Dan oconnor and state senator Troy Balderson are neck in in this case neck in a district donald trump won by 11 points. A district that has been red since 1939. Aside from a twoyear blip in the 80s. Now it is a district that could easily turn blue. Not just women, i think men are as well a little confused Whats Going On in the Republican Party and everybody is kind of looking to support the best candidate rather than be more a partisan issue. Do you normally vote for republicans or democrats . I tend to be a conservative testimony i wou democrat i would say. Was it something about oconnor. It is more about sending a message. I mean, the republicans have to wake up. If they are not going to be a
Katy Tur hosts coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. Majority in the house, voters in michigan and kansas and Washington State are also headed to the polls. Is this a consequence of democrats have the momentum and energy . Are they drawn to the partys Ir Resistible messaging or about the Republican Party, a party with a president who dominates the daily discourse and shames republican morals. A part in the tlauls of an existent shal crisis, the grand oel party or party of trump . The big question were asking, is another gop election loss enough for the gop to change its strategy . Joining me, msnbc capitol hill correspondent dare ron hak in Columbus Ohio and rick sherman. Good to see you out of the capitol, number one. Youve been talking to folks for the past day. What sort of things have you been hearing beyond what we just played a moment ago . Changes in november. How much of this is about the democrats message or is it more about as we suggested in the leadin the open to this show that this is about a Republican Party that is in the middle fl an existential crisis, except for the identity of the man in the oval office . Its not about democrats as a National Party they are messaging. You see a huge difference obviously from Alexandria Cortez talking about abolish s i. C. E. And danny oconnor, two different candidates. Its not even about the president in some ways because the president is actually above water in this district, 48 in most polls, anywhere between 48 and 51 of voters here like approve of the job the president is doing. I think this is about a massive influx of cash. Republicans have spent 4 million in this district, which is an unheard of sum that congressional leadership fund
its coming. About frank oconnor. To represent the 12th congress at district. Its a big day and we worked hard to get here. Reporters are we trying to get him to comment on something he said, he dont want someone from Franklin County representing us. Franklin county is the most Populist County in the state. Its responsible for 30 of the votes that are going to get cast and by the way, its the more democratic, more moderate columbus and its nearest end suburb. What you saw there is balderson intentionally or not last night saying hey, im the guy whos going to be the representative for all of the these more rural places, not necessarily the candidate of the city folk if you will. Its one of those things where you sort you said the quiet
the mini me to donald trump. And so i talked to one of consultants yesterday and said doesnt matter how much money you spend anymore. Once people decide they are not going to vote because of trump, its over. I think this very republican district, were still still a competitive seat but oconnor has proven that candidate quality matter and if youre trying to be a reapplicant of trump, youre going to put yourself in a state of vulnerability and if youre a guy like oconnor or lam they have communicated in the district and havent hustled. Balderson doesnt seem like he has a lot of hustle. He seems to be dodging the press. Not a happy warrior. Usually the press gets your message out exactly. How it works typical. Do you think if the democrats are not able to take
this seat, this is going to be something of a deflator . Certainly not, the fact were looking at the dead heat in our plus 7 district i think is making everybody on the other side incredibly nervous and empowering those on our site. If it comes anywhere near as close as polling suggests, thats definitely a loss for the gop even if we wind up for balderson. I agree with Everything Rick said about the particulars of the race but i do think there is something larger happening across the country in terms of Progressive Enthusiasm and turnout. We have seen democratic turnout rise 84 by what it was in 2014. I think what is happening, democrats realized across the country we have been falling down on voting when it wasnt a president ial the republicans have just been eating our luncheon this. We were vaguely aware of it but we werent actually doing anything about it. Once donald trump got elected and we saw how bad things could
get, i think that changed. So since his election, in every special election that weve had in 2017 and 2018, we have seen republican Performance Drop and democratic performance rise as electronomically. This could be more than just a backlash to trump this year. This could be a party realizing what it needs to do to elect the people it wants to be represented by. Donald trump has endorsed balderson. Hes trying to get him to lift up in the race any other races that are the primaries happening today, hes endorsed people like chris kobach running in kentucky. Kansas. Kansas, excuse me. K state. In kansas and so far the people that hes endorsed have tended to be the more controversial choice. And endorsing somebody like chris kobach leading the charge on the voter Fraud Investigation when theres no real no such thing as voter fraud the way he was describing it. Right. How does that help theRepublican Party . He wants anyone who is running to owe him. Trump looks at himself as a medieval lord and these guys are his vessels, hes going to say i put you in here and selected you. Youre not part of anything else. Youre part of me. You know, set aside thats completely departure from our constitutional principles and history, but defined by trump at all points if kobach gets the nomination and has a rage tweet on toilet, kansas is a horrible hell hole and i hate them, chris kobach is screwed. Hes not mindful of Political Party leader. Its all impulse and all whats there in the moment and all whatever comes out of his itchy twitter finger any given second. You wrote a book and the fate
that has befallen them, mike flynn, et cetera, et cetera, Paul Manafort, rick gates. This is not quite the narrative of your book. If donald trump is putting his blessing on these candidates that are not going on to win and say the republicans dont win in a special election, do you think thats going to be a Turning Point for the Republican Party to start to change their strategy . I dont think this special will change the strategy. These guys are way locked in and the ones that secretly dont love trump, they are terrified of him tweeting or getting angry at them. The ones who do love trump, theyll ride in pony until it falls over dead. If theres a significant democratic sweep in november, there will be a lot of folks who make get to an understanding that the endorsement in the primary was great and incredibly helpful and desisive but in the
general its poison. I think we may be getting there and seeing democrats when they get activated by trump will crawl over broken glass to vote against his people. I think were well see the test case tonight. Its still a very republican district though. In terms of enthusiasm, where are you looking most for democratic enthusiasm . Is it women . Black women specifically . I mean, honestly black women are the people we count on to pull us over the finish liner election. I have no doubt theyll turn out in massive numbers this year because they were part of the constituency that didnt need trump getting elected to get the memo they have to turn out even when the president is not on the line. Im looking at College Educated white women who have been a reliable voting bloc since time in memorial and seem to be softening probably because the president is a huge mass saj in any event. They seem to be not as into that as they were when the Republican Vanguard was a mitt romney. Im interested to see do we start to get them . Do they start to come over to
the democratic side . If that happens, then republicans and trump are really left with white men. And specific segments of white men. The base is getting smaller and smaller for them. If they lose white College Educated women, its hard to get a majority in this country anymore. I want to read one portion from ricks book, everything we never warned you, massive downstream election losses is coming and alienating africanamericans and hispanics beyond redemption, check. Raising young voters fleeing the gop in droves. Check. Juvenile complaints and ego bruises taking center stage while the world burns. Check. Blistering pig ignorance about the economy and world. Check, shredding the last credibility is a party that cares about debt, deficits and fiscal probity. Check. Rick wilsowilson, good luck wit vote. That is a damning portrait of the Republican Party. We appreciate you coming. Guys it has been a pleasure as always. A wild day in the paul man that fort trial. The judge in the case accuses of prosecutor of prying next. George woke up in pain. But he has plans today. So he took aleve this morning. Hey dad. If hed taken tylenol, hed be stopping for more pills right now. Only aleve has the strength stop tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. Tylenol cant do that. Aleve. All day strong. All day long. Now introducing aleve back and muscle pain, for up to 12 hours of pain relief with just one pill. Ahoy gotcha nooooo. Noooooo. Quick, the quicker picker upper bounty picks up messes quicker and is 2x more absorbent. Bounty, the quicker picker upper. With a 500,000 Life Insurance policy. How much do you think it cost him . 100 a month . 75 . 50 . Actually, duncan got his 500,000 for under 28 a month. Less than a dollar a day. His secret . Selectquote. In just minutes, a selectquote agent will comparison shop nearly a dozen highlyrated Life Insurance companies, and give you a choice of your five best rates. Duncans Wife Cassie Got A 750,000 policy for under 22 a month. Give your family the security it needs at a price you can afford. Manafort is back on the stand. Rick gates continues his testimony today. Asked yesterday why are nooath whether he committed any crimes with mr. Manafort, gates answered yes and also admitted to Embezzles Hundreding Of Thousands from his boss carefully avoiding the flinting stares his mentor from the nearby Defense Table according to ken dellanian. Manaforts lawyers seemed eager to get to crossexamination where they will make every effort to paint gates as a cowardly schemer lying to save his own skin. If the day goes as planned, the defense should get that chance today. Joining me from outside the courthouse in alexandria, nbc news intelligence Reporter Kendelanian and seth waxman,
partner at did inson wright. You said its like a soap opera in there today. Walk us through whats happening. Well, katy, you explained some of the drama, of course, mr. Gates long time pro to jay of Paul Manafort walking in to testify against his mentor. Manafort stare beiing bullets a. Today we moved into a different mode where gates is getting into the nittygritty and its been very powerful testimony from gates because it doesnt just rely on his word. The prosecution is very cleverly using documents and emails, often with mr. Manaforts own words to show participation in this tax fraud and bank fraud. First they showed that manafort and gates together knew about Foreign Bank Accounts that werent reported on manaforts tax returns and concerted effort to hide income by showing it as loans and most recently i
stepped out of the courtroom where they were talking about 2016 when the business had collapsed and they had no clients and trying to lie and prop up income to get loans from a bank. Gates testified that manafort directed him to essentially help fake documents. There was one case manafort wanted a pdf converted into microsoft word to change inflate his income. Very powerful testimony. The defense does want to crossexamination gates and thats going to happen today but its hard its going to be hard to overcome these documents in Black And White with paul n manafort. There was one change a document the jury was shown where manafort had shown his 2014 income tax projection. And he says, i just wtf and manafort, being blindsided like this. This is a as ken just said, financially strapped. They talked about how the man, ukrainian president lost power, significantly decreased and difficulty paying his bills according to gates testimony. Why is it so important to show that he was having problems paying his bills in this trial, seth . Well, i mean, thats just another mode i think there are two big things were hearing out of the courthouse, the one youre bringing up now. This case says prosecutors who put this on and often times say its about greed, he wanted more and more money and thats why he didnt pay taxes. Now were hearing he was in financial zdistress this gives another mode. When jurors hear this, not only do they have the more common, the greed aspect of a case like this but now they see the unnerving need that he had and
that could be telling and very persuasive to a jury. Seth, you tell me if im skipping ahead here. Could this be laying groundwork for how this ties into the russia probe and broader question of conspiracy, collusion and coordination. Manafort needed money. Is this muellers trying to paint this portrait of get into the Public Record of manafort as a man desperate which is why its a weird an open question and weird its just weird that manafort went to work for donald trump under all of these Financial Issues and wasnt getting paid. Well, i think the main purpose of this trial from the overarching Mueller Investigation is to get paul nan manafort to flip. This background, as a former federal prosecutor, did it for 13 years, conspiracies dont just fall out of the sky in the middle of March Of 2016 or june of 2016. Theres a history there are
relationships and business relationships and there are reasons why the russians felt reaching out to Paul Manafort and these facts, the decade or so of interactions and Business Transactions with russian backed yugoslavians or others, can be how the formation of a conspiracy comes together and prosecutors use that in the wider case to build the record and show jurors how this all came to be. It wasnt something that just dropped out of the sky in 2016. One other point i want to make, there seems to be some drama with judge ellis and the prosecution, at one point the judge looked at greg andress, a member of the prosecutorial team, i understand how frustrated you are and in fact theres tears in your eyes right now. And saying he wasnt crying and the judge looks back at him and says, well we have not seen any of that behavior from judge ellis today. I wonder if it had to do with the Media Coverage of this tension from yesterday. Up until today, there had been a lot of grumbling from people close to the prosecution that ellis wasnt being fair. He was really holding their feet to the fire trying to get them to rush through their case they felt, not letting him allow evidence. Today we havent heard a peep. I want to let you know ive been told that the prosecution has finished their questioning of gates and crossexamination will be happening this afternoon. Also, a reference to donald trump, not being mentioned at the trial. There was a note in a manafort document that talked about season tickets to the yankees and this is from 2013 and the note said going to trump next week. That wasnt mentioned and put up on the screen. We all read it. Wanted to let people know that happened. No doubt judge elis will be happy that the trial is moving on that the defense will get a chance to crossexamination
today. Ken dilanian, thanks very much. Coming up did don jr. Commit a crime . When i touch you like this its so hard to believe but its all coming back me. Baby, baby, baby. All you can eat is back, baby. Applebees. This is just another d distraction when again after two years of you know, nonstop investigation, with everyone in the media, everyone in the fbi, everyone in this whoever the whole world is looking at this and yet to produce anything that even remotely resembles what theyve been talking about. And yet every other day, oh, my god, weve got it now. Nouz the we got the needle in the haystack, ive been hearing this for two years. The president s son says all of the talk about the Trump Tower Meeting is just a distraction. Over the weekend the president publicly confirmed that the purpose of the meeting was to get information on an opponent. Trump insisted though it was totally legal and done all the time in politics. But is it . A piece in the New York Times explores potential legal pitfalls for don jr. Joining me now, the author of that piece and New York Timeswashington correspondent charlie savidge, known as nbc contributor and White Hous