impeach you? dnc chair tom perez on donald trump s state of the union visit to nancy pelosi s house. you are can t impeach somebody for doing the best job of any president. when all in starts right now. good evening from new york. i m chris hayes. at this hour, the democratic governor of virginia remains defiant. ralph northam is refusing to resign despite near unanimous calls from his fellow democrats to leave the office. after the discovery of this racist photo on his 1984 medical school yearbook page. now in his initial statement, northam apologized and said he was, in fact, one of the people in the photo. didn t say which one but then reversed course on saturday denying he was in the photo. he did not deny ever wearing black-face. he volunteered that he had put shoe polish on his face in 1984, the same year as the yearbook photo, while participating in a dance competition dressed as michael jackson. you danced the moon walk.
michael jackson. you danced the moon walk. that is right. are you still able to moon walk? um inappropriate circumstances. my wife said inappropriate circumstances. your wife is right. a source tells nbc news that northam told his staff that he needs more time to deliberate about his next steps. he added that he does not want to leave office as a quote, racist for life. northam took office last january and he had been fairly popular in virginia until now. his approval rating has plummeted in the wake of the scandal falling from 48% to just 29%. but despite his falling poll numbers and widespread calls from fellow democrats locally and nationally to resign, northam has taken a page from the trump gop playbook electing to set aside shame and for now try to power through. it is what trump famously did in the wake of the access hollywood tape and multiple allegations of sexual misconduct and he s the president now. it is what roy moore did when he stayed in his alabama se
yeah the judgment has to be rendered one way or another with northam and dealt with and whatever happens next is what you are saying? absolutely. because the governorship represents somebody who represents all of virginians and if we don t have the trust, we need to ask that question and have that conversation and when you talk about race in virginia, these are other issues that, again, they are very serious and need to be dealt with properly. but right now we re talking about the governorship and the conversation of race here in virginia and that is let s not forget that. final thing i think is what it says. i keep think about being a black medical student in that med school. where that image is there and apparently aroused nothing no controversy, no nothing. or black patients of the doctors trained there. when you zoom out and think about the life world this emerged from, it is pretty haunting. the infant mortality the rate of blake women who die in giving birth o
because three quarters of people of color came out in droves to vote for him. and yet he could not describe or explain what redemption he experiences or what experiences took him from that to what he said he is today and in fact he went in the opposite direction. what do you say, adam, and what is the difference and there are a lot between the steve king situation where he literally defended the term white supremacist on the record of the new york times and then the northam situation? i think that the main difference between those two situations is that in one case king went on for years ex pouzing white nationalist views an the republican party did nothing about it until he came close to losing his seat. in this case, as mia pointed out, northam won handily and democrats are still calling for him to leave because they
the latest inisn t just a store.ty it s a save more with a new kind of wireless network store. it s a look what your wifi can do now store. a get your questions answered by awesome experts store. it s a now there s one store that connects your life like never before store. the xfinity store is here. and it s simple, easy, awesome. welcome back to hardball. virginia governor ralph northam remains in office tonight following the discovery of this