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several small new hampshire towns are carrying out the tradition of voting starting at the stroke of midnight eastern time. they do it on the condition that they can get all the vote in and send their results on. these are towns with names like millsfield, dixville notch, and the town of hart's location, where our own cal perry is standing by for our first glimpse of some of the first votes cast in the sweatiest room in new england, he reports. hey, cal. >> reporter: hey, brian. i'll get out of your way, and you can watch the voting is under way. the 18 individuals who are voting tonight are all in that room. and what you're going to see is they are voting and then walking out. what's happening is they're checking the roll. they're checking the names. folks are voting. they drop that little paper into that box, and that is it. there are 48 people who live in this town, brian. three of them are children so they cannot vote, which leaves

45 registered voters. 21 voted via absentee ballot. 6 people declared they were not voting, which leaves 18 people voting. as you said, 100 participation is necessary. this room is filled with at least half media and citizen journalists. i ran a little entry poll tonight because that's what we do. mostly democrats here tonight. i spoke to a third of the people voting, around six people, and all of them are voting on the democratic ticket. you can, of course, vote in the republican primary if you choose. but it seems like most people here are voting again on that democratic ticket. the top issues for people here, health care, climate change, and most importantly, everyone that i spoke to said beating donald trump. we have a few people that declared their votes. two amy klobuchar votes. i will tell you going into that room undecided, at least claiming they're undecided. a lot of people tell us they'll let us know on their way out. >> thank you for that very

complete reporting from the live vote going on. let's bring in our leadoff discussion guests on this early tuesday morning edition of our broadcast. carolyn ryan is back with us, assistant managing editor for "the new york times," who served as the paper's political editor during the last psych until cyc. she has somehow remained a die hard red sox fan. at the big board, our national political correspondent steve kornacki. as we already established, cal perry is holding down the fort in the town called hart's location. in case you were looking for hart. steve kornacki, to you. talk about the history of this kind of thing. first in the nation, yes. but also as they open up the ballot box now in dixville notch, they will post, as they usually do on a board, after calling them out -- we don't have access to sound from here. they will post right there on their high-tech whiteboard, which actually will be a more

verifiable result than iowa, they will post the vote. tell us about the tradition and history of this. >> yeah, unlike iowa, the polls are closing here. we're going to get some actual results in a couple minutes. yes, this goes back three different towns here. we can show you towns, unincorporated townships, hamlets if you want to call them. where cal is, hart's location, this is hours north of nashua. this is getting into the north country. if you know new hampshire at all, the attitash ski area, that's right nearby. bartlett, new hampshire, that's right nearby as well. this is the biggest of the three that's going to be reporting tonight. they've been doing this in hart's location in modern times since 1996, but actually this hart's location was the first in new hampshire that ever did midnight voting. 1948 was the first time they offered that. the main central railroad was there in hart's location. they did it add midnight to accommodate the workers. we expect they'll have the most votes tonight.

the other two we're expecting to hear from, you mentioned dixville notch. this is the one most people associate with midnight voting. they've been doing it for the longest uninterrupted. the modern tradition in dixville notch began in 1960. this is a town, if you want to call it a town, very small, in transition. dixville notch is basically the balsam's grand resort hotel. it's a hotel that actually closed in 2011, and the town has lost what little population it had. there was suspense until about a month ago whether they were even going to be able to do midnight voting. the owner of the balsam's property established residency within dixville notch, new hampshire, to get them to the mandatory five voters. they needed to have five voters to be able to do this tonight. they have five voters so dixville notch will continue that tradition. millsfield, in 2016 here in the democratic race, this was -- oh,

that is not at all what was supposed to happen there. let's try that one more time. see this one piece of blue here? this is the 2016 result. sanders versus clinton in the new hampshire primary. remember, sanders just killed clinton across the state. only three little pieces of blue you see, this was hillary clinton. this was one of her best towns in the state. she won it two to one. 67%, that's what she got out of millsfield. those are the three we can expect to hear from tonight. the track record in these towns in terms of picking the statewide winner -- if you go further back in time, we can show you quickly here, it's a mixed bag. take a look here. this is hart's location. sanders did win this in 2016. barack obama won this in 2008, did not win the primary. hillary clinton did that year. wesley clark did. sounds like we're get something votes, brian. i'm going to throw it back to you. >> control room, are we ready for the -- okay. here we go. the whiteboard.

carolyn ryan, as we watch this, this will be like an athletic event. we can do color commentary. first of all we need to establish that northern new england is staggeringly beautiful and that there are portions of northern new hampshire where moose way outnumber people, as it should be. >> absolutely. >> and this small town tradition is really as good as it gets. and i think this paper ballot idea may catch on. what do you think? >> i'm kind of missing an app. i think we need a very confusing, difficult to download app. iowa's got to be jealous watching this. look at this. >> please note the name they just wrote in. michael bloomberg. >> that is very interesting. that is what you are hearing from a lot of people in new hampshire, even in iowa i was hearing people curious about bloomberg. he's not on the ballot, and yet there's this murmuring. and you saw it in the national polls. he is really rising in a way that i've never seen a candidate. >> steve kornacki, almost as

unusual as writing in "bloomberg," look at that. it's been written in as a republican and written in as a democrat. his democratic standing is overwhelming his republican standing by 100%. >> it is. i'm trying to see if we've put the results in on the board. they're going to pop up here any second. michael bloomberg as a write-in candidate in dixville notch, 50%. >> wow. >> two out of four on the democratic side. as you mentioned, 100%. on the republican side, again we can tell new this little town of dixville notch in 2016, the result here, sanders won this in 2016 4-0 over hillary clinton. they've had bigger crowds in dixville notch before, but, yes t is notable michael bloomberg got that result. some candidates will go up and campaign in places like dixville notch and hart's location. michael bennet, i believe, was in dixville notch recently.

they hope they can meet these voters literally one-on-one and get last minute publicity. but i think in terms of a story, if the press is looking for one, we've been talking about that name bloomberg increasingly, and look at that, folks. there in dixville notch, actually wrote him in. let's see what happens in these other small towns as they come in. >> a number of voters who could comfortably fit in a chevrolet suburban have put michael bloomberg over the top. we can safely project when all the votes are counted tonight in dixville notch, new hampshire, mike bloomberg will carry the day. cal perry over in hart's location, do you have us, cal, and how close are we to a count there? >> reporter: yep. well, you can see we're counting now. it looks like a lot of those write-in ballots were republican ballots. the republican ballots are the sort of pink to reddish ones. the democrats are the blue ones. standing up there is katie, the town clerk. she's married, actually, to les, who's the moderator.

he's currently counting those republican ballots. again, we should have a result here in the next few minutes. that will be the unofficial result, at which point they will unceremoniously boot us out of the smallest room in new hampshire, and they will certify those results. look, as steve was saying, a lot of these candidates come up here and meet these voters frankly because this news cycle will hold for like 17 hours, and those results will just be scrolling on the bottom of the screen. so people here, not just the candidates, take this very seriously, brian. >> besides, in my humble opinion, you're going to be pretty hard-hearted not to look at this and not celebrate this moment as part of our incredibly quirky electoral system and presidential politics in this country. it comes down to some beautiful little towns in northern new hampshire. steve kornacki, i'm told, has the late breaking numbers from millsfield so all the people tuning in tonight to hear the millsfield returns, we've got you covered. >> we have more than doubled the number of votes we've received

from the state of new hampshire. i can tell you in millsfield just south of dixville notch, the results are joe biden has one vote. pete buttigieg -- that's my way of writing pete buttigieg. >> you're doing great. >> he has one vote. bernie sanders has one vote. >> oh, my goodness. >> and the winner in the millsfield town democratic primary, amy klobuchar. >> wow. >> has won this thing with two votes. five total. klobuchar gets 40% tonight. 20% for sanders. 20% for buttigieg. 20% for biden. i can also tell you on the republican side in millsfield, 17 people opted to take the republican primary ballot. one for william weld. 16 for donald trump. so donald trump is doing okay in millsfield on the republican side. >> over to hart's location. cal perry, i'm told, has results. >> i'm just going to put the microphone right here.

>> and donald trump, 15. >> reporter: so donald trump has won the vote here on the republican side. 15 to bill weld's 4. here come the democrat results. stand by. >> and on the democratic ticket, klobuchar, 6. sanders, 2. tom steyer, 1. elizabeth warren, 4. andrew yang, 3. joe biden, 1. and tulsi gabbard, 1. >> who got 6? >> amy klobuchar, 6. elizabeth warren with 4 in

second place. andrew yang finishing in third place with 3 votes, brian. so on the democratic side, amy klobuchar has taken hart's location and donald trump has taken it on the republican side. >> wow. steve kornacki, can that be officially termed a landslide in hart's location? >> well, you know what i'm doing, brian, right now? i'm adding up the numbers across all three here. so we've got three full towns reporting. it looks like among them, amy klobuchar has eight votes total on the democratic side. just making sure i get this right here. amy klobuchar has eight. bernie sanders has four. elizabeth warren has four. pete buttigieg -- let me just make sure i got this right. one plus two. >> i love journalists doing math. >> two for pete buttigieg. two for joe biden. three for andrew yang. and, again, tulsi gabbard with one. and michael bloomberg with two votes in the democratic primary

and a write-in vote in the republican primary as well in dixville notch. so the biggest single vote getter among these three tonight, amy klobuchar. >> wow. steve, who do we have to see to get your graphics to update in the election computer? come on. >> i'm going to press the button one more time and let's see what happens. nothing. >> oh, man. >> maybe this one. nothing. i'm trying. >> wow, okay. steve kornacki, and it really is organic micro democracy. >> klomentum as they say in the klobuchar campaign. stay tuned. >> that's brings me to where i wanted to take you. that is because of the combination of the president the democrats are running against and this looming presence of not the billionaire who is in the race in new hampshire, the other billionaire who is a self-made new englander who invented a

computer terminal to follow the markets. >> yes. >> does any of -- i hate to disown new hampshire 17 hours before we're actually covering results. does any of this matter? does it matter less or more than other years? >> i think it matters in that here's the thing. we know there are two lanes right now. there's a bernie sanders lane, and there is a not bernie sanders lane. so i feel like what new hampshire will tell us is in that not bernie sanders lane, are there multiple candidates, and if so, that helps michael bloomberg, and it helps bernie sanders in that there isn't one person like pete buttigieg emerging to take him on one-on-one. so i think the fluidity helps bloomberg, and i think you and i can both say we've never seen anything like what bloomberg is doing in terms of spending and in terms of rising. so i hate to use the word unprecedented, but this does feel sort of extraordinary and surprising. >> you know how questions become cliches by the 100th time you

hear them? my prediction by this hour tomorrow night, we will hear two questions. is amy klobuchar poised to have a moment? >> right. >> question number two, if elizabeth warren can't win in new hampshire, where's elizabeth warren going to win? >> absolutely. it's got to be worrisome for her. i would put one more question. if joe biden comes in lagging, do his donors, do his people, does the democratic establishment still stay with him, or does he decide to withdraw? >> do you not agree that part of the founding thesis of -- if that's not redundant -- of the bloomberg campaign was the faltering or failure of the biden effort? >> absolutely. that was the rationale to get in there. that was the rationale to provide an alternative and a different kind of message than what biden has. the one thing that really jumped out at me today about those numbers that we saw, a whole bunch of numbers, people are no

longer seeing that biden is the most electable. they're not seeing that message. it seems to be shattering or at least really declining. >> it happened both in slow motion and in an eyelash of the long history of electoral politics. steve kornacki, don't tell me you have more results. >> well, the board -- >> that's actually cute. look at that. we have percentages. >> we can show you real numbers up on the board, and we can show you this map of new hampshire that tomorrow night at this time we think will be all colored. you can see hart's location has come in in orange. that's the color assigned here for amy klobuchar. again, six, four, three, two here. you don't actually see color in dixville notch. i'll tell you why. technically here among candidates on the ballot in dixville notch, this is a tie. sanders, one. buttigieg, one. remember, michael bloomberg write-in here. these are just write-in votes. this is not a formal candidacy where he's on the ballot.

he got to write-in votes but -- if the bloomberg write-in votes give you any ideas, by the way, the most successful modern write-in campaign in a new hampshire presidential primary was 1992. it was on behalf of mario cuomo. he was the governor of new york then. it got 4%. that's the most successful one we've seen. so you've got two for michael bloomberg, and millsfield coming in and klobuchar winning here as well. so two of the three, amy klobuchar certainly likes the way this map is filling in so far. again, these things have often been red herrings and not harbingers. >> so we're not going to go ahead and call the state. >> we'll say it's too close to call for now. >> too close to call for now is the determination of steve kornacki. look at that map. it's unbelievable. of the notches in new england, dixville is everybody's favorite. it is -- i keep harping on this. it is so gorgeous up there. >> stunning.

>> between mid and northern maine, northern vermont, northern new hampshire, you can't go wrong. >> absolutely. you have to say, i came from iowa and seeing those people turn out and seeing the earnestness and seriousness with which they take this, you can't be an american and not be heartened by that. >> i was amazed we interviewed our friend a.b. stoddard in the last hour. i was amazed at what she said about the democratic party and how she put it. a flailing -- i should pull up the quote and quote her and not paraphrase her. but it's a grim picture she painted post-iowa. >> i would say unsettled. i think the biggest thing to watch for today or tomorrow -- today is what the turnout looks like. are people who are not the democratic activists excited about this field, energized? i think you saw in iowa it was essentially flat. if you're not seeing big turnout

like you saw, say, in '08 for obama, you've got to start to worry if you're a democrat, if there's not that kind of groundswell, people turning out. if you remember, bernie sanders said we're going to have a big turnout in iowa. we didn't. and he's now saying we're going to have a big turnout in new hampshire. let's see. >> steve kornacki, i was reminded today when we did this last, we called it for bernie based on all of our computers and brainpower and projections at poll close, correct? at 8:00 p.m. tell us what you know about the projections for turnout tomorrow to the point we've been discussing. >> well, that is the question. the secretary of state of new hampshire actually downgraded his projected turnout after what we saw in iowa last week. remember in iowa the democratic turnout in the caucuses was basically flat from 2016. i think this had been an expectation it was going to exceed 2016 by a considerable amount. so the fact that it was flat in iowa led them to down grade the estimate there in new hampshire.

we'll see. remember, new hampshire a primary state, not a caucus state. so perhaps the ease of voting in a primary, you walk in, you get a ballot, you can be out in five minutes. maybe that will give you a little bit of higher turnout. but you mentioned 2016 as well. this is what it looked like. sanders purple here in 2016, and statewide in 2016 he won this thing by 22 points. you can barely find -- i can count them up. new castle, that's the fourth hillary clinton town in the state. the rest was all bernie sanders. i think tomorrow night when these numbers start coming in, one thing to keep in mind here, this whole area, manchester, nashua, work your way over to the sea coast, that's where you're getting into more densely populated areas. that's where i expect this to be more competitive. if there is a klobuchar surge, going to look for it in this part of the state. in terms of sanders and trying to pull this out, his sweet spot is along the connecticut river and work your way along the new hampshire/vermont border. these are counties on the border and right near the border where he was getting 70%, 75% of the

vote. this is also the most liberal part of the state. that sort of sanders sweet spot if he's going to replicate it. for iowa, we said so many results were going to come in. we got nothing. >> steve kornacki, something tells me you and i are going to be spending a long time together tomorrow. cal perry is in hart's location, no relation to hart's mountain. cal, the final view from the sweatiest room in new england. >> reporter: yeah. listen, just history. i mean this is a town that trained the town of millsfield on how to do their voting. from 1948 until now, they've done it every four years without a hitch. the final results are going official here in the next ten minutes, and i'll just -- i'll finish where you sort of started, brian. it is hard not to get romantic about democracy when you stand here and you watch this happen. i know it's kitschy.

i know it's sort of an awkward tradition. i interviewed somebody the other day who checks the ballot box for mice before they open it. that's new hampshire. that's america. and the voting is officially under way. >> all right. thank you, cal perry. appreciate it greatly. carolyn, tell us new hampshire's going to be better at this than iowa was. >> you're setting a really low bar. i think there's no question new hampshire will be better. i think nevada is the place to watch because it's a caucus, and that is more difficult, and they had originally planned on the same technology that iowa was going to use. >> at least out there we have our friend jon ralston to walk us through it. carolyn ryan, steve kornacki, and cal perry, between them we have them to thank for our coverage at the top of the hour live and special though it has been. thank you for staying with us for our special coverage of the first votes of the first in the nation primary. we'll be back here 6:00 p.m. eastern time in this studio tomorrow night -- i guess

tonight -- along with our team to start off our coverage and go through the rest of the results from new hampshire. for now, our thanks for being with us. good night from our nbc news headquarters in new york. and a reminder, the rachel maddow show will follow this quick break.

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oh no, here comes gthe neighbor probably to brag about how amazing his xfinity customer service is. i'm mike, i'm so busy. good thing xfinity has two-hour appointment windows. they have night and weekend appointments too. he's here.

bill? karolyn? nope! no, just a couple of rocks. download the my account app to manage your appointments making today's xfinity customer service simple, easy, awesome. i'll pass. midnight voting is not a thing that happens in a lot of places. polls typically open in the morning on election day and voters make their way to the polls over the course of the day and into the evening.

but in dixville notch, new hampshire, and a couple other towns, voters will get the chance to cast some of the first primary ballots of this year's elections at the stroke of midnight tonight. that's thanks to a tradition that has been alive since 1960. there's a little town calls millsfield, new hampshire, and another one called hart's location that will also vote at midnight tonight. but for decades, dixville notch has been the most famous place to go spectate at the midnight primary. and it turns out there's a very specific reason for that. in 1960, a millionaire plastics mogul named neal till otteson, who owned a hotel in dixville notch, he made a deal with a national pool reporter. the deal was that if the pool reporter could basically publicize dixville notch's voting, if the pool reporter could get everyone to come cover the primary in dixville notch, then the millionaire local hotel owner would help make it easier for those reporters to get the

story out nationwide. they would make it easy for them to have access to phones to call national news bureaus, and that was a nice offer. new hampshire public radio has a new podcast this year about the new hampshire primary. it's called the stranglehold. in the trangstranglehold, they little bit into the history of dixville notch. >> journalism in the 1950s ran on telephones. newspapers needed pictures and those pictures were sent from the field to newsrooms by phone lines. the balsam's report had its own telephone company. that was huge. it also had its own power plant and space for teams of reporters to set up shop. so november 1960, nixon/kennedy, when the morning papers were printed on election day, all those little towns had voted in the middle of the night. >> but they didn't get the attention that dixville did. >> there are newspapers all across the country that have

neal till otteson and eight of his closest friends smiles, holding unsigns saying they voted for nixon over kennedy 9-0. >> joining us now the co-host of the podcast the stranglehold. thank you so much for being here. it's a real pleasure to have you here. >> thanks, rachel. great to be here. >> so the great thing about the stranglehold is it takes this thing you think you know everything about and you think it's just you need a four-year reminder of all the kitsch and like folksy stories about the primary but you've heard them all before. and you guys have been turning over some rocks and finding some stuff that people broadly do not know about the new hampshire primary. i have to ask you if it has made you feel cynical about the primary? >> has it made me feel cynical? oh, that's hilarious because we get so much heat about this podcast because we're just raising questions. you know as well as anyone,

rachel, this thing is so beloved, right? it gives new hampshire so much power. it's part of our identity. once we start asking questions about this thing, we hear from people all over. sometimes it's other reporters. even the governor has told me that he's disappointed that it's not just a positive podcast about the primary. casey mcdermott, the reporter who blew open the dixville story found out that not everybody in dixville notched lived there and the ones who lived there were employees of the balsams report. it's really opened people's eyes to the full story of the new hampshire primary. but, again, i can't stress enough how interesting it's been to see the results of, you know, the response really from people in new hampshire. you know, i can't believe how many times i've had to say it is not my job to protect the first in the nation prarimary, and it not my job to say it should leave. we're just asking questions and it's caused a lot of drama. >> i have enough connections in new hampshire through family and other things that i believe a lot of people who live in new

hampshire believe it is their job to protect the first in the nation status of the new hampshire primary because it does benefit the state in so many ways. and i wonder if that has -- if what went wrong in iowa last week has sent a little bit of a shock wave, right? because that's people criticizing not just iowa but iowa and new hampshire. >> absolutely. >> seeing how things went wrong in iowa. a lot of democrats very angry about how that sort of stomped on what should have otherwise been a clear political story out of that race. has that freaked people in new hampshire out about the necessity of getting it right and making the case to hold on to the first? >> oh, yeah. freaked people out is the best way to describe t. i went to a buttigieg rally the next morning, and every voter i talked to down the line, the first thing they wanted to talk when was iowa. their faces said it all. they were like, can you believe it? what does this mean for us? this is why stranglehold is such an interesting project right now. of course this thing is always changing. traditions are always changing. but when you see what happened

in iowa, when you see candidates like julian castro, someone actually running for president hoping iowa and new hampshire will vote for him, criticizing the demographics of these two states. of course that's been a criticism that's been thrown to us before. but when these things become more tumultuous, when elections can't be trusted, that's when the criticism really comes in. we've certainly seen that. so, yeah, new hampshire people are nervous. on the one hand, i've talked to people who have said, we've got nothing to worry about. we've got ballots. in another casey mcdermott story, secretary of state gardner said you can't hack a pencil. on the other side, people have said we get tied together with this state. if they go down, what does that mean for us? it has certainly been on people's minds. i should say if there was any more attention going to be paid on us, i mean we're certainly getting it extra now. >> i don't want to ask you to be a pundit, but i just have to ask you from the close look you have been making at new hampshire this year, is there a candidate you feel like has run a

qualitatively better campaign than the other candidates, not necessarily who's going to win but who's run the best campaign? >> the best campaign? that is a tough one for me, rachel. here's what i'll say about that. i will say that what i've been watching is a changing in the dynamic of how candidates campaign. you cannot just bank on the house parties anymore, right? you cannot compete house party to house party with an elizabeth warren who can bring in people at a rally. and as pete buttigieg, as you guys just talked about and amy klobuchar got more energy, what are they doing? big rallies where they only answer a couple questions most of the time. so that style of one-on-one campaigning, that has certainly changed around here. but as far as the best, you're right, i can't tell you what i think is the best. >> fair enough. lauren, thank you for being with us. enjoy tomorrow. it's going to be super fun. >> thank you so much. we will. >> we've got more ahead. stay with us. we'll be right back. as a caricature artist,

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in 74 different agencies of the government, there is an inspector general at work. an inspector general is basically independent, and the job of an inspector general is to look into potential wrongdoing at those agencies. well, today the top democrat in the senate, chuck schumer, called on every inspector general in the whole federal government, all 74 of them, to investigate potential retaliatory acts against

whistle-blowers who have reported presidential misconduct during the trump administration. schumer sent that request after national security council staffer and impeachment witness lieutenant colonel alexander vindman, and his twin brother, an nsc lawyer, were both escorted off the white house grounds on friday and fired. schumer's call for the inspectors general to look into any other acts of presidential retaliation comes amid reports that president trump is reportedly considering firing one of those very same inspector generals, specifically the intelligence community inspector general michael atkinson, who first alerted congress to the whistle-blower complaint that set off much of the initial flurry of attention to the ukraine scandal when it first broke open in the fall. "the washington post" reporting that president trump may also want to fire the inspector general of the intelligence community for the grave crime of doing what he was legally required to do when he forwarded that whistle-blower complaint to congress. it's just incredible.

three days after last week's purge, there has still been no explanation from the white house about why alexander vindman's brother, who played no part in the impeachment inquiry, why he too was fired from his white house job and removed from his post. as for colonel vindman, colonel alex vindman, his removal from his position came after defense secretary mark esper promised publicly that vindman would not be retaliated against, that the defense department would protect him. esper saying in november, quote, he shouldn't have any fear of retaliation. that's dod's position. there's no retaliation. it's that simple. thereafter, secretary of defense esper's deputy, the deputy secretary of defense, david norquist, wrote on esper's behalf, also making the same commitment in writing. quote, let me assure you the department will not tolerate any act of retaliation or reprisal against them.

well, vindman and his brother have both now been fired from their jobs at the national security council and marched off the white house grounds. we haven't heard a peep from the defense department despite those promises that they would stand up for vindman, that he would be protected, that the defense department wouldn't allow anything to happen to him. not a peep. tells you something about how much the men and women of the defense department can trust the word of secretary of defense mark esper and the deputy secretary of defense david norquist. but we do now have some new reporting about how the white house started targeting colonel vindman and his brother even before they got fired on friday, and that story is next. stay with us. ♪ rock music >> man: so i'm not taking any chances when something happens to it. so when my windshield cracked... my friend recommended safelite autoglass. >> tech: hi, i'm adrian. >> man: thanks for coming. >> tech: oh, no problem. >> tech: check it out. >> man: yeah. they came right to me, with expert service

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and now, during the ultimate sleep number event, save 50% on the sleep number 360 limited edition smart bed. plus 0% interest for 24 months on all smart beds. only for a limited time. the defense department at the highest levels, the secretary of defense and the deputy secretary of defense both gave overt assurances that lieutenant colonel alexander vindman would not face any retaliation for him testifying in the impeachment inquiry after he was subpoenaed to do so. those defense officials said they would protect colonel vindman, they would allow no retaliation against him whatsoever. those assurances came in november and in december after colonel vindman did testify in the impeachment inquiry. well, those same defense officials have since said nothing in response to colonel vindman being marched off the white house grounds on friday and removed from his national security council job along with, oddly, his brother, who had nothing whatsoever to do with the impeachment inquiry. a former senior adviser to

national security adviser h.r. mcmaster told "the washington post," quote, every career official will tell you it is not just chilling but frightening. he also says that retribution from the white house was exacted on the two vindmans, on both alexander vindman and his brother, well before friday's firings. quote, on ukraine policy, alexander vindman was sidelined, says cutz, who keeps in touch with staffers who are still serving. quote, he hasn't been playing a key role. he had not been in the room. as for his brother, quote, white house officials instructed national security council staff to bypass yevgeny vindman on ethics questimatters and take questions to the -- the broader message to career officials is you can't speak up.

even if you see something illegal, something unethical, you can't speak up. that's the message the president wants to send. joining us now is fernando cutz, a former national security council staffer, former senior adviser to national security adviser h.r. mcmaster. i appreciate you taking the time to be here tonight. thank you. >> thank you very much for having me, rachel. >> i have to ask you to start with a little bit of a meta question. your comments about the chilling effect that recent events have caused among national security council current staffers and generally in the field. i have to wonder if that applies to you as well and if you are also thinking about potential consequences about speaking out in this way. >> well, you know, it is a very dangerous things these days to speak up. but i know that the folks who still work at the white house today, the folks who still work all over the u.s. government right now, are career professionals. they have sworn an oath to the constitution of the united states, and they will uphold that oath. i have no doubt about that no matter what kind of different

techniques or intimidation or anything else that might try to be fallen their way. so while they might not be able to speak right now for themselves because of their position in government, i, who have left government, am able to try to help them out right now. so that's what i'm trying to do on their behalf. again, i have no doubt that the chilling effect and the fear that the president is trying to put on them, it's not going to work. and they will keep doing what they need to do to uphold their oaths to the constitution and to our laws. >> i have to say that i'm not terribly surprised by the president's instincts in this regard. i feel like he's telegraphed for a long time that this type of revenge is what he considers to be among his legitimate tools for exerting power. in the case of lieutenant colonel vindman, i have to tell you that what sticks with me and what sort of has kept me awake about this case is not just that the president took this action but that specifically for lieutenant colonel vindman, after he gave that testimony, there was an effort to essentially insulate him from something like this happening. >> the secretary of defense, the

deputy defense secretary talking about a serving military officer, saying under law we will allow no retaliation against him, promising in advance that they would take action to prevent this. and then it still happened. we've heard nothing from the defense department. i mean as a civilian watching this from the outside, this is the part that feels most chilling to me. but as somebody who has worked at the high levels in the national security council, do you feel like that's an appropriate way to look at this, or should i take a different angle? >> well, absolutely. i think at the end of the day, lieutenant colonel vindman did not go out and decide to speak publicly to the press. he didn't start tweeting about what he saw or what he disagreed with or agreed with. he followed a lawful subpoena by the united states congress, and he attended that subpoena after he was summoned, and he testified under oath about what he said happened at that moment, and then he left and went back to work. that's all he did to be clear, right? he didn't write a book. he didn't write an op-ed. he didn't go speak to the press. so he has followed the rule of law thoroughly and fully.

he cannot be blamed. neither can anybody else involved in this situation who was merely following the lawfully issued orders by the united states congress. and therefore it's absurd to have any kind of retaliatory action against these officials. now, you know, when you serve at the white house, you serve at the pleasure of the president, and so the president can certainly remove you from the roll because he doesn't like you anymore, doesn't trust you anymore. that's within their rights, and from what i've heard from reporting today, it sounds like lieutenant colonel vindman himself knew that things were probably not looking good, and he was about to resign. but i think the president wanted to jump the gun and not allow him a graceful exit and actually fire him on friday. so, again, it's really purely vindictive at this point. it's a sad state of affairs, and it sends a very bad message to our men and women who are serving our country both in military uniform but also civilians, working 24 hours a day, seven days a week to keep

our country safe. >> mr. cutz, thank you for your service and thanks for joining us tonight. >> thank you very much. >> more news ahead. stay with us. well i didn't choose metastatic breast cancer. not the exact type. not this specific mutation. but i did pick hope... ...and also clarity... ...by knowing i have a treatment that goes right at it. discover piqray, the first and only treatment that specifically targets pik3ca mutations in hr+, her2- mbc, which are common and linked to cancer growth. piqray is taken with fulvestrant after progression on hormone therapy and has been proven to help people with a pik3ca mutation live longer without disease progression. do not take piqray if you've had a severe allergic reaction to it or to any of its ingredients. piqray can cause serious side effects including severe allergic and skin reactions,

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and watch all the shows you love. so the president's longest serving adviser, roger stone, got his sentencing recommendation from federal prosecutors today. they recommended that he get seven to nine years in prison. roger stone's sentencing is set for late next week, ten days from now. the judge can do whatever the

judge wants in that case. the judge is under no obligation to follow that recommendation, but that's a significant recommendation from prosecutors, seven to nine years. meanwhile, president trump's first national security adviser, mike flynn, is still awaiting his sentencing as well. but it doesn't look like the mike flynn movie of the week is going to wrap up anytime soon. here is something to watch when it comes to flynn. you'll recall that flynn pled guilty to lying to the fbi about his contacts with russia. initially after his guilty plea he cooperated with federal prosecutors, and federal prosecutors were happy with that. they said he was doing right by them, cooperating effectively. prosecutors originally recommended that flynn should get no jail time whatsoever despite him pleading guilty to a felony because they said he had provided them substantial assistance. but then something happened, and mike flynn changed his lawyer, changed his whole legal approach, stopped cooperating with prosecutors, and prosecutors went back to the court and changed their recommendation, telling the

court, well, okay. actually general flynn deserves up to six months in jail. we revise our earlier statement that he was helping us out, a. things have progressed since then. flynn is now trying to withdraw his guilty plea altogether. he now said he doesn't remember if he talked to the russian government about sanctions when he lied to fbi investigators about it. i mean all of the sort of u-turns in the flynn case have effectively meant that flynn's sentencing date has been kicked down the road for more than a year now. he was initially on track to be sentenced in december of last year. then he was due to be sentenced last month. then that was pushed back to this month. then today mike flynn's sentencing got postponed indefinitely following a surprise filing in his case. it was a surprise because it was filed on a sunday morning, which is a little bit weird on the face of it. it was also a surprise or at least intriguing because this surprise filing in flynn's case asking for his sentencing to be put off indefinitely, it came just one week after attorney

general bill barr installed one of his very close aides as the new u.s. attorney overseeing that u.s. attorney's office, including mike flynn's case. bill barr's aide, timothy shea, took over as the u.s. attorney in washington, d.c. last week, on monday. less than a week went by, a sunday morning when shea's office filed this sort of strange motion asking for more time in the flynn case, to put off the sentencing yet again. one other thing that's weird about this is something that's not on that filing. brandon van grak is the federal prosecutor who has been on the flynn case from the very beginning. he was part of the special counsel's office. he stayed with the flynn prosecution when it went from the special counsel investigation to the u.s. attorney in d.c. he's been signed on as a prosecutor on almost all of the filings up to and including last month in the flynn case. but all of a sudden now with this new turn in the case, brandon van grack's name has vanished, starting with this weird sunday morning filing from

bill barr's newly minted u.s. attorney asking for more time in the flynn case. suddenly mr. van grack is gone. something's going on here. when are we going to find out, who is going to tell us the history of what happened here because if it's going to come from bill barr's office, i'm not going to trust what i hear. we'll figure it out. watch this space. liberty biberty- cut. we'll dub it. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ athat will have you seeingf with adouble.n iphone 11 all on t-mobile's newest, most powerful signal. get twice the deal, with 2 lines of unlimited for $90 and 2 iphone 11s on us. only at t-mobile. if your adventure... keeps turning into unexpected bathroom trips. you may have overactive bladder, or oab.

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. three new hampshire towns are about to throw open the polls for midnight voting. hart's location has the most voters of those three towns. the chair of the board of selectmen told us today they've got 45 voters on their check list. 18 they expect to vote in person tonight at midnight. 21 who voted absentee. and 6 who signed an affidavit saying they are exercising their right not to vote. that accounts for everybody. they also have a plan for moving fast. the local state rep tells us that they are expecting to be done with the counting in about five minutes. as soon as every eligible voter in town is accounted for, they'll announce the results. we might get three announcements

in the midnight hour tonight. brian williams along with steve kornacki is going to have live coverage of the midnight voting in new hampshire. cal perry will be reporting live from hart's location. don't go to bed. we'll see you again for our special new hampshire coverage as it word" with lawrence o'donnell. good evening, lawrence. the other two are mills field, which has maybe 21 people living there. and of course, the most famous one, dixville notch. it gets all the attention because there's only about a dozen people there. you win dixville notch with single digits. we'll be looking at those numbers when the time comes. it's new hampshire, in other words, new hampshire has been desperately trying to get attention in elections since 1936 when they first did this midnight voting.