we're going bring in nbc's steve kornacki. steve, what are you watching? >> yeah, look, it's a 21,000 vote lead right now for roy moore. that's what jones has to make up. so if jones is going to make it up, let me show you where he's got to get right now. a couple of places we're watching very closely. about 80% of the vote is in madison county. this is huntsville. this is the second, the county with the second highest share of college degrees in the state. this is a place that jones campaign targeted. they're probably going get some more of a margin out of there. here is the biggie, though. birmingham. the largest county in the state. the singest biggest vote producing part. jones is cleaning up here there is still a third of the vote to come in. he can get a lot more votes out of jefferson county. and the third place to be looking here, mobile, only a third of the vote in. jones cleaning up here. and also, we add a fourth one. about a quarter of the vote in montgomery. so four big places there on the map. again, if you're jones, you're trying to make up

i'm told steve kornacki is back at the board with more numbers. eve does it speak to this this is not over point they are trying to make. >> yeah, we can take you through the numbers on the question of absentees, providingals, military, the headline, it's over. a 21,000 vote lead for jones as we said. morris folks are saying there are absentee votes out there and military ballots. let me take you through this em. absentee ballots that's the lion's share, hoarse the thing, they were counted, they were submitted ahead of time. counties counted them up, they were basically among the first counted. you can forget those. the provisional ballots and the military ballots, there are going to be some of those. we don't know the exact total but the total is probably 1 thun to 15,000, but even if you gave every single one of those when he is down 21,000, he is only down 20,000 once those are counted in. i have got the nail this one down. i think there may be an option for moore if he wanted to pay for it to have a refund. again all the things you would be loo

steve kornacki, that was great. we're going to check back with you throughout the night.s go to montgomery, alabama. the roy moore election night headquarters. we've got nbc news correspondent vaughn hilliard standing by. i want to saya88un you have bee doing phenomenal reporting on this race throughout. i've been following everything you've been posting. great interviews, talking to lots of voters. how would you characterize how folks have been talking about this race in the final stretch? >> i appreciate Ú'áy chris. i should note that when we were looking at -- talking to these voters, there's two types of voters. there's hesitant voters that are hesitant about roting for roy moore, understanding the allegations against him there's also hesitant voters who are not open about their5> willnessing vote for democrat doug jones. today montgomery, there were several people, they will tell you, i don't want to tell you hoy voted for. finally iehd0x convinced them tl mexéo.Ñ to the side, without their name, not on camera. they were republicans who were opening and up saying, we

somebody tell steve kornacki to breathe! occasionally he does it. eve cokocorkornac having. a little "harry met sally." and in fact, one viewer suggests msnbc needs to make a split screen with steve kornacki silently playing with maps, a perm neanent feature of primeti. take that that under advisement. for now, back with the man himself and the rest of the panel. ♪ give ancestrydna, the only dna test that can trace your origins to over 150 ethnic regions- and open up a world of possibilities. ♪ save 30% for the holidays at ancestrydna.com new ultimate surf & turf event. and that means five mouthwatering pairings to choose from. like our new feast with lobster-wrapped scallops and a juicy steak. or a new lobster and seafood-topped filet. tempted? better hurry in, it ends soon. but prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered... in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve short-term memory. prevagen. the name to remember. >>> time for the lid. i thought today's hearing, peter schrock. there were two questi

we've got some important data next that we're going to go through with steve kornacki in terms of how much of the vote we've got out of those big city precincts and counties. much more ahead. stay with us.

anna vollier, vaughn hilliard, steve kornacki, thank you. >>> and next, mitch mcconnell, the senate majority leader now speaking to reporters about roy moore, let's listen in. >> and in the haste to finish this, is a lot of it coming from alabama whether it be doug jones or roy moore, you want to know what the existing senate is with an unknown, who will vote on tax -- >> no. how do you like that? >> thank you for the clearance. >> senator strange is going to be here through the end of the session. >> should roy moore win -- whether or not you will see him on committees, he would be in line to replace senator strange and also formally invite him to participate? >> david, all of those are good questions for tomorrow. and we await the outcome of the alabama senate race. >> mr. leader? >> what can you guarantee will be the stop gap on the funding the government -- >> there is no chance we'll shut the government down. we're in discussions, not only on a cap deal but also the way

they were completely suppressed, as steve kornacki said earlier, but he also acknowledged in his acceptance, the value of bringing in a diversified group of voters to the voting booths. he acknowledged african-americans, the power of the latino vote, he acknowledged the power of the youth vote. and this is where the democratic party, if they want to continue this wave, they have to pay

would mean for the balance of power in the house after next year's election, i want to bring in steve kornacki. steve, how are things looking right now a little less than a year before the midterms? >> well, we have a couple of different metrics we can look at. the generic ballot speaks for itself. when the party is up 13 points, double digits, historically that's great news for the party. here's something else we can look at. the approval rating of the president, that matters a lot in midterm elections. donald trump in the most recent gallup polling tracks at 35%. look at the approval rating in 2010 and bush in '06, the iraq war, post katrina, remember that midterm. republicans lost the house. he was sitting at 38. you see, trump's very much in line here with what you'd expect to see from a president whose party takes a sha lacking. you've got the approval rating and the generic ballot. republicans have won a lot of the special elections but the democrats have cut into the trump margin. put it all together, 24. we know that's the magic number for democrats if they want to win back the house,

. >> joining us now, msnbc's steve kornacki. the drama of the night is watching you on the last tour, what we thought was going to be "the last word," taking us through those numbers. we kept coming back to you throughout the hour, the drama unfold the on your map. recap for us that hour and what you saw happening in that hour. >> yeah, it's every election junky's dream to see it that close in that stretch of time. we saw that was the hour when jones started out behind and ended up the next senator from alabama. so what happened? what went right for jones? virtually everything went right. if you are a democrat and you are winning by 20,000 votes to a tiny margin, but you need everything to break your way, he got three particularly big things. that's not what was supposed to happen. let's call that back up. first of all, he got not just overwhelming support from african-americans but huge turnout from african-americans, these are the heavily black counties in this strip of the state right here. we looking across the state to see

. >> joining us now, msnbc's steve kornacki. the drama of the night is watching you on the last tour, what we thought was going to be ""the la "the last word," taking us through those numbers. we kept coming back to you throughout the hour, the drama unfold the on your map. recap for us that hour and what you saw happening in that hour. >> yeah, it's every election junky's dream to see it that close in that stretch of time. we saw that was the hour when jones started out behind and ended up the next senator from alabama. so what happened? what went right for jones? virtually everything went right. if you are a democrat and you are winning by 20,000 votes to a tiny margin, but you need everything to break your way, he got three particularly big things. that's not what was supposed to happen. let's call that back up. first of all, he got not just overwhelming support from african-americans but huge turnout from african-americans, these are the heavily black counties in this strip of the state right here. we looking across the stat

as steve coko core -- kornacki we'll have more surety what will happen.with us. >>> here is something that means absolutely nothing but i'm interested to see it. can we put up two pictures side by side? yes, these are the two headquarters, judge roy moore on the left and doug jones on the right. these are both live shots. these two campaign headquarters as watching the incredibly close results come in, the roy moorhead quarters would appear to be more crowded and doug jones appears to be less crowded and that means nothing but still, at this point it's still fascinating. 59% of the vote in. 52-46 with moore leading jones. we're waiting in particular for more of the vote to come in from places like mobile and birmingham. joining me is a member of the democratic leadership. thank you for joining us. nice to have you here. >> so glad to be here. let me first say, also, there are about five different celebrations going on tonight for doug jones election as the next u.s. senator from the great state of alabama so you knead to look at all five sites to see the

on the right side of the screen, we had steve kornacki in his patented khakis and his oxford shirt, right? he has this big red and blue touch screen map of alabama. and steve was sort of frantically and expertly refreshing that map in realtime, going county by county by county to process all the results as they're coming in. so steve is a fixture now on the right side of the screen. we're never taking him off-camera. lawrence just keeps going back to steve over and over again, every time new numbers come in. that's on the right side of the screen. on the other side of the screen, by then nbc had not called it, but we could all see where the numbers were going, we were aware that some other news organizations had started to call it. we have good reason to believe it's likely going to be a doug jones victory. honestly, the shot that we had of roy moore's campaign at the same time looked like an oil painting, right? nobody was moving. everybody had very long faces. they were obviously very worried. doug jones' campaign headquarters, that equivalent shot was starting to look like a party. you

steve kornacki breaks it down next.ore the break, if you didn't know, i was on the "late show" with stephen colbert last night, had a great time. during colbert's monologue, let's just say he had his own take on roy moore's ride to the polls in alabama. >> he arrived on horseback! yes, and i just want to say to roy moore, hello, you, and the horse you rode in on. hi high-ho, sassy! off to the mall! ♪ ♪ the moment a fish is pulled out from the water, it's a race against time. and keeping it in the right conditions is the best way to get that fish to your plate safely. sometimes the product arrives and the cold chain has been interrupted, and we need to be able to identify where in the cold chain that occurred. we took our world class network and we developed devices to track environmental conditions. this device allows people to understand what's happening with the location, but also if it's too hot, if it's too cold, if it's been dropped... it's completely unique. if you have a sensor that can keep track of your product

steve kornacki is an nbc news political correspondent. you've been looking at the results of the presidential election. what's that tell you tonight? >> democrats trying to turn a landslide loss into a win. if you're a democrat, you think the voters who might turn on moore are traditionally republican voters. outside the state's biggest cities. huntsville, birmingham, mobile, suburbs in the eastern shore there. that's where democrats think they can make a big score. the republicans, they're trying to run up numbers in the rural parts of the state. for democrats this is a tall order. big significance if they win this because next year control of the senate is up. democrats are never in a million years supposed to win. if they pick it off tonight, the math next year for winning back the senate becomes potentially doable for them. >> but turnout's never been more key. >> they need huge numbers, absolutely. >> steve kornacki, good to have you here tonight. >>> president trump's propensity to wage battle by twitter has charges of sexism. this

i want to finish up where we began with steve kornacki.e don't know what's going on into the investigation of michael flynn and surrounding him. i do suspect someone else is cooperating with the investigation and that will come forward. we don't know who the target is. but we need to be far more cautious than we are accusatory. keep the information going on msnbc.com/hughhewitt. see you next week saturday morning here on msnbc. david. what's going on? oh hey! ♪ that's it? yeah. ♪ everybody two seconds! ♪ "dear sebastian, after careful consideration of your application, it is with great pleasure that we offer our congratulations on your acceptance..." through the tuition assistance program, every day mcdonald's helps more people go to college. it's part of our commitment to being america's best first job. ♪ whatever it takes, wherever i have to go...i'm beating this. breast cancer treatment is continuing to evolve. ctca is definitely on the cusp of those changes. we really focus on taking the time with each individual patient so they can ch

caton dawson, former chairman of the south carolina republican party and steve kornacki made his way over. good afternoon to both of you. steve, already said hi to you. i read this headline in "the wall street journal" journal. democrats are struggling to fund-raise going into 2018. what's your read on your party in 2018? >> so, yeah, i want to push back on that story just a little bit because, look, the dccc has had an historic fund-raising year, which is really important because they are the ones who are going to be working with those house congressional seats that we need to flip. those 24, 25 seats we need to flip in order to take back the house. and also those individual candidates, like doug jones, like ossoff, raidss raised millions of dollars. that's important to note as well and not to forget. for me, the number one thing that i learned from 2017 that i think our party learned from 2017 is the resistance was electoralized. we've figured out it wasn't just about protesting and stopping the repeal of health care and rejecting donald trump's divisive agenda. it was also people c

you'll be plastered all over the network all day along with steve kornacki looking at the data for us. steve, we talked yesterday about how the polls are everywhere, up in the air, it really is a crapshoot at this point who will be on top. but i want to talk about the coalitions that you think doug jones or roy moore needs to put together in order to pull out a win. >> yeah, let's take a look at it. it's sort of old fashioned. forget the polls now, we'll see who votes, where they vote and who they vote for. let me show you this is, this is what it looks like when they have an election in alabama. nobody really notices because the republicans win in a landslide. this is close if you're jones, if you're the democrats, if you are trying to get the first win in a senate generation race in alabama, how do you do it? two keys to look at, donald trump won this thing by 28 points. number one, look at the parts of alabama that are blue. it's this belt particularly across the state right here. these are largely black counties. the biggest one is where montgomery, the state capital is, large bla

joining me is steve kornacki, national political correspondent here at the big board. vaughn, first to you. the state of play on the ground, there are polls all over the place. there was a fox news poll saying jones was up. their tracking polls say moore has been up all weekend. even you have been there for more than a month. you don't know who's going to come out and vote. >> no, who knows. a college poll has moore up by nine. the fox news poll shows doug jones up by ten. i want to add new reporting from nbc news that the jones campaign now tells us that they are leaning toward sending out those robocalls that not only president obama but also vice president biden recorded on behalf of the campaign. expected to start going out tonight. where is this campaign right now? doug jones is on the trail. he just held an event this morning in birmingham and now driving down to montgomery where he will meet up with folks at a popular lunch spot before heading back up to birpingham this even. compare that to roy moore who hasn't been seen on the campaign trail dating back to tue

our own steve kornacki. i've got to bring in our white house correspondent, nbc's peter alexander. peter, i went to bed with quite the gracious tweet from president trump. i think we may have woken up to something else. >> yeah, plenty of wednesday morning quarterbacking as you'd imagine here at the white house. the president trying to frame this the best possible way after a humiliating defeat after picking the wrong horse in alabama now twice. this morning he wrote the following. he wrote the reason i originally endorsed luther strange, and his numbers went up mightily, he notes, is that i said roy moore will not be able to win the general election. i was right. roy worked hard but the deck was stacked against him. the white house really over the course of the last couple of weeks has tried to present this as if the president's hands were tied, that he had to support moore. but what's incredible is that they find themselves in that position just 12 months after republicans swept the white house and congress. the president's initial tweet that you noted overnight lacked the blame,

steve kornacki, a pleasure to have you on the show.hank you very much. >>> we'll talk about how hundreds of homeowners are rushing to pay their property taxes this week. you may be one of them before the clock runs out on 2017. the irs is saying, not so fast. why the agency says the strategy could backfire in some states. as you look now at a time lapse of the sun just off the horizon in west palm where we are, where the president is spending his holiday week. the great emperor penguin migration. trekking a hundred miles inland to their breeding grounds. except for these two fellows. this time next year, we're gonna be sitting on an egg. i think we're getting close! make a u-turn... u-turn? recalculating... man, we are never gonna breed. just give it a second. you will arrive in 92 days. nah, nuh-uh. nope, nope, nope. you know who i'm gonna follow? my instincts. as long as gps can still get you lost, you can count on geico saving folks money. i'm breeding, man. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. >>

first we figured we'd get a status report on the big board from steve kornacki. i, steve. >> a week from tomorrow alabama voters will go to the polls. that's the story now. trump complete endorsement now of roy moore, signals of a changing posture from mitch mcconnell. the rnc, why are we seeing these signals a week out? look at what's happening. two weeks ago this is what the lay of the land looked like politically in alabama in this race. you see two weeks ago, if you average the polls together back then, doug jones, the democrat, had the lead. the significance obviously that was the first time in more than two decades a democrat was leading in polling in a u.s. senate race in alabama. so republicans are saying you have all these stories coming out about roy moore. he has now fallen behind. maybe the bottom is going to fall out. maybe the floor is going to fall out for roy moore and he's just going to collapse. they weren't sure, they were keeping their distance. he didn't have mitch mcconnell sending the signals he's now sending. what happened since then? stabi

. >> listening to steve kornacki talking about this race is like listening to eli gold call a crimsonfootball game. >> steve kornacki, howell raines says you're calling this just right. >> i want to bring the audience in on the treat of what was our first discussion of what wasn't going to make the list. none of us have donald trump because it's a given. we are doing this broadcast and compiling this list in the era and in the presidency of trump. neither of us have mr. bannon. i don't know if i agree with that. >> trump and bannon, i would give them last year if we had done this last year. we were busy. but i would give them 2016. i would put jared kushner on that list too. i would put -- you know, the trump campaign and sort of what they pulled off on the 2016 list. >> melania trump is on your list. >> she's stoic. in 2017, she's been perfect. >> george papadopoulos who i guess was an unpaid policy adviser to the trump campaign. >> he actually pleaded guilty in a secret court hearing on october 5th. it looks like the government, in his case they've only charged him with one count of

and steve kornacki is here. e are wondering how this week's policy changes are going to ricochet in 2018. and steve, i understand you have reported out an explanation that will make us never have to watch news all of next year. break it down. >> don't put it that way, ari. it's bad for business. but here's what we've got. look, you know the polling number on the tax bill this week. not good. and it's sort of a trend here. there have been three things we've been seeing take shape. three patterns emerged this year that historically at least have been very telling for what happens in the mid-term election. number one the generic congressional battle. which party would you like to see control congress in next year's election? the average of all the polls out there right now has the democrats ahead by double digits. historically, if that's where a party is heading into a midterm that's a great place for that party to be. the president's approval rating, donald trump's average approval rating now sits at 39%. it's basi

super wall with the five key things to watch in 2018, msnbc's national correspondent, the great steve kornackitake it away, steve. >> thank you for that. y talk about waves and what we can expect in 2018 based on 2017. i think the story right now, as you start to get it there, those conditions you would normally look for historically for a wave to be in place for the out of power party, they are, for now, taking shape for democrats. take you through some of the keys. you mentioned the generic ballot, usually a very good predictor. right now, that's one of the warning signs. here's another one, the nature of midterm elections. these things historically favor the party not in power. these minuses are the losses, the house seats lost by the white house, by the president's party in past midterm elections. it's basically the rule that the white house party loses seats. the question is just how many. keep in mind, the only two exceptions here, really extenuating circumstances. '98, the democrats picked up five seats in bill clinton's second midterm, impeachment was going on. in 2002 bush's republica

alabama's newest resident and national correspondent for nbc news, steve kornacki. thank you both. great to see you. steve, can you walk us through, i was somewhat amused to see doug jones point to nick saban and say, ask him what he thinks of the polls and let me know, the college football polls. what do you know from lookingality data with have about the state of the. >> reporter: a rule of alabama's nick saban. one has moore up, one jones up, one a tie. average together every poll out there you come up with roy moore about a 2.5 point advantage over doug jones, just averaging everything together, for what that worth. definitely the closest senate race alabama's had in a generation and looks like the kind of race if a democrat's ever going to win alabama sort had has to be this time if it is going to happen, two keys basically. what it was in the presidential election. clinton versus trump. see all the red. typically what a race looks like in alabama. landslide for republicans. two keys for the democrats, jones here. number one, the blue counties you see, what do you have? largely

joining us now to run through all this, our own steve kornacki at the big board. what will you keep an eye on? >> katy, numbers here. first you mentioned the exit polls. alabama is usually so non-competitive, didn't even take an exit poll last president's election. back to 2012, the last time we got a comprehensive exit poll from alabama. when we get it tomorrow, what will he book at? with know jones will get the lion's share of the black vote. obama got 90% in 2012. more important, the question of turnout. how many black voters will turn out? a number there. when obama ran in 2012, on the ballot, the number hit 28% of the electorate was black. in the past, it's been more like 23%, 25%. how close is jones able to get to that 28% mark? that would be very high turnout. the closer to 28%, the better news for democrats. the other key, democrats have to flip white voters in the state. have to flip a lot of them. the two different groups sort of by social class. look at white with a college degree, non-college white. look, the bread and butter for jones will be the colle

we are joined by steve kornacki.teve, i love the fact that i am learn being the geography of alabama. in most states there is always a montgomery county for some reason. every time we go somewhere there is a montgomery county and it tends to be decisive. you take over. >> montgomery -- we'll start with montgomery county and let's start with the koups around mont month county. who keys for jones pulling off this victory. one is this sort of batch of counties here, the blue ones. that's montgomery right there. the biggest of the bunch. a lot of these are rural. these are also heavily black counties. the key is there were not just votes for jones. the key is turnout. if you look at where the turnout was in the state in the 2016 presidential election, the drop-off in these counties was a lot less, the drop-off was a lotlet less than you saw in the rural areas, the heavily white rural areas. black turnout was very strong. something else in this result it gave jones the win. i think it ought to worry republicans nationally

we are joined by steve kornacki.teve, i love the fact that i am learn being the geography of alabama. in most states there is always a montgomery county for some reason. every time we go somewhere there is a montgomery county and it tends to be decisive. you take over. >> montgomery -- we'll start with montgomery county and let's start with the koups around mont month county. who keys for jones pulling off this victory. one is this sort of batch of counties here, the blue ones. that's montgomery right there. the biggest of the bunch. a lot of these are rural. these are also heavily black counties. the key is there were not just votes for jones. the key is turnout. if you look at where the turnout was in the state in the 2016 presidential election, the drop-off in these counties was a lot less, the drop-off was a lotlet less than you saw in the rural areas, the heavily white rural areas. black turnout was very strong. something else in this result it gave jones the win. i think it ought to worry republicans nationally

none other than steve kornacki at the big board after this big break. it's a small finger...a worm!ike, a dagger? a tiny sword? bread...breadstick? a matchstick! a lamppost! coin slot! no? uhhh... 10 seconds. a stick! a walking stick! eiffel tower, mount kilimanjaro! (ding) time! sorry, it's a tandem bicycle. what? what?! as long as sloths are slow, you can count on geico saving folks money. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. anif you've got a lifee. you gotta swiffer whstuff happens. old shut down cold symptoms fast with maximum strength alka seltzer plus liquid gels. ♪ when you have doctors working as a team for your health, you get the care you need to help you thrive. ♪ visit kp.org to learn more. kaiser permanente. thrive. ♪ >> what is the president's backing of him mean? >> it means that he -- he stands behind him and he believes him, i believe. the whole thing has me so fired up and i've offered to take anybody and everybody to the voting polls. >> why do you think that the president backed him? >> because he's got conservative values tha

nbc's vaughn hilliard in montgomery, alabama, and msnbc national correspondent steve kornacki here with me, and an investigative reporter for al.com, and john archibald, columnist for the birmingham news. halle, let's start with you. the president wants the voters of alabama to go out and vote for him. getting into it with kirsten gillibrand. i hate to ask, but is there a strategy here? >> we know there is a strategy unfolding the last eight to ten hours here, senator gillibrand calling on president trump to resign, after the allegations coming up before and after he was elected, coming up again. that is what happened. she was not the only one who called on the president to do this. you had three or four other male senators calling on donald trump to step down, you're looking at this graphic, i would look at senator hirono only came out this afternoon to call out the president. the president took aim tweeting essentially that she was a lightweight, a flunky of chuck schumer's. and what seemed to be a seemingly potential suggested implication or insinuation said she came to his office be

we'll talk more about the shelby factor and the write-ins coming up with steve kornacki. first to kristen welker at the white house. kristen, roy moore supporters in alabama aren't the only one who is are upset about this. i know that you and i have this piece out about new reporting of what is going on inside the white house, including we just learned a bit of a staff shake-up. >> reporter: that's right. let's get to the staff shake-up first and then we can get look at some of the finger-pointing going on behind the scenes here at the white house. we just learned moments ago that omarosa mangault newman resigned. she resigned yesterday to pursue other opportunities. her departure won't be effective until january 2018. we wish her the best in future endeavors and are grateful for her service. she was the communications director for the office of public liason and did a lot of the outreach to the african-american community here at the white house. in fact, she was in mississippi over the weekend when the president stop there had for the opening of the civil rights union. n

it's doable. >> thank you steve kornacki and vaughn hilliard who is now an honorary alabaman.e're expecting to see jones speak in the next hour as both parties assess now what these results mean for 2018. wandalyn gibbon is a member of the birmingham, naacp, and michael steel, former senior adviser to jeb bush and john boehner. good to see all of you. big win. no doubt about it. lots of democrats celebrating last night. but have you had time to plan? can you build on this momentum and what lessons are there for 2018? >> it was an incredible win. democrats haven't won a senate seat there in over a quarter of a century. we're incredibly excited about that. an uphill battle, but democrats did what we need to do now and in the future. a terrific candidate in doug jones who led with his principles, values, and we built a winning coalition where african-americans led this effort to victory, particularly african-american women who, by the way, did the same thing in virginia and in 2016. >> even some democrats, though, have said over the course of the last 12 hours or so, they're worr

we are asked our national political correspondent steve kornacki to join us tonight at the big boardd i have so many questions for you including absent tee ballots which can staples sometimes be an indicator where we're headed. >> we talk so much about early voting, the thing about alabama is the number of absentee votes, it's not an early voting state. in terms of the tea leaves, this is going to be more of an old fashioned one. we're is going to see who turns out on tuesday, which regions they come from. we can show you if you average every poll that's been taken together, every poll that's out there, you get a lead of about two points, a little bit more than two points for moore. if you're a republican you're looking at that saying we're ahead, that's good. if you're a democrat you're saying this is as close as we've been in modern history in alabama. the last time they had a race in the single digits for the u.s. senate in alabama, you got to go back to 1996. so for democrats, if they're ever going to win one, it's got to be this one. we can show you what it's going to take. a de

steve kornacki with that breakdown for us.g up, the unconventional coalition that democrat doug jones now needs if he wants to win in alabama on tuesday. why it needs to include a good number of roy moore defectors. (vo) more "doing chores for mom" per roll more "doing chores for dad" per roll more "earning something you love" per roll bounty is more absorbent, so the roll can last 50% longer than the leading ordinary brand. so you get more "life" per roll. bounty the quicker picker upper. >>> two days from now, voters in alabama will decide on their next u.s. senator. democrat doug jones is doing a final push to mobilize african-american and millennials, two key groups that could secure his victory come tuesday. while black voters there make up 25% of the electorate, they represent an even larger portion of alabama's democratic base. jones, along with other high-profile, black lawmakers, like congressman john lewis and senator cory booker, who's at an event right now, and has been at a number there of get out the vote events

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. >> i must say listening to steve kornacki talk about this race through my earphone is listening to turn up your swagger game with one a day men's. ♪ a complete multivitamin with key nutrients plus b vitamins for heart health. your one a day is showing. >>> watching and waiting tonight for two things that will be unfolding very late in the wee hours in washington tonight. one of the things we are watching for is the fbi deputy director andrew mccabe who went in to speak to the house intelligence committee today on the russia investigation just after 2:00 p.m. eastern time. he hasn't been seen since. this is an fbi official who republicans have been criticizing and calling for him to be fired over

i'm steve kornacki in for chris matthews who's on vacation.sident's lawyers are responding to the washington post report that the president may ultimately turn on his former national security

here with us to talk about it tonight our national political correspondent steve kornacki, and shannon pettypiece, white house reporter for bloomberg. steve, during what i know you will agree is a tidal wave, a social movement we are seeing and it will bring about change. the democrats appear to be moving to keep or gain the moral high ground. >> yeah, they are trying to create i think here a standard, and a very dramatic standard, i think. because if you look at it and play this out forward this is probably not the last allegation going to emerge in the political realm given how this has been going for the last three weeks. and if this becomes a standard, for the democratic party, if somebody like al franken, who has a huge grass roots following. his book sells like crazy, he's a big name, he was talked about as a 2020 white house prospect, if he can't survive with this scandal, then anybody in the future at this standard or above, democrats are going to move them out, too. and i think democrats are creating a contrast here to say republicans are look the other way in alabama. we've g

i'm steve kornacki in for chris matthews, who is on vacation.ump stayed out of the public eye for the most part today. he did send out a pair of twe

this is a first hint of what the night can hold, let's bring in steve kornacki with the numbers, there here this is as close and divisive as we thought it would be. >> it's uncharted territory as we know here a. senate election. i'm about to show you numbers from the first exit poll alabama in a december, ki tell you that. the first exit poll in five years to come from alabama. so lopsided. here we go. the sexual allegations against moore t. importance here 40% of respondents here saying this is important, 55% saying it's not important. so a baseline there. how about which describes your vote here? this is a question among the voters? what you can see, 80% of jones voters say they strongly favor him. moore's voters, a lot more reservations, just over half saying that strongly favor him. him. they got some reservations, how about a more bake assessment of the character, the question here of values. does roy moore share your values and what you see there? 46 saying yes. 49 saying no now, what do we flip the question around and ask it aboutní remember, 46, 49 here, what is it for jones 48

i'm steve kornacki in for andrea mitchell, and we begin with the mueller investigation. a surprising new report out says the president's legal team may end up portraying financial security adviser michael flynn as, quote, a liar. the "washington post" reports that president trump's legal team is prepared to accuse flynn of lying if the former national security adviser ends up accusing the president of any wrongdoing. this morning the president's outside counsel john dow tells nbc it is, quote, complete nonsense. more fake news. nbc's garrett haake is in florida where the president continues his vacation. garrett, let's understand exactly what we're learning here. the president's public posture has been that flynn is being railroaded, he's a good guy, this is the legal team saying, look, if flynn ends up saying something to mueller about accusations of wrongdoing, this would be the strategy? >> reporter: well, look, legalities be clear. white house sources of the "washington post's", not nbc's, is saying this is the "in case of michael flynn emergency break glass plan," t

i'm steve kornacki in for andrea mitchell with the latest deep dive on president trump's thoughts ony and the mueller investigation. in an interview with the "new york times," 30 minutes of unfiltered access to president trump at president trump's grill

i'm steve kornacki in for chris matthews who's on vacation. the president's lawyers are responding to the washington post report that the president may ultimately turn on his former national security adviser, michael flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi earlier this month. as the most senior former trump adviser who's known to be cooperating with investigators, flynn could potentially help prosecutors land an even bigger fish in their ongoing probe and that could possibly pose a significant threat to the president himself. now as the post revealed yesterday, if flynn does ultimately implicate the president or others around him, the president's legal team is apparently set to portray one of trump's former closest advisers as a liar who's out to save his own neck, referring to flynn's admitted crime. one person who helped craft this strategy, he said himself, he's a lawyer. today the president's lawyers are pushing back though. in a statement to msnbc news, john dowd said this is complete nonsense and more fake news. this has disturbed