationalism.

rich lowry says it made america powerful, kruunited and free, b there's a counter argument there too. we'll discuss that next on "morning joe." ♪ just leaves you g better as a result. that's the kind lincoln's about. ♪ liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. i wish i could shake your hand. granted. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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because beyond technology... there is human ingenuity. every day, comcast business is helping businesses go beyond the expected. to do the extraordinary. take your business beyond. it's a free world must embrace its national foundations. wise leaders always put the good of their own people and their own country first. the future does not belong to globalists. the future belongs to patriots. the future belongs to sovereign and independent nations who protect their citizens, respect their neighbors and honor the differences that make each country special and unique. >> that was president trump back in september at the united

nations general assembly pushing a nationalistic message before the largest annual gathering of global leaders. it's a philosophy promoted in the new book the case for nationalism: how it made us powerful, united and free by the editor of "the national review," rich lowery. rich joins us now. >> thank you so much for being with us. we greatly appreciate it. >> thank you. first of all, your commiseration for the yankees during the postseason was appreciated. >> you know, rich, i've been accused of it before, perhaps i care too deeply. i'll try to work on that. let's talk about nationalism. i've been fascinated, horrified, let's say, by nationalism being a link for some irrational reasons to liberalism, whether you're talking about what is happening in hungary, whether you're talking about what is

happening to the law and justice party in poland, whether you're talking about what's happening with donald trump. we could talk about muslim bans, the xenophobia there, we could talk about the fifteen zone ya in poland. how do you -- and i know you're trying to do this here. you're making an argument and just for people who are not as learned as you, rich, when i say -- >> more sincerity, joe, just like your commiseration. >> when i say this, there is a strong case for liberal nationalism. by liberal, i mean traditional western civilization, liberal nationalism, but it has been clouded over the past three or four years by abdomen hornet, xenophobic rantings of populists who grab the nationalist mantle. so how do we separate the two, the ill liberalism we've seen

with the vision of nationalism that made america a great remember? >> nationalism is considered by dirty word by people who are -- empires try to wipe it out over the millenia. so the ideologies, they always fail. it's part of the mainstream of the american tradition. it runs through hamilton, it runs through lincoln, it runs through tr. and this country wouldn't be what it is and as great and free as it is if it weren't for nationalism. so my book is mainly concerned with defending american nationalism and the american nationalist tradition. some of these figures that you mentioned, joe, in central europe, the nationalism gets all mixed up with a populism and with european traditions that are different than ours. so i don't want to defend anyone across the world that calls

themselves a nationalist. i can skeptical of the eu. i think sovereignty is very important. and that clip we started with from donald trump when he's on the teleprompter and is making these statements about nationalisms, i think they're firmly within the american tradition. >> well, and it also, if you're making the argument for brexit, if you're making the argument for american nationalism, again, that has been part of the debate between republicans and democrats for years. it would take on conservatives, his view was of a world not without boarders, but with the united states being part of organizations than what conservatives were traditionally accompanied with. that said, and i don't want to make this all about donald trump, but it's not an accident that a lot of people, even like

me, that are lifelong conservatives that donald trump's style of nationalism/populism, i will say slash xenophobia of banning every muslim from the united states. >> yeah. again, i'm not populist, i'm a conservative. i think nationalism has been at least an unspoken thread within consev conservatism since world war ii. i think it's been a mistake for democrats to totally turn their back on nationalism. now, immigration policy, i'm a restrictionist, i think it's important to emphasize our boarders. i'm glad that president trump did that. but, obviously, his message is obviously needlessly divisive. and the appeal of nationalism, it's supposed to be a unifying appeal that is over and above sect or race or subnational

loyalties and tribalism. it's supposed to be a higher loyalty and obviously the president doesn't always punch that through. >> so, rich, the nationalism you describe in this book is about really shared experience and unity and going back through the birth of the country to today. how do you take that word now that has meant something different through the centuries and now has become, as you say, a dirty word coming out of president trump's mouth not just because of the way he says it, but the way he deploys it as america first, america alone. how do you explain clearly the nationalism you're talking about and how do you distinguish it from what donald trump is saying? >> i think trump has hit on important themes. and i think republicans lost touch with nationalism because it became too libertarian under a business elite that has nationalist loyalties. so i give them credit for that. but the basic idea that we're distinct people who should be

solve governing and we're united by our language, our common history, our common culture is a really important point. and i push back strongly against the idea that this country is just an idea and just an abstraction. african-american meets a white american on the steps of the paris opera house tonight, they instantly, even if their politics are different, even if they're from different parts of this country, they instantly have more in common than anyone else around them. they're cuisine that they like, their dress, their satirical knowledge, all of that makes us fundamentally american. it's a cultural pore that has to be defended. >> is there a difference between nationalism and patriotism? >> yes. loosely, i think the terms should be interchangeable. but patriotism goes back to latin patre, fatherland. it's loyalty to your own. nationalism is the idea that people united by a common history and culture should

govern a distinct territory. >> so should english be an official language? should we have an official sort of authorized nationalistic set of cultural habits and values like english first, for example? >> yes. i don't know whether you write it into federal law, but language hugely important. you take a nice, pleasant place like canada and you plop a french speaking -- >> it's still a pretty nice, pleasant place. >> it is. but it's so far broken apart when quebec wanted to go its own way because it's largely french speaking in nature. we should have a robust dull temperature of assimilation. >> the new book is "the case for

nationalism." >> thank you very much. now back to the top story of the morning, kentucky has elected a democrat to the govern's mansion, despite president trump's best efforts to proper up the republican incumbent. >> you can't let that happen to me. >> tonight, voters in kentucky sent a message loud and clear for everyone to hear. >> this has nothing to do with trump. >> all right. on monday, it was all about trump. you could hear him. he said it's all on me. you can't do this to me. and then, oh, my goodness, he -- they did it and don jr. says it has nothing to do with donald trump, the president. really? okay. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is wednesday, november 6th, along with joe, willie and me. we have msnbc contributor mike barnacle, national political correspondent for nbc news and msnbc and author of "the red and the blue" steve kornacki with

the maps today, columnist david ignatius joins us and nbc news correspondent heidi pris billbe joins us, as well. >> there are two stories for people who. >> just stupid enough to, like, watching dogs chase their tails. do we have two stories for you. you saw the first. don junior said nothing new. and donald trump the night before saying you have to do this for me. basically saying this is all about me, this is all about trump. bevin has to win or if he doesn't, this will be the biggest loss in the history of american politics. >> and campaigned on trump's name. >> and that's all bevin did. >> in a state that trump won, correct? >> by 30 points. >> wow. so you would think he would have

the momentum. >> we are going to get to what happened, again, in the cincinnati suburbs which, once again, shows that donald trump is toxic. but the second story this morning, more dog chasing tail. as you actually had lindsey graham, a month ago, going, well, i suppose if they show prid quo pro, well, then that would be really, really serious. >> yeah. and we'll deal with it. >> so sondland came out yesterday in a shocking development. we're going to show you how that moved. and now lindsey graham, what is he saying? he's not even pretending to be an honest man or a fair dealer. he's going, i'm just not paying attention to it no more. i'm just shutting my brain down. i'm just going to stop. >> and nor will fox news. they won't cover it. what the heck, if you want to live in your own world, you can,

but it's not reality. >> a couple of prime time shows -- i think fox news -- >> just stayed away from it. >> but anyway, two huge stories. it gets old saying this was the worst day of the trump presidency. i don't know that this was the worst day of the trump presidency, but the sondland system was absolutely deaf stating and losing the reddest of red state, devastating. and watching all of the red bleed out of virginia, so now it is a completely blue state. again, after a trump plea to vote for republicans there, i mean, this president had three huge strikes against him yesterday. >> yeah, he did. we know it's a huge morning because steve kornacki is here. we know there have been big developments in elections across the country. 34% approval rating. but the entire impetus of his campaign was he was like donald trump. he attached himself to the hip with donald trump. donald trump came in on monday

night and made that speech. donald trump last night after the results came in and bevin lost, he said, well, he lost but he picked up 15 points in the last few days after i started talking about him. that's not true, of course, but you know that. he was a trump candidate. he did get routed in the suburbs of cincinnati and even started to lose with some of these rural counties that trump swept up by 30 points. donald trump won by 30 points in 2016. donald trump can't run away from this. remembers cannot run away from the fact that a donald trump-backed candidate probably lost. he has not conceded yet, but probably lost the governship in a state that president trump won again by 30 points. >> you know, yes, he was a unpopular governor, but unpopular governors win or lose all the time. but what has to be especially important for donald trump is

before donald trump went to kentucky on that last night and had those stupid shirts that said read the transcript printed up, which, of course, the document he was talking to said up top, this is not a transcript, it's the stupidity. it's really shocking. and we're simply going, how do people get away with that? they don't. here is the thick. they don't get away with it. he doesn't get away with it. his party lost the biggest land slide vote logs in the history of the united states republican 2018 for following him blindly. then bevin, so unpopular, this had nothing -- bevin was ahead by 5 percentage points in the polls before donald trump came to the state. before donald trump came to the state.

donald trump caused him 5.5, 6 percentage points by that one rally. think about it. if you're donald trump, you're waking up this morning and you know, donald, donald -- yeah, okay. >> no, donald, get a little closer. >> he likes to say he doesn't watch. >> but he's watching. >> i know. okay. >> bevin was ahead, son. he was ahead by five points before you went to kentucky, right? look at this. >> messed it all up. >> donald, look at that. i know you don't like reading, donald, but that "r" stands for republican. he had 52% before you went and did that rally for him. and he got those poor folks wearing that shirt that said read the transcript when the piece of paper itself said this is not a transcript. donald, this is not working for

you. you should just stay home and watch, like, those cage fights. why? right? sit down, drink some tang, the drink of the astronauts, and maybe have some coffee, stir it up. this is what happened after you showed up in kentucky. donald, my friend, you lost the state for republicans. poor guy. lost his race. >> they said bill clinton in 1994 that some -- were thinking about putting antiaircraft guns up along state boarders to keep his plane from coming into town to campaign for him. it was a joke. but it's pretty dark humor now for republicans. donald, he was ahead by five points and then you went there and he lost because of you. >> i think he gets it. >> god. >> i don't know, maybe he doesn't. >> that's hard. >> republicans will watch these

developments. >> can you believe that? >> yes, i can. >> boom. >> don't do that. so we'll talk more reverse midas touch in just a moment as well as that major development in the impeachment push as trump donor turned ambassador gordon sondland changes his system and sa -- testimony and says, actually, the message to ukraine did involve a quid pro quo. he was involved with it. >> donald, it's a bad development. that's bad. >> you could just go to a channel that doesn't cover it most of the time. here, we will. >> he likes that. he likes that other network. >> more on the two big -- more on the two big results in yesterday's elections with potentially big implications for next year's presidential race. in the governor's race in kentucky and bc news projects the states democratic attorney general andy bashear is the

apparent winner and will unseen republican governor matt bevin. >> by the way, a little known fact, matt bevin was ahead by five percentage points before donald trump went there. >> help me out here. matt bevin who aligned himself with president trump and who framed the race as a referendum of donald trump. interesting. the vote was close by 5,000 points. trump carried this state -- we mentioned this but it's worth mentioning again -- by 30 points. bevin was the only republican running statewide to lose in kentucky last night. he is currently refuse to go concede the race. >> so let's talk about this. we have the virginia legislature -- >> i've got to get to virginia. it's a good one. >> it is. but -- >> you can't get over kentucky? >> i'm absolutely shocked. >> well, it happened. >> downtown did lost five

percentage points in one day. >> okay. >> so let's talk about it, steve kornacki, really quickly. obviously, it wasn't just that donald trump and his candidate performed poorly in the cities and in the suburbs. they didn't run up the totals even in some rural counties that they had, you know, that the republican gubernatorial candidate ran up four years ago. it was mainly those suburbs, those campbell and the suburbs up around cincinnati, wasn't it, that really changed. >> yeah. they did. i mean, i think, look, when you have a democrat winning in kentucky and the margin is .4 of one point, it ends up being a perfect storm. basically, everything that need to go right for the democrats went right for them. i think you're point to go one of the major things. it's the first sign last night that bevin was in trouble. boone, canton, campbell

counties, the northern group of three candidates that juts out, cincinnati is on the other side of the ohio river. in each one of those candidates, relative to what he did four years ago when he got elected governor, bevin was ten plus points behind that pace. and he was also ten plus points behind the pace that donald trump set when he won in 2016. so that was significant movement pretty large in terms of population. 10% of the state's population is just within those three counties. so that was a major problem getting monster turnout, monster numbers out of louisville and out of lexington. the two democratic parts of the state, that was key. and yeah, there were, if you look on the eastern part of the state, coal country on the eastern side of kentucky, rural, blue collar, you saw a bunch of blue counties there and a bunch of ready counties where it was close. that's a major reversal from what happened in 2016. it's a fascinating story in that part of kentucky because what

you have there is you still have -- it's funny, if you look on paper in rural eastern kentucky, there are still more registered democrats than republicans. it's just ancestral democratic i think is the term you've used. folks, their grandfather was a democrat, their father was a democrat, they're a downtown, but they voted big for donald trump in 2016. they're culturally conservative in the hope of sending rump the in for that rally. in places like that where they have some ties to the democratic -- but the voters really liked donald trump in 2016. you bring trump in there and in those counties perform for bevin like they did for trump or something like that. that's where it fell short, as well. you saw basheer winning a bunch of those counties and coming close in others. still ahead, we'll dig into the results in virginia where democrats just won control of both the statehouse and senate. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. right back. skin sin #17...

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♪ for the first time in more than two decades, democrats in virginia have taken control of the statehouse. >> do you all like the color blue? i said, do you like the color blue? because i'm here to officially declare today, november 5th, 2019, that virginia is officially blue. congratulations. >> amazing thp thanks to unusually high turnout, especially in virginia's sush bushes, yesterday marks the third election in a row in which democrats made significant gains since president trump was

elected. >> so before trump was elected, they had an almost two to one margin, republicans did, and now they're in the minority. that's breath taking. >> the sweeping victory will give democrats control of the legislature and the governship for the first time in 26 years. >> what a dramatic change. a state that was, on the state level, the legislature especially, just one of the reddest in america. it's taken three years of donald trump and his policies to reverse that. and now democrats firmly in control of everything that moves in the commonwealth state. >> i think virginia is a combination of donald trump who just really snis not the candide

of the new suburban tech-centered virginia. this shows a demographic change. virginia is a very different state from the place mika grew up in, was across the river from where i grew up in. it's the state that has benefited from the tech boom. you don't think of virginia as the silicone valley spin-off, but in many ways, it is. i can't help but think, looking at these results tonight, another few years, we're going to be looking at a blue texas. the same process, economic growth, greater suburban growth, demographic change, we're going to have a very different texas. the virginia result is overwhelming and it shows something that has been around for a while. >> that was that terrible

shooting in el paso where that paranoid mass shooter focused on immigrants coming into texas from mexico as being the reason why texas was changing. u you also have some republican candidates and leaders fearful of those demographic leaders. texas is changing the site for virginia. look at the texas seats that went from red to blue. that's really, as we go into 2020, if you're a republican, that is where you really have to be concerned. and florida, along the i-4 corridor and virginia, of course, the suburbs of d.c. mike barnacle, you look around the suburbs of detroit and you look at all of these suburbs and republicans are bleeding support

because of donald trump. >> the kentucky story is big, no doubt about that, but the virginia story is huge. when the governor and -- you control the state legislature. democrat democratic governors, they can move on things like health care. if you're a republican strategist looking at last night, measuring last night's results, looking forward to a year from now, it's a phrase, the ka nacanary and the coal mi. can you tell your clients, you have to watch out because the canary is dead. >> it tells you in the suburbs, a traditional republican strategy of relying on those suburbs, those sort of more upscale college educated higher ranked suburbs to allow republicans to stay in the game, you need a new strategy. the strategy that trump is trying here is to drive up support from noncollege white

voters, to drive up the support for voters who maybe didn't participate in 2018, didn't participate in 2016, and to sort of add them to the republican coalition to undo the losses in these suburban areas. the cautionary note is, in 2016, there was that famous quote, i think it was chuck schumer a couple weeks before the election, they looked at pennsylvania. and he was basically asked, what about that trump strength in western pennsylvania, the rural part of the state? and schumer's answer was for every vote we lose there, we're going to get two more in the philadelphia suburbs. didn't happen in 2016. there was enough strong rural support there to give trump pennsylvania in 2016. has there been further mobile zaz for the democrats since then and can that be offset for trump in 2020? i think that's the story. >> heidi, what are you looking at? it's hard not to notice the shifts happening here given these elections. you wonder if republicans might start changing their tune.

isn't this the missing link, when they go back home and face their constituents? >> given that this has been such a dramatic shift, like joe outlined, you have to wonder how republicans are going to respond in these swing states. kentucky was really special just because in the last election in 2018, we saw these suburban moves primarily and mid atlantic and coastal states, but kentucky is deep red country. but my home state of virginia, i want to underscore that there were two dynamics in play here. first is the suburban shift that you were all speaking of. and the perfect example of that is fairfax county which is one of these candidates that used to go republican a lot. it would switch back and forth and now there's not a single republican representative there. it is a clean sweep. secondly is the role of gerrymandering. there was a court ordered

redistricting of packed gerrymandered districts around the tidewater region where republicans had drawn the maps to pack african-americans and this is one of these court rulings that have been successful for democrats. so they were operating under a different map there. the truth is that republicans haven't won statewide here since 2009. but you see here, the role that gerrymandering has played in allowing republicans to maintain control at the state level despite the fact that those overall numbers of support are not there for them. so those demographics are catching up. this is going to have huge ramifications on a policy level in terms of gun control, the minimum wage, and secondly with that big 2020 redistricting around the census. coming up on "morning joe," there is senator ron johnson, there is acting chief of staff

mick mulvaney. and now there's the u.s. ambassador to the european union picked by trump. that's just half the number of witnesses who have confirmed that president trump attempted to a quid pro quo with ukraine. we'll run through the latest developments, next on "morning joe." i'm your curious cat,

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xfi advanced security. if it's connected, it's protected. call, click, or visit a store today. so back in october, the trump picked u.s. ambassador to the european union, gordon sondland, a wealthy trump donor turned diplomate outlined his opening statements to congressional investigators that he did not have any advanced knowledge of a scheme of a policy to promote trump's individual interests. according to text messages turned over by to congress by kurt volker, sondland said in an

early september text message exchange with william taylor, the top american diplomate in ukraine, that the president had been clear there was no quid pro quo between the aid and investigations of the bidens. taylor said it was crazy the aid was being withheld for help with a political campaign. sondland called trump after a career u.s. official in kiev rang the alarm about trump allegedly leveraging military aid for political favors for ukraine. that call occurred within a roughly five-hour gap between a text from taylor after which sondland instructed taylor to stop putting his concerns in writing and to call secretary of state mike pompeo or a pompeo aid if he wanted to discuss the matter further. throughout his october testimony, sondland frequently said he could not recall key details and events under scrutiny by impeachment

investigators. apparently all of that has now changed. yesterday sondland provided additional testimony to house impeachment investigators that updates his deposition from last month. in a sworn statement released yesterday, sondland said he now remembers telling a top aid to ukrainian president zelensky that the country would not receive u.s. military assistance until it committed to investigating the 2016 election and former vice president joe biden. in his updated system, sondland told congress that his memory was refreshed after reviewing the opening statements given by bill taylor and tim morrison and that he now recalls telling the zelensky adviser that the resumption of u.s. aid would likely not occur until ukraine provided the anti-corruption statement that we have been discussing for many weeks. sondland said that he believed

withholding the aid was ill advised, but did not know when or why or by whom the aid was suspended. once again, sondland's admissions appears to directly contradict his testimony to investigators last month when he said he never thought there was any precondition on the aid and appears intended to insulate him from accusations that he intentionally misled congress. according to a washington post analysis, there are now six public confirmations of a quid pro quo between the trump administration and ukraine, six, and i do not see a box there that includes the whistle month wither which t with -- whistle-blower which the white house is object sused with at this point. he says you can't have this source that you don't see and you don't know who the source is. look at these six people under

oath. >> all the whistle-blower did was confirm -- or say what he had heard and these people all firsthand, the fact they're still going after the whistle-blower, again, is as nine. all public confirmations. the only reason you would go after the whistle-blower is nothing more than retribution. and the fact that you now have u.s. senators calling for it publicly and political rallies, they're publicly calling for the breaking of american laws. think about that for a second. i love goldberg's tweet this morning. and he says this. in the we hear from the shepherd who found the dead sea skrolts and cross-examine his moevens for finding those dead sea scrolls, how can we trust what those scrolls have to say? which is really the position

donald trump and his white house have put themselves into. coming up, the angles on this story. mim i roka is standing by along with evelyn farkas. they join us, straight ahead. n s they join us, straight ahead

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. . into gordon sondland, he was the gentleman in the middle of the ewe krang negotiation. he initially said he was not involved. he didn't know anything about any quid pro quo. but then two of his colleagues said he did know trump was withholding military aid in

exchange for dirt on the bidens. so sondland did something highly unusual. he revised his testimony. he now says he did know that stuff he didn't know last week. gee, i wonder what jogged his memory. maybe he started taking those omega 3 supplements or something. they say those are very effect itch against perjury. so -- it is quite a staggering reversal. more now on the stunner in the impeachment push. u.s. ambassador to the european union gordon sondland revising his testimony to acknowledge a quid pro quo. to recap what we now know, last month, sondland initially asserted that president trump had not dangled usa to ukraine in return for political favors. he now says he told a top ukrainian official that trump would likely withhold u.s. military aid to ukraine unless the country's leaders agreed to publicly launch anti-corruption investigations that could

benefit trump politically. last month, sondland repeatedly told investigators he could not recall key details and events under scrutiny. he now says, quote, i now a september 1st meeting in warsaw where he told an adviser to ukrainian president zelensky that nearly $400 million in u.s. financial aid was contingent on zelensky committing to investigations into the 2016 election and barisna holdings. joining us now, former assistant united states attorney in the southern district of new york mimi roka. and former d.o.d. official dr. evelyn farkas, a senior resident fellow at the german marshall fund and an msnbc national security analyst. ewe gain robinson is back with us, as well.

mimi, explain to viewers and to all of us readvising testimony that seems like a bit of a stretch to not remember something like that since the first time he testified, that was the whole topic. >> yeah. it's not plausible, it's not believable that he did not remember these major events. you don't remember, you know, what you were wearing when you had a certain conversation, but you don't forget that you had the conversation with someone close to the president of ukraine about withholding military aid. so this is, in my view, look, he realized he got caught. he has good lawyers. they said, you know what? we have time to fix this. you do get a do-over here under congressional rules. and he took it. he's still reluctant, but he did the right thing. so this is his way of saying to future prosecutors who might scrutinize his testimony, look,

yeah, maybe i lied, but i did the right thing. don't prosecute me. there's a pretty good chance that is the way it will end up. he basically told the truth. you don't get do-overs in courtrooms, but in congress, you do. >> interesting. >> mimi, i understand this is not a criminal trial. i understand this is not a grand jury and an indictment, but it's the political equivalent. so as a prosecutor, just take what you have in front of you already, from the white house summary of the phone call to the whistle-blower report to the text messages, to the testimony from bill taylor and tim morrison and colonel vinman, now from gordon sondland. how are you feeling as a prosecutor? >> i am feeling so good right now. i mean, this is a case that i want to take to trial. like, please, don't plead guilty. i want to take this to trial. this would actually be fun because it is overwhelming. i mean, you just take the -- you could spend an hour on the summary itself, the call summary. and frankly, i've done cases like this with mobsters that

were less explicit than donald trump was in that call, the do us a favor, though. it's so obvious what was going on just from that. and then you have this witness testimony that just -- it's not just one witness. that's the point, right? they all fit together. they corroborate each other. and that is exactly how you build cases. i do think the democrats are doing an excellent job. fortunately, they've had career officials who are willing to come forward and tell the truth. and now with sondland, what it does, by him admitting this, it takes out any possible defense, right? so before it was maybe they could put everyone else in a bucket of deep state. i mean, i'm not giving credit to any of that, but that was what they were going to go with. well, yeah, they're all out to get drunk. now sondland comes in. he's not deep state. he is a loyal trumpist. you can't just write off everyone else's testimony. it takes away an entire defense

of no quid pro quo. now what they're left with trump didn't tell sondland to say that explicitly, to make it a bribe, but that's where giuliani comes in. >> so at the core of this story is a political appointee, gordon sondland, traipsing all over europe and falling into the ukraine thing and acting on behalf of the president trying to do what he thinks the president wants done. but, again, at the core of this story is what has happened internally to the state department of the united states of america. >> right. it's appalling because these people, they're really patriots, they're foreign service officers. they don't have a political motivation. they serve whomever the president is, whoever we elect, they serve. and so they all have come forward and said, there's a problem here. the bigger issue is not just sondland. i mean, he muscled his way into

this, actually. i guess he thought waits good way for him to -- >> a million dollars worth. >> yeah, exactly. and then muscled his way into union crane which wasn't in his portfolio. but the problem is you have this shadow foreign policy and the professionals are saying, wait a minute, we have official u.s. policy which is not the shadow foreign policy, they're trying to push back against it. and the second of state is not defending them, is wishy washy. it's unclear exactly what side pompeo was on and i'm afraid that it looks like he was on the president's side because he did not stand up, either privately or publicly for his civil servants and foreign service officers. so the morale was already low, as you all know. we covered a lot of what happened under secretary tillerson. it's, like, now through the basement. it's really very sad. and so i don't know how pompeo can actually continue to really head that agency. >> question for mimi, so

republican senators who will be the jurors in an eventual trial are covering their ears. i mean, i'm curious, how do you anticipate the role of chief justice roberts in a trial? he prideesides, he gets to run show, presumably. not that mitch mcconnell will be powerless in his own chamber. but you would think that the chief justice of the united states would assert himself in control of the trump -- how will he do that? can he make them actually pay attention to the evidence? >> well, i think it's going to feel very different than, you know, like the other hearings that we've had, public hearings before where senators get to just make political statements and grand stand and talk about, you know, hillary clinton and her emails, even though that is not the topic of the hearing. so i think it will really help

keep things focused on the issue at hand. i mean, the chief justice of the supreme court is not going to want -- going to let himself be portrayed or used as a political tool in that way. that doesn't mean he's not political. it doesn't mean he doesn't have views. and he's made public statements about this which i think is to his credit, that he wants to keep the supreme court above, you know, the politics of all this. whether or not they're successful in doing that, i don't know. but i think in these proceedings, he will do his best to appear judge-like and not partisan. and judges really can make or break a trial, right? the -- i've had judges that sort of let there be a circus atmosphere in the courtroom and let the defendant and their lawyers control things and that can be very beneficial. >> john roberts not lance edo. >> forgot about him.

>> so, evelyn, evelyn farkas, you know, as part of like the white house's get over it defense, let me try this one on you. they got the aid in the end. who cares? to that you say what? >> to that i say this has done a lot of damage to ukraine. the new reformist young guy who came in with a huge demand to get rid of corruption, to deal with russia somehow, coming up with some way to make the war at least manageable, right? he comes into power and he needs u.s. backing at the negotiating table because he's going to negotiate with putin. and president trump, aside from this shadow foreign policy, which is a disaster, which apparently started even before zelensky was in office, now zelensky is asking him publicly, back us up and president trump said, oh, you guys work it out. so the fact that the i'd waid w helping -- >> they got the aid in the end. >> they got the aid in the end. but the signal that was sent to

putin was, hey, you can try to push them against the wall because we're a little soft here at the level of the president. not below. but that's still a problem. >> when this aid was held up, were lives lost as it was being held or did they get it in the end? r did they get it in the end? obviously they're in a hot war. morally, i think it's not defensible to hold up any assistance and the assistance is things like, you know, antimissile defenses, radios so they can communicate securely and know where the enemy is. this is all vital to them, aside from training that we do also. so, you know, all the things to hold up for ukraine. and i know there was also a question about holding up some economic assistance or some trade waivers. holding up military assistance

is a whole other level. and what we're doing is helping ukraine defend its sovereignty. let's not forget that for the first time after world war ii, russia tried to change the borders in europe by force. that's why the u.n. came in resoundingly against it. >> also, mika, if i could just say, in terms of impeachment, the abuse of power happened the moment the aid was held up or even the moment they contemplated it, right? it's not whether they eventually got the aid. it's not whether the bank was actually robbed. it's not whether the bribe was taken. it's the use of the office of the presidency to try and make something happen. that happened. that's the impeachable offense. >> and there were lives hanging in the balance, clearly, in a hot war. mimi rocah, evelyn farkas, thank you both. >> thanks. coming up, our next guest knows how to win in the south. now he's one of four southern mayors advising the democratic presidential candidates on how to do the same. the mayor of birmingham, alabama

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early gum disease, and killing up to 99.9% of germs. try listerine®. need stocking stuffers? try listerine® ready! tabs™. ♪ voters in virginia yesterday turned their state wholly blue, but the fact still remains that virginia was the only southern state donald trump lost in 2016, and so, 2020 democrats still face an uphill battle in the south. but now a group of southern mayors have written a letter to democratic presidential candidates entitled "a roadmap for winning the south," detailing how they can, in fact, win the region. joining us now, one of the letter's co-authors, democratic mayor randall woodfin of birmingham, alabama. thank you very much, mr. mayor, for being on the show this morning. >> good morning. >> so, what are democrats -- what are the democratic

candidates missing in terms of winning in the south and what's your advice? >> well, first, thanks for allowing me to be on this morning. i will tell you that along with mayors in the south, which include cantrell of new orleans, louisiana, and benjamin of columbia, south carolina, as well as the mayor of jackson, mississippi, and myself, what we have decided to say is, listen, our votes -- you can't take us for granted. our cities collectively represent about 1.7 million people, about 370,000 voters and about 196 democratic delegates. and the path to victory is through the south. that is no disrespect to iowa or new hampshire, but so goes south carolina, the same thing will happen in georgia and mississippi as well as louisiana and alabama. and so, it's important that the democratic candidates, presidential candidates listen to us, but as well as make sure that they have concrete plans to deliver for residents in the south. we have issues that our

presidential candidates need to address. >> mr. mayor, we'll get to the important issue of alabama, lsu, and tuscaloosa in a minute, of course, but what is your message to these candidates? what should they know? what are they not saying that you all and your voters want to hear? >> well, i think the biggest thing is let's talk about health care. health care is -- we need medicaid expansion first before we can talk about medicaid for all. we have to think concrete, tangible things work for people. and just in birmingham alone, our biggest hospital, they're losing millions of dollars just because we can't even have expansion yet. so we need to talk about how do we really address tangible ways of broadening health care. the other thing is criminal justice reform and infrastructure. these are things that our residents, kitchen table issues, talk about every single day. my mother is 64. and just to be at the table to listen to her issues, i think these presidential candidates need to be listening to the voters that are actually going to decide who's going to be the

democratic nominee for the primary. >> is there a candidate or candidates that voters in birmingham and those important suburbs of birmingham are getting energized around, or is it too early to say yet? >> i think now it's still too early, but i think over the next 90 days you'll see some shift, you'll see some change, because once iowa goes, i think more people will be in tune to what's happening and be making a decision who they will vote for. >> so, you think iowa is going to -- i mean, a lot of people think of the south as joe biden's firewall, basically. i mean, when you look at the south carolina polls, he's way ahead. >> great. >> do you think that's real, that's preliminary, that's illusionary, or is that a firewall? >> i think it's real. i think if the election was today, joe biden would be in a good position to not only win south carolina, but many other southern states. so, that's incumbent upon him to hold what he has, but that also means other candidates need to really have conversations with people in the south. >> mm-hmm.

>> so, let's get back to the health care issue. i assume you must know many people who voted for you whose doctor, whose primary care physician is an emergency room. >> yes. >> so, what does a democratic candidate do to address that need immediately upon taking office that would satisfy those people? >> well, i don't know if that can be addressed right away. i mean, the health care conversation has been around for quite some time, and we need to figure out ways first to expand those options. our residents in birmingham -- i'll just take our residents. it's unfortunate, we have a 29% poverty rate, so there's a lot of work to do, but it also means, unfortunately, a lot of our residents' first line as it relates to needing medical attention is in the emergency room. and so, there's a lot of work to do around addressing health care, but i think the first thing that has to be done is to just talk about expanding it

first. >> do you think medicare for all, which has been proposed by elizabeth warren and bernie sanders, is that a good idea or does that go too far? >> honestly, i don't -- i'm not sure. i would definitely lean towards expansion first before we talk about for all. i'm in a position where i have to be pragmatic. i'm a non-partisan mayor. of course, i'm a democrat, but in my position, i'm a non-partisan and practicing maism works. and my pragmatism tells me you first have to expand. >> when you sat down, i said roll tide or go eagles -- >> roll tide, all day. >> prediction for the game? we got the playoff rankings last night, lsu number two, alabama three, both behind ohio state. what's going to happen in husk lisa saturday? >> alabama's going to win. can't tell you by how much, but roll tide. >> mayor randall woodfin of birmingham, alabama, come back soon. great to see you. >> you, too.

>> thank you, mr. mayor and thank you everyone for watching this morning. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> thanks so much, mika. hi, there. i'm stephanie ruhle. it is wednesday, november 6th, and here's what's happening now. this morning, we are waking up to election results that paint a clearer picture of the path we could be heading on into 2020. in virginia, democrats took complete control of the legislature for the first time in more than 20 years. in mississippi, republican tate reeves won a crucial governor's race, proving republicans still have a stronghold over the traditionally red state. but the biggest, the biggest surprise last night came in kentucky, a state president trump won by 30 points back in 2016. democrat andy beshear beat out the largely unpopular incumbent matt bevin in the governors race there. bevin has not yet conceded to the race. president trump was in the state just one night before the election