News, analysis and interviews with politicians and observers. Hill for the president and his party. A republican loss might tell us more. If the gop cant hold this district, which last elected a democrat back in 1980, then its a pretty safe bet democrats will recapture the house in november. That would not only stall any trump legislative agenda but also put investigations, possibly impeachment, on the table. There are longer term questions too. If republicans keep losing in the suburbs s th, is that just are acti reaction to the Trump Presidency or a longterm shift . The president tweeted this morning, casting the democrat as, quote, controlled by nancy pelosi, among other things. That democrat is Danny Oconnor, who hopes to benefit from antitrump sentiment in the suburbs but smartly prefers not to talk about the president. Were crisscrossing this district talking to voters about Kitchen Table issues like paying your mortgage, like having access to a safe and secure retirement, like making sure
women. If this stays red tonight, then the republicans likely will hold the seat. If this is blue at the end of the night, then Democrat Danny Oconnor has a chance in a seat the democrats havent won since the reagan presidency. So if you look at this, onethird of the votes here in the Franklin County part of the district, why then, oh, why . Is this a gaffe . Is this honesty . This is the republican candidate on election eve. My opponent is from Franklin County. Franklin county has been challenging. We dont want somebody from Franklin County representing us. Its really important that we move that needle tomorrow. Its back to that whole Community Thing again. I could go on and on and on and tell you how important it is to have a Community Behind you. Thats the only reason i won that primary. And it shocked franklin, it shocked delaware county. It shocked all those counties, the bigger populated area ones. Oh, boy. With me to share their reporting and their insight, Katherine Lucy with the associated press,
michael bender of the wall street journal, and Jackie Kucinich of the daily beast. Is it a gaffe, is it honesty . You have onethird of the votes in this area. Is this open honesty actually from the republican candidate, not a gaffe, saying we know the Republican Party is changing and my votes have to come from the rural areas, less Populated Areas or else i lose . What is this . I think this was probably an attempt for him to get voters out. Troy balder ssons state Senate District includes one county from the vote tonight. Its very rural, definitely trump country. I think that was his attempt to his very inartful attempt to get those voters out. I dont know that there was a broader message. I think he wanted to get his people out. His donors all during the primary, from that county. He needed those people to show up. However, Franklin County, youre
talking like Tens Of Thousands of voters versus more than A Hundred Thousand voters. Flipping the bird at a big third of your voters is kind of interesting. Hes lucky he did this the night before the election, not a week before the election. The democrats dont have as much time to take advantage of it. We always say this is going to be a Huge National message. In this case, thats not an exaggeration, right . Were inside 100 days to the midterms. The dynamic starts to lock in at this point. If republicans lose or just barely eke this out, what does it tell us . It tells us they have a problem in the suburbs, No Matter What. As a former Franklin County resident, thats where i was born, or where i grew up, the votes there matter. I was talking to a republican this morning talking about those Suburb Ban Vote suburban voters. He does know voters who are mad at trump and are going to cast a vote for Danny Oconnor because theyre not happy about where the Trump Presidency is going. The alarm bells are going to sound. This is a district thats plus seven republican. If that whittles down, this
republican told me he thinks that balderson is going to eke it out. That said, if he wins by 1 , 2 , though a those are inroads and alarm bells. These two candidates are not exactly setting the world on fire. Theyre kind of generic dem and republican. There isnt the sort of fiery candidates weve seen in some other places. So the fact you kind of do have this generic ballot, i think you have a lot of people here in washington who are sending the money that way to candidates around the country keeping a close eye on this. And its going to narrow the window here where trump is going to be influential or where candidates are going to welcome him. Not to one up you, but i also am a former ohio resident. What were seeing in this race here is a couple things. As jackie mentioned, this candidate has not exactly been setting the world on fire. We were tracking closely at how these candidates were performing at trump rallies. We saw, what, four rallies in 12
days. Balderson was by far the least polished and didnt hit his marks as well as the others had. You saw these it kind of helps explain that video we saw, his gaffe. But if trump is going to go to these rallies and go to these districts, hes going to want to win. This one looks like, at best, a jump ball. If they come up short, the question is going to be whos going to welcome trump into their backyard . You see here, you see this is a great district to look at what i call the Shotgun Wedding thats the Republican Party under donald trump. Especially suburban women, they find the president toxic. They might like the tax cuts, might like the blooming economy, but they dont like his personal behavior, his tweets. Weve seen that. Alabama has a democratic senator because of this dynamic in the suburbs. Look back at the special elections throughout 2017 and into this year. But you get into these white,
working class areas, and thats where trump has brought new voters to the Republican Party. Ron brownstein characterized it this way, after flipping the bird to Franklin County, revealing a message for the trump era gop. The party is consciously trading suburbs for small towns. Its saying what you really mean. We dont consider those voters who we are anymore. But if you just do demographics, thats where they live. The Republican Party cant win in the cities, the urban areas. Their only hope of being competitive in a competitive statewide race, looking forward, how can you be competitive if you cant win in the cities and cant win in the suburbs . You saw with President Trump in 16, he built coalitions that werent relying on urban areas in states like pennsylvania, for example, where philadelphia and pittsburgh often dominate. He built a Winning Coalition there. So i think he has shown some ways to do that, but whats not
clear is does it work for anyone else but trump . Trump found a way to do this, but going into these midterms, its not clear thats going to work for anybody else. The other thing i wanted to point out, these are big parts of this district. They all have some of the lowest unemployment rates in the state. So the economic message isnt pushing him it may push him ahead, but it isnt having the same resonance that it might in other places. You can probably speak to this better. Absolutely. 2016 was, in ohio, many ways a vote for economic change. These were people who maybe felt left out of the Global Economy to a degree. And columbus was really sort of an anomaly. Theyve had a strong Economic Growth throughout that time, so i think that you really do see sort of that dichotomy of the Chamber Of CommerceRepublican Versus a more maybe tea party or more rural voter in this district. Its a very good microcosm, i think, for the rest of the country. The other question, too, is
what republicans stay home. Were going to see that in this race and also midterms. Its not just who youre turning out but the quiet voters who arent going to show up. And thats a great point there. Thats where weve seen a lot of the suburban women factor in. They just stay home. And this president , can he get voters to come out to vote for congress . In those rural areas, its a fascinating question. You say, im with the president , but i dont care about congress. A big piece of that trump strategy is sort of relying on a depressed vote for your opponents. That seems to be one of the trends here so far posttrump. Democrats dont seem to be staying home in any of these races. One thing trump has done is energized democrats. This is a super strange time to have a special election by the way. Its august. Kids are returning to school next week. A lot of families would consider going on vacation this week. Turnout is going to be a Little Stranger than normal, but i think the energy from the final days of the election will probably fire it up. Fascinating race. Well count the votes tonight and come back to it a bit later. Up next, Paul Manaforts defense team about to get a crack at crossexamining the star witness, but has the damage from rick gates already been done . You might take something for your heart. Or joints. But do you take something for your brain. With an ingredient originally discovered in jellyfish, prevagen has been shown in Clinical Trials to improve shortterm memory. Prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. Manafort was directing how the money be moved from the ukrainians to these overseas accounts. Gates really going over kind of the nittygritty details of this scheme, of how manafort was involved in it, who the ukrainians were. This was all about, gates says, money being paid to them for their Campaign Work they were doing on behalf of the ukrainians. A couple new things we did learn was that gates and manafort were interviewed by the fbi in 2014 regarding a Forfeiture Investigation involving the ukrainians. Gates says manafort directed him to go talk to one of these ukrainians about the fbi interview. He went to france to do that. We also learned there was an email from a suspected russian intelligence official. Now, this email is from 2014, where manafort was getting paid, money was being moved from this
person. Hes been indicted by the Special Counsel. Hes suspected of being this russian intelligence official. He was moving some of the money, paying manafort. Theres an email where they are talking and gates is saying that manafort is concerned, that he needs money, hes not getting paid. He writes, this is to calm paul dourn down, meaning hes going to be sending money. Certainly Little Details but significant here for the prosecutions case. Shimon prokupecz, appreciate that. Keep us posted. Pretty soon they move to the crossexamination. That should be interesting. Paul manafort, chairman of the trump campaign, rick gates, Deputy Chairman of the trump campaign. This trial has nothing to do with the trump campaign. This is conduct before then. It does get you into the conversation about this is great insight on the swamp, number
one, and while donald trump the candidate would have had no way of knowing these guys were involved in illegal activity, it was well known in town that they were involved in the more shady part of the swamp, yet he brought them in. One of the aspects of what prosecutors are trying to show is even though this is not directly related to the trump campaign, there could have been a certain period of time when manafort, who was used to a very lavish lifestyle as weve seen with the ostrich jackets and whatnot, was short on money. Even though he was working voluntarily for the campaign, he did have these relationships with russians and ukrainians that he could have used in his favor to make some money. Thats a great point. The atlantic talks about this as well. Is this something that was handed to the Special Counsel . The fbi has been looking into these two going as far back as 2014. The Justice Department said, you take this too since it involves some of the same issues. Is it just an isolated case, or mueller has shown once he can
get a Campaign Insider talking, what flows is damaging. The opening pages of a much more complicated tale, meaning can you connect this to the 2016 campaign, or are these just two guys who are apparently now admitted lawbreakers and trump made the mistake of hiring them . A lot of attorneys watching this are asking that very question. If it gets to the point where manafort sees a conviction coming, or if its clear this is happening, then if mueller can flip manafort, and a lot of people are speculating behind the scenes thats what a lot of the motivation here is to try to get manafort talking. As you mentioned, the story is about or this trial is about tax evasion, also bank fraud. It tells us a lot about trump world. It tells us a lot about washington. Just a fascinating personal story here of a political
operative and a mentor and a protege turned against each other. Really, some folks think that manaforts best shot here is today, to basically have his Attorneys Disthem Bowl Hembowel onetime protege. It may be their last chance. Covering the campaign and the start of the white house, rick gates is a survivor. Hes Deputy Campaign manager, but he wasnt really quite number two. You had manafort there. You had the kids. You had the family. Even after manafort left, you had bannon, kellyanne. Somehow gates just stayed around all the time, into the transition. One story i heard was it was a rightranking campaign official, there was an issue with gates. Face to face, i need your badge, youre not coming back in, this is your last day. Next morning at the allstaff meeting, theres gates sitting at the table, and no one could figure out how he did it. That was a story about rick
gates over and over again. So keep an eye on rick gates. He really is a fascinating character. That seems like a lot of people in trump land too. They never seem to go away. I think the other thing we see is it gives us some insider understanding of muellers methodology. In addition to learning what were learning about these two individuals, it shows the depth of detail were hearing, the amount of evidence they have, the way that theyre going after this. The big thing i think weve all talked about a lot and keep coming back to is we just dont really know the extent of this. We deponeont know what mueller knows. This suggests a very deep process. To that point, well get to more a bit later, the preparation, the email, the documentation that tell the truth or else well show you this that proves youre not telling that truth. Up next, President Trump really doth protest too much. Why his advisers think his tweets, especially about that Trump Tower Meeting, are make things work. Todd. Hold on. [ engine revs ] arcade game fist pump
your real bikes all fixed. Man, you guys are good well, we are the numberone Motorcycle Insurer in the country. Wait. You have a real motorcycle . And real insurance, with 24hour customer support. Arcade game wipeout oh well. I retire as champion. Game hog champion. Happy anniversary dinner, darlin. Can this much love be cleaned by a little bit of dawn ultra . Oh yeah one bottle has the Grease Cleaning Power of three bottles of this other liquid. A drop of dawn and grease is gone. Now more businesses, in more places, can afford to dream gig. Comcast, building americas largest gigspeed network. Advice from the president today, a lot of it coming from friends. If you want people to stop talking about something, lead by example. A source telling cnn President Trump has been urged to stop tweeting about that 2016 Trump Tower Meeting between his top advisers, including his son, and several russians. Hes been advises that his tweeting, no surprise here, only gives oxygen to the topic, and in this case perhaps evidence to investigators. It seems just about everyone,
including former advisers trying to telegraph that message to the boss. When youre out there protesting, you dont have to be a scholar, but the words doth does protest too much, well, why are you protesting . If youre right on the facts, the facts will unfold in a way thats favorable to you, and youll be better served not talking about it. That from Anthony Scaramucci there. The advice coming as the president s legal team prepares a response to the Special Counsels latest proposal about an interview with the president. Its Robert Muellers birthday today. Yes, it is. Sounds like hes not getting a gift from the white house. The president s attorney Rudy Giuliani telling the Washington Post we have a real reluctance about allowing any questions about obstruction. The president still has