if you could have seen the breaks, they were so good. my thanks to matt miller, tim o'brien, jason johnson. most of all, to you for watching. that does it for our hour. "mtp daily" with chuck todd starts now. ts now welcome to wednesday. it's "meet the press daily" and wow. what a day after an election day. good evening. i am chuck todd in washington where republicans just suffered a series of bruising defeats at the ballot box. and democrats just scheduled public impeachment hearings. welcome to a whirlwind of news today. we are following both of those big stories tonight. and neither of them look very good for the president and possibly for his party, as well.

last night was bad for both of them. they lost the governor's race in deep red kentucky to democrat andy beshear. not just that, though, republicans lost control of the legislature in virginia for the first time in a generation. in some ways, you might have been able to predict both a few weeks ago, but the actual event itself happening is still a big deal. republicans also lost ground with suburban voters all over the country in local and statewide contest. it was an area stretching from richmond to washington, philadelphia to cincinnati, indianapolis, and even when republicans won in places like mississippi, they still lost ground with suburban voters outside of memphis. the president's scorched earth rally in kentucky didn't succeed. neither did the vice president's trip to virginia beach. nor did kentucky governor's matt bevin's attempt to use impeachment as a rallying cry. one of the biggest questions last night is what it means for the future of this presidency but not to be overlooked is what last night also means for the politics of healthcare heading into 2020. and that to me has been an under

reported headline. once again, a democrat who ran on defending obama care won. in fact, healthcare, not impeachment may have been what tipped the scales for the now kentucky govern elect andy beshear. which raises difficult questions for elizabeth warren and bernie sanders who are running on replacing obama care with a less-popular idea, medicare for all. but folks, here we are at a moment of potential peril for the gop, president trump in particular. president trump is facing impeachment. republicans are struggling with voters in places in the suburbs. whether it's kentucky or virginia. whether the state's red or blue, if the suburbs are there, they're stilting towards the democrats. a as i said, we're following both these stories tonight. neither of them obviously a very good day for this white house. in just a moment, we're going to dive into the latest on impeachment and the developments around public hearings, the newly released transcript. all of that adds more to the

pile of quid pro quo evidence. but we begin tonight with the importance of unpacking last night. only in washington are we only focused on impeachment here. we're focused on everything. we're going to start in kentucky with phillip bailie. he's a reporter with the louisville courier journal. phillip, washington is writing one story about kentucky governor. you wrote the story in kentucky about kentucky governor. why did matt bevin lose? >> well, matt bevin, chuck, is a unique political character. right? i mean, he is someone who has thumbed his nose at political traditions. he didn't release his tax returns. he's called, you know -- excuse me, kentucky judges hacks when they rule against him. certainly, thumbed his nose at the media. so he is someone who is uniquely sort of unpopular because he's quarrelled with his own party for quite some time. so andy beshear's win was not surprising to a lot of folks here in kentucky given how beshear was engaged with the teachers who really quite honestly hate governor bevin. and delivered beshear immense

massive victories, particularly in louisville, lexington, democratic strong holds for the party. but also was interesting that andy beshear was able to flip certain districts. in northern kentucky, the cincinnati suburbs, three counties. boone county, kitten county, campbell county known as the tea party headquarters, andy beshear was able to flip both campbell and kitten county. so that coupled with these massive wins and margins in the central areas of louisville, lexington, the democratic strong holds i think really, you know, matt bevin's personality and leadership style finally caught up with him. >> so what did the president and the focus on impeachment in this last ten days by bevin, did that -- did that make it more competitive? or was it basically he was just throwing anything -- this -- this race was always lost for bevin and he was looking for anything to get over the -- get over the finish line here. >> during the summer, the governor's campaign made it

pretty clear they wanted to nationalize this race on abortion, on illegal immigration, and certainly on the president who is still immensely popular in kentucky. right? but for i think the governor, his campaign really got an early warning back in the may primary when little known legislator by the name of robert goforth, a freshman, got about 40% of the vote. and robert goldforth was not saying i'm more conservative than matt bevin. he was making the argument that matt bevin isn't one of us. right? he's this new hampshire native who's sort of rude and doesn't know kentucky values. as one supporter told me, the govern governor's not someone you invite over to memaw's house to have potato salad. you never really saw governor bevin kind of build a fold with former rivals in the republican side the way andy beshear was doing. >> final question because we're hearing a lot of spin out of washington. what -- how do you explain the republican success below bevin?

is this a -- i mean, so beshear didn't have any coat tails. what are we to read into that? >> well, i think you have to realize that here in kentucky, governor bevin was immensely unpopular for years, for decades really, chuck. kentucky democrats thought they had been inoculated from the more progressive unpopular national party by having these off-year elections. but what we've seen is that kentuckians more and more are pretty much republicans not just at the federal level but at the state level. and bevin was just someone out of touch with kentucky more than he was policy wise or politically. he just rubbed a whole lot of people the wrong way. and there's really not a whole lot for democrats to be happy about. this might be the one race, chuck, where both democrats and republicans seem to be both happy with the result. senator mcconnell's people are very happy. their protége. daniel cameron. right. and they had no love lost with governor bevin himself. so i think this will be more of

a bevin referendum than a national one. >> phillip bailie with important perspective from kentucky of kentucky and reporting on kentucky. thank you, sir. good to see you and i'm sure we'll be checking in as that senate race with mr. mcconnell heats up. joining me now, larry director of the university of virginia center for politics. and dave wasserman and nbc news contributor. dave, you just heard from phillip bailie there it was a very -- put it this way -- the dnc's not sending around those talking points, are they? basically saying, weirdly enough republicans are secretly happy about this almost as much as democrats are. interesting perspective. >> yeah. and it was really northern kentucky in those suburbs that where we saw the biggest erosion for matt bevin versus 2015. we saw democrats advance further in the suburbs in virginia. in 2020, there won't be a single state or federal office holder

representing fairfax county virginia in richmond or washington. so that suburban advance for democrats continues on. >> larry, this feels as if this was an election night that just reinforced pre-existing notions that we all had. and all of the results sort of, oh, yep. trump's still got suburban problems. yep. still a rural urban divide. yep. you know, certain -- oh, obama care can play in every corner in this country. it feels as if everything reinforced what we already knew. or at least we think. >> yeah. no. i think that's true. we didn't have to learn any new lessons at least not here in virginia. so i'm happy about that. >> not yet. >> not yet. not yet. but what you just said is true. this is a 20-25 year process. changing demographics that frankly have been put on steroids by donald trump. the election of donald trump. this has pushed so many suburbanites who had voted republican, chuck, for decades

into the democratic party. they now show up, vote democratic regularly, and remember this is the culmination. this was the last piece of the puzzle that democrats didn't control. now, they have everything in virginia. there's nothing left. there are no more worlds to conquer. so if i were the republicans, i wouldn't spend ten cents in virginia at least until donald trump is gone. >> i was just going to say it -- it -- trump in this case in virginia, larry, felt as you just put it right, he just put -- he accelerated a trend. so i mean, at this point there is no alternative republican party left? >> there's -- there's nothing. it's really amazing. the republicans used to win because they nominated center-right people who are acceptable to the suburbanites and actually were well-liked by the suburbanites. now, it's the hard core, harsh republicans who tend to win

statewide nominations and a lot of local nominations. and it just doesn't sell and they don't even seem to care. >> let's talk about the impact in 2020 a bit here. dave, what's amazing to me is actually not how only this result was reinforcing. it was almost identical to what we saw in 2018. a democrat who fit the district or state, andy beshear, runs on protecting something that is growing more popular by the day, obama care, and somehow is able to win in some red areas. and oh by the way, is he a millennial technically? i think he may have even checked that box. right? there is a pattern here. what is the lesson democrats should take from this? >> well, couple things from last night. first of all, this suburban pipeline away from republicans and the democratic party that larry was talking about, it's absolutely affecting presidential politics because there is a new name for those suburban republicans who don't like trump and it's called

democrats. virginia doesn't have party registration so you can vote in whoever's primary for president. those voters are not warren-crats. they're not bernie-crats. which is good news for someone like joe biden. but also, the result out of mississippi, we should talk about that too because that was not a sparkling -- a -- a result for democrats. african-americans there did not turn out at the levels that jim hood and democrats were hoping. i think that is a caveat to last night's results. a warning side for democrats in louisiana's run off. but also, in five of the six states that are going to decide the presidential election in 2020. the african-american vote. north carolina, florida, michigan, pennsylvania, wisconsin. >> larry, particularly on healthcare, what -- it -- it -- look, it looks to me as if the democrats could play the obama -- you know, keep, protect, expand obama care hand and they can play in any state, any district, any county in the country.

>> that's exactly right. look, medicare for all plays in deeply blue states and districts and that's terrific. but you have to win some of the states you just mentioned and dave has been talking about. if you can't win those, you're not requestigoing to win the pr. and obama care is, for the first time, truly really popular. it had some periods of popularity. but it's -- it's really up there now. why not capitalize on that? >> what are we going to see in louisiana? more of the same? david, it looks like kentucky and it will be a coin flip at the end because it's basically the same contest. maybe you don't like the policies one's presenting but you don't like the cultural connections with the other. >> well, look, john bell edwards has to hang on to more than a third of white voters in louisiana and he's holding on for dear life right now. what we saw in initial round of voting was the white share of the electorate was higher than in 2015. part because trump visited the

state. he's going to have to pump up the african-american turnout. that's hard for a conservative white democrat to do. but we'll see. i think he's done probably just enough to localize the race, to personalize it that he can still win. >> hey, larry, it is amazing to me democrats did so well in virginia when their two top-elected statewide officials, let's just say, were ham strung by scandal. to be -- to be -- in fact, up here in northern virginia, larry, you couldn't turn on a television without seeing the justin fairfax controversy being used and it didn't work. what message does that send? >> well, it sent a very particular message. and i don't mean to always come back to trump but it's another part of the trump effect. he churns out controversies and scandals at a rate faster than any politician in american history. so we move on so quickly from event to event and controversy to controversy. that was february.

that was like four years ago, chuck. >> i was thinking about your first great book that many of us read as students. "feeding frenzy." thinking what the hell would that book look like today? >> it'd be twice as long. maybe ten times. >> it would be never-ending i think. anyway, larry. dave wasserman. two of the best. thank you both. much appreciate it. coming up, we got more on what the president's bad night means for the next election night, plus a look at what we'll hear from the first key witness in the democrats' upcoming impeachment hearings. one could argue this could be the official unofficial narrator of the democrats' case against the president. we're going to go through newly released transcripts from bill taylor with a committee member who was in the room when bill taylor laid out a clear quid pro quo. l yltaor laid out a clear quid pro quo. ♪ and now for their service to the community, we present limu emu & doug with this key to the city. [ applause ]

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as we mentioned earlier today was a tough day for the

president. following the party's tough night at the ballot box. you find out your guy that you promised to drag across the finish line, you didn't do it and today you find out that you have a public date with impeachment. house democrats set the date officially to start the public portion of their investigation. one week from today. first up will be career diplomat bill taylor whose close door testimony became public today. and state department official george kent. then next friday, they'll take a day off. then former ambassador marie yovanovitch is also expected to testify. joining me now, nice to see you, sir. danielle. and cornell, democratic pollster and also msnbc contributor as well. so it does feel like if you're the president, it's a one-two punch. you got dealt a hit last night. i mean, the president himself and we should play the byte because it was an amazing sound byte. on monday, he predicted what

people would say -- we don't have it yet i'm told. but he said you're sending that big message to the rest of the country. you have to get your friends out to vote. he says if you lose, they're going to say trump suffered the greatest defeat in the history of the world. you cannot let that happen to me. the fact of the matter is the trump effect is a negative, not a positive. >> and the fact is that bevin and republicans felt like this was going to be the galvanizing moment. in fact, this is what their own campaign is saying about 2020. people will galvanize and defend him. and i think what was fascinating is particularly how this debate was framed in the final weeks. right? was it framed on the one hand, you had bevin running this nationalized campaign against an opponent who was running a very localized campaign. but the opposite was true in virginia. right? where there's a democrat trying to nationize it. so on both elements here, it didn't work. >> danielle, not to out where you live but i believe you live

in frank wolf's district who is republican congressman in northern virginia here. the last republican congressman in northern virginia. it is my understanding of his old tenth district, 62% of elected officials are now democrat. i mean, it is a total suburban just flight from trump. >> so you'll all appreciate this. i was about to tell you the story off air. my husband, when we got married, insisted because he went to uva like larry sabado, insisted we move to virginia because maryland which looked like my hometown was just too democrat. yeah. who got the last laugh there? >> how's larry hogan doing? it is -- cornell, what'd you learn? >> what i learned is that national -- republicans trying to nationalize election doesn't help them even in deep red places. look. bevin was -- was -- was someone in trouble. we had a good candidate there but i also don't want democrats to over learn this ideal that it's simply about one or two issues. i know we want to talk about

healthcare. healthcare's a really important issue. but, chuck, democrats been getting the hats handed to them on the issue of healthcare for several years. trump has set a context now w where, you know, you had the reporter on from kentucky talking about kent and boone counties flipping. you have turnout over there sort of 50 miles an hour more voters coming out of there and dem performance improving by almost 10 percentage points. there's something bigger and larger going on especially with suburban, white women that is not about a single issue. >> desoto county. this was the county. we used to call it -- let's call it for what it was. it was called white flight and then all of a sudden, these suburban counties became republican. right? in the '80s. and now, these same voters have become democrats. it's more than just healthcare. it's all of it. it's your neighbors, danny, right? it's not just healthcare, is it? >> no, it's not just healthcare. it's everything. but i doi this you're right to

sound a warning bell. there was a good candidate in beshear, which is really important. and the thing we have to talk about for 2020 if we're going to be talking about this as a signal is who is donald trump running against? it's still mystery democrat. and if that mystery democrat isn't a beshear, which it's not going to be in my opinion, that's going to make a different race. >> but i think the biggest lesson republicans learned that did not involve trump was that the very closing days and weeks of this kentucky race, they turned the culture wars. it's the same thing that george bush tried when he was in the gutter for his own re-election with gay marriage referendums, right? >> it worked then. >> it absolutely did. and then time, they had ads about transgender athletes. it was a total non-factor. so i thought we saw a kernel of a seed. >> but you're also seeing turnout change dramatically in these elections. you have an awakening that's happening not necessarily in the suburbs but the exurbs and also

urban areas. look, i don't care -- >> republicans are turning up. bevin got 200,000 more votes. >> if you look both surge but the surge on the democratic side was larger. there's -- there's a cap on the number of voters you can energize and turn out with these old cultural war issues i would argue. >> i think that -- that has been an issue. okay. danny, what do you take away from this if you're tom tillis? or if you're cory gardner? obviously, if you could show distance from an unpopular figure, you might survive. but trump doesn't allow for it. >> or even mitch mcconnell. go further than that. >> i've talked to a bunch of republican members about exactly this and asked this question and each one of them has said we do not dare abandon donald trump in the next election because our base will kill us for it. and it's not just donald trump and how he's, you know, engaging in these machinations, it's also

the core voters, the people who do turn out. they're going to be mad. so they've got to walk that really fine line. they're about to be asked to do it in impeachment. >> one time, bill, this was during the tea party fight. i think there's an fable. the man just randomly jumped off a cliff. but you have to tell the rest of the story. he was being chased by a tiger. like, the point was he jumped to certain death. okay. but he had certain death following him. what she just described reminds me of that fable. >> but at some point, and i know we're partisan political hacks but at some point -- >> speak for yourself. >> especially, you. but at what point, do you do the right thing? i mean, at what point do you say i'm going to be bigger than this -- this moment? look, if mitch mcconnell were on the ballot last night, mitch mcconnell would not be senator again. you have to see those tea leaves. >> i don't know if that's true. i don't know if that's true. i mean -- >> wildly unpopular but it's also a different electorate. if you look at -- >> i take your point that he's

got to be -- >> look what happened in jefferson county. look what happened in fayette county there. those are different electorates. there's different people turning out for those elections. if -- if deeply red kentucky's flipping in those suburbs are flipping, lindsey graham's in trouble. right? all of a sudden, georgia's more in play. >> it changes a lot. >> it changes the map. yes. >> look, to be parochial for a second, one person i've been spending a lot of time with is susan collins. to talk about her pickle, i'll say trump probably faces the biggest pickle ever. if she votes to keep the president in office, she loses by 7% to the very strong democratic candidate who is raising a lot more money than susan collins. >> you have the exact percentages here. i see that. go ahead. finish. >> here's the fascinating thing. if she votes to remove trump from office, and look obviously republicans need 20 votes. just let her do it, mcconnell. it's fine. she gets crushed in a republican

primary. and we have until march for that period to happen. >> she wants a senate trial in april is what you're saying. >> exactly. >> paula page. i thought he was a florida resident. >> he's spending a lot of time in maine right now. this poll shows that she would lose to the -- >> i believe chuck schumer would pay his filing for the united states. anyway, james, danielle, cornell. stick around to say paula page. up next, new hearings and new evidence. we're going to get a preview of the democrats plan to try to take the impeachment inquiry public with a member of the house intel committee who has been key in many of these deposition transcripts as we've noticed. we'll be right back. e noticed. we'll be right back. day 23.

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as we mentioned earlier, house democrats will hold public hearings in their impeachment inquiry starting one week from today. and today, we got a preview of what we'll likely hear as impeachment investigators release the transcript from acting ukraine ambassador bill taylor's close door deposition. taylor will be one of the first two witnesses to publicly testify next wednesday. said it was his quote, clear understanding unquote that military aid to ukraine was tied to demands that the country investigate president trump's political rivals. telling intelligence committee chairman adam schiff quote, that was my clear understanding. security assistance money would not come until the president committed to pursue the investigation. schiff then asked, so if they don't do this, they are not going to get that was your

understanding? taylor's response, yes, sir. schiff then followed up, are you aware that quid pro quo literally means this for that? to which taylor answered, i am. obviously, the asking/re-asking of that question to get sort of an exclamation point on quid pro quo. with me now is congressman sean patrick maloney. member of the house intelligence committee. which mean he's been in these close door hearings and congressman, we've seen you've had quite a few interesting exchanges in here. let me start with the decision to go public with the hearings. bill taylor, george kent. how many public witnesses do you expect to see to get called up there? >> well, enough to get the american people the full picture. i think you're not talking about dozens. you're talking about a relatively small number. and they are very powerful witnesses. you know, bill taylor is not just some bureaucrat. bill taylor is a west point grad. i represent the united states

military academy. it's my honor to do so. the guy's a west point grad. served as an infrantry officer n vietnam. while donald trump was avoiding military service, bill taylor was getting shot at and he's put 40 years not just in the military but in the foreign service. this is a deeply credible, knowledgeable person and he tells a heartbreaking story where he reluctantly, almost belatedly after taking over for ambassador yovanovitch, realizes what is happening and he does everything he can to stop it. to work within the system. to bring it to his superiors. and he belatedly realizes that there is a quid pro quo being demanded of a country, as he points out, that is fighting the russians in a shooting war right now. and he understands what that military assistance means to the freedom and security of that country. and he tells a very powerful story. i'm glad that the public's going to see it. >> let me put up an exchange you had with him on sort of reinforcing that burisma was a

bit of a code word for bidens. ambassador taylor. as i understood the reason for investigating burisma was to cast vice president biden in a bad light. then you respond, that would be the domestic political gain? taylor says, yes. and you reinforce this to cast vice president biden in a bad light. he says, right. and the political campaign would be what political campaign, you ask. and then he simply says, a political campaign for the re-election of president trump. it sounds like in bill taylor, you have somebody that isn't subtle, that doesn't speak in sort of that washington speak sometimes where he's trying to round the edges. he seems like a very matter-of-fact witness here. do you expect him to be that in public? >> i sure hope so. and -- and -- and not because i want him to say anything in particular. but because guys like bill taylor don't pull their punches. they have a clear sense of right and wrong. and when he saw it, he knew what it was. but his language was important there because it explodes

this -- this nonsense that the republicans have been pushing. that this was a generic concern about corruption. that they just wanted investigations. ambassador taylor chose specific words. he said this was about political gain. this was about advantage in a political campaign. so my questions were designed to get at exactly what he meant. he didn't say investigations. he didn't say just burisma. he made crystal clear that he knew that there was a quid pro quo being demanded. he puts it together very clearly. a quid pro quo that would benefit the president personally, politically, and it's wrong. >> you know, another thing that jumped out at us, apparently taylor testified that in june gordon sondland requested that the phone call not be transcribed at all. that no notes or there wouldn't be any monitoring of it at all. that seemed to be new to us. >> right. and there's a term for that. it's called consciousness of

guilt. it's one of the first red flags that went up for ambassador taylor. he knew it didn't make sense and that's when his antennas started to work and -- and in a straight line from that point, he starts to put together the sad truth, the truth that should break everyone's heart who cares about things being done the right way. that there was this grimy financial interest by rudy giuliani and his now indicted clients mixed up in this toxic brew with the president's shabby political interests. and they were pushing that and displacing the very serious national security policy that was -- that was critical to the defense of europe and ukraine and to our own national security. and as he watched it unfold, he brought it to pompeo. he tried to do something about it. he tried to see it in the best possible light until it was unmistakable that it was wrong. >> all right. a few things about the hearings next week. number one, any reason you're skipping thursday?

is that just a scheduling issue? >> i don't have an answer for you on that. i defer to the chairman. but remember we've got a limited capacity down there and our staff has been doing heroic work. my guess is we're trying to do this in a professional, measured way. but i don't have a specific answer on that. >> gordon sondland going to be in front of tcv cameras? >> i sure hope so. i think ambassador sondland is an important witness. obviously, now that he's cleaned up his testimony and aligned himself with the -- with the sworn accounts of other witnesses, you know, he becomes a more credible witness to the extent that that testimony is corroborated by everything else we know. but he has an important role in all this. and remember, he's a political appointee. he is an ally of the president. he basically bought this ambassadorship for a million dollars. but he was about to buy a perjury charge and he is -- he is clearly sobered up and telling an important part of the story. >> do you expect anybody else that you've deposed to come in and correct their transcript? >> you know, that's an interesting question. i -- i hope not. i hope that the witnesses who've

appeared before us took it seriously. i think there are people like mr. morrison, who is a life-long republican, very conservative individual. worked for 17 years for republicans on the hill. but he showed up. he answered a lawful subpoena and he gave his testimony. i didn't -- i didn't necessarily agree with everything he said or -- or even -- even the connotation of some of the things he said. but the point is, is he was there under oath. i -- i -- i don't know of another witness who had as big a problem as am babassador sondla. let me put it that way. and i'm glad the ambassador has taken steps to correct his testimony. >> congressman sean patrick maloney from democrat from new york. thanks for coming on. and sharing your views. appreciate it. >> my pleasure. >> coming up, biden versus warren. a war of words heats up and does the democratic win in kentucky spell permanent trouble for medicare for all backers? l perm medicare for all backers

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family has pre-existing conditions. we're lucky they're not serious but that's not the case for lucas stevens and thousands of kentuckians and matt bevin is trying to take away their healthcare. i'm andy beshear. i'm not gonna let that happen. welcome back. that was one of the ads run by democrat andy beshear. beshear won in a red state while evangelizing obama care, which adds another wrinkle to the current expanding obama care versus medicare for all debate that is raging in the 2020 primary and has two of the field's front-runners trading blow. really, all four now trading blow with each other. i think we have to call it four front-runners now that another new iowa poll has biden in fourth. still with us, james, danielle, cornell belcher. cornell, biden we said went to another level. biden went after warren. warren went after biden. well, here's biden again on a radio show this morning

verbalizing his medium post hitting warren for being an elitist. take a listen. >> she has things in her plan that are just not realistic. but when you question it, she talks about it as, well, you just don't understand or you're sounding like a republican, which is -- which is a talking point that is used by the other party, not by us. it's not who we are. and it's just an elitist attitude about either my way or the highway. you mustn't know what you're talking about if you disagree with me. >> that is the opening that warren has left him and i think -- i think -- i think it's a fair critique. look, i'm neutral here but i think it's a fair critique. what i'm not neutral about is aca. and i know that's part of the conversation. obama care. because, you know, i am an obama guy. and i was talking to some obama folks and they cannot -- will rename nameless -- and they cannot understand the ideal that -- everything we went

through, all the political capital the president used. all these democrats laying on the sword for this to get this thing passed. now, they want to -- now, when it's above water, kieser has 11 points above water now. now, they want to tear it all down and start -- start -- start over. to a lot of the obama people, it makes zero political sense. >> do you ever think the republican party would end up becoming the party of obama care at one point? i don't think they are yet because matt bevin didn't want to be it either. but that is the position that may become default if warren's the nominee. >> yeah, if warren's the nominee. but i think it makes it a heck of a lot easier for donald trump or whoever is the republican nominee because it is a fight that's been had repeatedly and i don't care what the polls say. this fight has not been taking place on a national level and there haven't been the attacks that there were of the, you know, harry and louise epic hilary clinton healthcare days. i don't think this is as set in stone as people think it is. >> wait, is there going to be another nominee other than

donald trump for the republican party? >> you know how i would feel but i don't want to pre-judge. >> the bottom line is we've learned on healthcare politics, james, the party that looks like it's trying to change it the most gets punished. and right now, that's the republican party except elizabeth warren and bernie sanders' medicare for all suddenly are, no, no, no, we're going to change healthcare more. and what we know the public doesn't like is the party that wants to change healthcare the most. >> and if democrats learned anything in kentucky, it's what happened in eastern kentucky. right? no state in the country has benefitted more in terms of enrollments on medicaid than kentucky. and it is now in 44% have the plurality of support in kentucky the affordable care act. it has been their main path to how those states, on culture or on healthcare. that was the dynamic in eastern kentucky. but to your larger question, the one thing i'm wondering in terms of moving the goal post a little bit, if the conversation on medicare for all taking place over here allows for much more

of a centrist position to preserve the affordable care act in the middle. >> let me put up this new poll. look, at the end of the day, we know there's plenty of other iowa polls out there. this one seems to mirror what we saw a couple days ago, which is biden in fourth, which i believe now is his second straight poll with biden in fourth. this has buttigieg, warren. look, butte jeigieg, sanders, warren. but that's a four-way tossup now. >> like you and i talked about, see, at some point like -- you don't want to be the front-runner. you know, four or five months ago of the democratic party because bad things happen. >> you want to be front-runner now? i've had more people tell me the one thing they've been concerned about, this was about two weeks ago, either piquing too soon. given what's happening with medicare for all, i think they're going to be in the barrel. >> in 2007-2008, obama didn't become the front-runner until the very end. and you'll see the -- and guess what?

these attacks will have an impact on her. but who benefits from these attacks? is it buttigieg? is it klobuchar? is it senator harris? or is it joe biden? >> i was just going to say. i'm like, jeez. >> i don't know. you learn a lesson from the republican primary last time. how many did we have running? 20, 30, 50? i don't remember. but each every month it was a different front-runner and all the attacks poured in on that person. i mean, i agree with you. piquing now is not what you want. although, i'm not sure in january, february, or march it's what you want either. >> my sunday likes to say every time there's a stop x movement, x always wins. like if you think about it, any time there's been there's going to be a stop this movement, it rarely wins. the last exception was howard dean, right? there was a stop dean movement and it worked. >> murder/suicide. >> right. but the stop trump movement never worked. every month, it was a different candidate that was going to stop trump and it didn't work. is that how it's going to work with warren? or no?

>> no, i think it's much, much more complicated than that. two things off this iowa poll. number one, to show you how complicated it is in iowa and it is the only place right now where there is a four-way race. they asked who is the most electable? and three people got 21% each. >> let met guess. the three -- the top three in the thing. three of the top four. sanders probably -- >> actually, sanders was below. >> exactly. sanders will be in fourth. >> and the second is buttigieg's rise in a really weird way. has really helped bernie sanders because if you look at the second choice options for buttigieg, they're split. half go to warren. half to back to biden. so the idea that he is there, he is lowering where elizabeth warren could be and lowering where biden could be. and sanders is still very much in this game, particularly in iowa. >> you're nodding along. >> yeah. no. i -- >> conspiracy theory. >> no. but that's right. the second choice and this is sort of the polling sort of insider thing. right now, i'm not even paying attention to the first choice. i think the second choice is -- >> she's dominating.

she had been dominating. >> she had been dominating. but now, she's first place. we should be talking about that. she was second choice. look who is dominating second choice right now because i think it's buttigieg. but what does buttigieg do when going south? because that's where people say he has the biggest problem. that's where clyburn says his biggest problem. >> neither warren or buttigieg look like they have an in yet with african-american voters. >> that's right. >> can i ask you a question about this? when are all of them going to try to get together and stop elizabeth warren? because if elizabeth warren is the nominee, she 's going to loe the election. >> you think that's a fact. >> it's not a fact. it's an opinion. >> i will say this i'm old enough to remember every democrat was convinced well at least it's donald trump. james, danny, cornell. thank you always. good to see you. these two are a tough pair to break into. good stuff. anyway, up ahead, another one of the president's former advisors is in court. we're going to get the update on day one of the circus that is called roger stone's trial. day one of the circus that is

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welcome back, on top of

impeachment and election losses there's another developing story around washington that's cause for more headaches for president trump. roger stone's criminal trial officially got underway in federal d.c. court today, and prosecutors did not waste any time during their opening statement directly tieing president trump to their charges against stone for allegedly witness tampering and lying to congress about his contact with wikileaks. our nbc intelligence national security reporter ken dilanian is at the courthouse, was watching this all day today, and there's a whole bunch of juror stuff and side show things that i'd love to talk about, but we got a short amount of time. what jumped out at you today? >> reporter: what jumped out at me was the extent to which the prosecutor, aaron se len ski made donald trump a key character in this trial. he said at the outset this was not a trial about politics, but then he explained that in his view, roger stone's motive for lying to congress about his interactions trying to get the wikileaks material was that the truth would be bad for donald

trump, and then he explicitly mentioned a phone call between stone and trump on the very day that the democrats announced that the russians had hacked their e-mails. now, they said -- he said the government is not aware of the contents of that call, but the implication was that trump told stone to go get the e-mails, and there was another phone call in july between trump and stone, and then an fbi agent took the stand as the first witness and talked about another phone call, and in addition to being in touch with trump, stone was in touch with paul manafort the campaign chairman and steve bannon. stone told them we have a chance to get donald trump elected but it ain't pretty. we can save this campaign. it's almost like an unwritten chapter of the mueller report. they were going after these e-mails they knew were hacked against the russians to use against hillary clinton. >> this is up for debate later, if the government wins this case against stone, then essentially it means the mueller report is not complete. but i'll save that debate for another day. ken dilanian with his what is

going to be certainly something to watch, the roger stone trial. that's all we have for tonight. we'll be back tomorrow with more "meet the press daily kwl." there's an all new chuck toddcast to download. we do a lot of 2020 and breaking down of election night 2019. "the beat" starts right now. >> thank you very much. we begin this show with breaking news. impeachment investigators releasing full testimony from bill taylor for the first time today and it's providing new details of the bribery plot at the center of the case for impeaching president trump. taylor outlining his clear understanding that security assistance money would not come until ukraine did trump's desired investigations. so that is another insider right now confirming that this money was conditioned on a favor for trump's re-election, the quid pro quo bribery and then in this newly released interview transcript, democrats the point person on