Exploring issues that affect leaders in the U. S. And around the globe. Lenders considered for a job in the white house. Well head to the courthouse in a few minutes for more on this developing story, what it means for the president and the Mueller Probe. As big as that legal story is for the presidency tonight, well begin with a Political Development that might be bigger for him and his party because it is happening at the ballot box. You are looking live at people voting in ohios 12 Special Elections where tonights results could show a looming disaster for republicans in november. Recent polls show this race between two generic candidates here, no real superstar, its a coin flip right now. Folks, in a district like ohio 12 which really is a district that straddles the suburbs and the exurbs out there outside of columbus, in play for a democrat like Danny Oconnor, the democrats are looking at a
battleground approaching 80some seats. If Republican Troy Balderson can eke it out, the republicans could claim a bit of a survival, that they would need to win a seat like ohio, the ohio 12 in order to save the house. The president might say well see. We dont know what tonights results might bring. Either way youll see some major fallout tonight. Certainly what everybody is going to be staying up tonight to follow. Eric headache is on the ground in ohio. Also with me tonights panel, lee ann caldwell, cornell belcher, msnbc political analyst and democratic pollster. Garrett, i think the question i have is twofold. Its about the same group of voters. Its about what i would call the kasich republicans. I think we have two questions about them. Number one, are they going to
balderson, the republican here, seems to be stumbling across the finish line. You dont get a sense hes able to carry what happened on saturday with President Trump being here into tuesday. Hes had some Awkward Campaign events. He kind of badmouthed one of the counts here thats going to turn out a lot of the vote. It seems like all the bounces are going Danny Oconnors way. He still has a math problem. The feel on the ground is that the bounces are going his direction. Ive got to ask you about the trump rally. Ill ask the panel about this later, too. But did he want it or not . Did the campaign ask for it or not . Youve got john kasich going out there going, essentially, apoplectic it sounded like, what the heck are you bringing trump into the district for . Yeah. Balderson has gone out of his way to not address that question directly. I tried to ask him a version of that the other day. He basically said, look, im honored to have the president here, always happy to welcome the president here, but wouldnt address the Case Sick Part of
that directly. Getting kasichs endorsement was a big deal for him. This is kasichs base of support here. I do think the idea that somehow bringing trump here has a huge negative impact. Its probably a bit overblown. There wasnt anybody in the district who doesnt like donald trump who didnt know they didnt like donald trump before saturday. Fair enough. Garrett, stick around. Let me get the panel in here. We want you to stick around because youre our onthe drn ground expert. Cornell, how important is this to democrats . I would flip it around. How important is this for republicans . Not being partisan at all. There are a lot of districts out there, chuck, that are a lot more close than this district. If you have 20point republican registration advantage. If this is a twopoint win for republicans tonight, if youre in the republican congressional committee, youre going, oh, my
story. One thing thats different is these two will run again in november. Well see a replay of this regardless of who wins. So the Whisper Campaign to distance himself from balderson should he lose tonight will be doubly damning to maybe keeping this district or winning it back in november. This thing is still going to be competitive in a couple of months. It doesnt go away if the dynamics change. You can probably argue Danny Oconnor needs the win to keep this more than balderson might if he wins this in a situation where were talking about 60 other seats, this race doesnt get quite as much attention. Maybe less competitive in november. Im curious. Does less attention mean what to a district like this, less attention mean youre not going to get the last resources that the republicans can throw at it, cornell, or democrats wont get the extra attention to get the fundraising. Republicans have spend a ton of money and you project across other districts, you cant
afford to spend this type of money. Two things that are interesting. I was with congressman tim ryan, youngstown, ohio, he texted me and said they feel confident about what happened, all the momentum is on democrats side. To kasichs point let me pause you. I think people need to hear what john kasich said. I was shocked that he went there before the ballots had been counted. Take a listen to what the governor said. Troy, why did you invite trump in here, the president. He said no, i didnt. I think donald trump decides where he wants to go and they think theyre firing up the base. I have to tell you, at the same time he comes in here, i was with some women last night who said, hey, you know what . Im not voting. Theyre republicans, im not voting for the republicans. The concern, trump fires up everybody. Exactly. The trump bomb destroys everybody except property. If youre a republican lets say it comes out and balderson loses by a point or two. The key thing will be keep trump away from any district thats plus ten or less. What do you do if youre a republican that needs the trump base. They all need the trump base. The trick is to keep it without Calling Attention to the fact that youre trying to keep it, if you take my point. Without Hillary Clinton on the ballot, how does that work . The president intervened with an endorsement in kansas. People said please dont do that. He went out and did it anyway. Hes an unguided missile here. Oi think one of the key things about this is trump is doing really well in republican primary endorsements, but not doing so well in the matchup against the democrat. I think the dynamics are going
to matter. This is a Vanity Project for trump. He says hes going to be on the campaign trail every single day, 60 days out. This is one of his favorite things to do, go and rile up his base. Can i play devils advocate. Do you wish democrats had embraced barack obama more . I say that, would that have helped you hold five more seats . Are you just setting me up for a i dont know. I dont know what the rules are anymore. Donald trump keeps changing. Hes the last guy that wants backtoback majorities. Whether a republican o are democrat has done that, theres Something Special about him. When you look at the young voters and the minority vote and the energy he generated, thats a Progressive Coalition and thats the majority coalition, and thats the key to the future. I would say this about how you do it without trump being there and you see it. It is ms 13. It is, im going to build a ball. Doubling down, where the republican in this district has done because they moved away from the Tax Cut Argument. As weve seen in the past, the Tax Cut Argument isnt working. Garrett, what are people talking about more, the Special Election or urban meyer . Urban meyer in a landslide. Its not even close. I assume thats all the area is talking about at this point. We can still get sound bites out of people. We can still is either one of the campaigns touching the urban meyer story or are they steering clear . I think theyre staying as far away as they can. The president came out and attacked lebron. How much lebron, garrett . Real fast. Chuck, i havent heard it. I dont know theres as much crossover on that as i think we would like to see. There we go. There you go, our espnification didnt work. Up next, well take you to the soap opera, the sands of the hour glass comes the manafort trial, extramarital affairs, President Trumps name comes up. Its a doozy today. Keep it here. Crabfest is back at red lobster,
with our largest variety of crab all year like new crabfest combo. Your one chance to have new Jumbo Snow Crab with tender dungeness crab. Or try crab lovers dream. But hurry in. Cause Crabfest will be gone in a snap. This is a story about mail and packages. And its also a story about people. People who rely on us every day to deliver their dreams theyre handing us more than mail theyre handing us their business and while we make more ecommerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country, we never forget. That your business is our business the United States postal service. Priority you as i teased, its been quite the day of drama, very soap operalike in the Paul Manafort trial with a protege throwing his longtime patron under the bus. Rick gates is the prosecutions
star witness. He spent today detailing, sometimes tediously, how he and manafort committed these financial crimes. Gates testified how manafort directed him to lie about his income and fake company records. Now, manaforts defense team is in the middle of cross exam eng gates, trying to convince jurors that gates who is cooperating with prosecutors to reduce prison time cant be trusted. We heard President Trumps name come up, the Campaign Came up because the jury saw evidence that manafort tried to leverage his connections on the trump transition, aka, his friendship with rick gates to curry favor with one of his lepders. Joining us nbc news Tis CorrespondentPete Williams and mimi rocca from the Southern District of new york and msnbc legal analyst. I think she gets to stay dry by contract. Anyway, people, let me start
with you. The rain storms were in between. I know gates is being cross examined. In the hours of the prosecution, if you were to say what was the probably the most damning testimony he gave as far as the prosecution is concerned . Reporter well, its clearly the fact that Paul Manafort, he says, told him not to tell the accountants what accountants they had in cypress that manafort was using to pay his bills. Dont tell them because that would show as more income and hed owe more taxes. He said he falsified several documents and emails to help manafort get bank loans. Three sets of charges, falsifying tax returns, not affording Foreign Bank Accounts and using bank loans when the
money dried up in ukraine to get more cash for the property he brought. What gates did today is what prosecutors hoped. This is a financial crimes case, built largely on paper, tax returns, bank statements. Gates is the one who helped those come alive. Thats what the prosecutors hoped he did today. Seem to be two damning pieces of evidence, two emails. One i want to put up here, its Paul Manafort ooes s reaction. The email, wtf, how could he be blindsided like this . That apparently leads gates to falsely reclassify some of the income as debt, and it magically saves manafort 500,000. Pete, how much attention was the jury paying could you feel as if they were totally focused in and taking this in point by point . Well, remember, theyve heard about this twice before. Theyve heard about this from the accountants who were involved in the various stages. Theyve seen other emails from the bankers. This is 2014. This is when the money from ukraine is starting to dry up after yanukovych woman nah fort earned millions working for, after he gets booted out of office, gates tells him what the taxes are. Thats when manafort says, i didnt see that one coming, this is a disaster. What gates said is the accountant fudged the information that was used to get a bank loan. Now weve had the Cross Examination and the biggest shock and awe of that is the defense got rick gates to admit he embezzled money from the firm in order to keep a romantic hide dloet away in london. Do i have this right . Reporter gates has already said remember this is his second day on the stand. Hes already admitted he
embezzled money from manafort. The jury heard about that yesterday. Today they heard the sort of gory details about how he did it, how many times he did it. They showed emails, they showed statements. They were trying to nail down the evidence on that. But today we heard for the first time as the defense ripped into him to basically say why should the jury believe you, they said that he lied many times to muellers prosecutors during the time when they were negotiating the plea and they say they discovered he was leading a secret life, that he was lying to his own family in essence, that he had an apartment in london, that he had what he himself called gates called a relationship, presumably an affair. He even said at one point when they asked is it possible remember manafort stepped down from the trump campaign. Gates stayed on to help with the inauguration. The defense said today, is it
possible that you even sub schmitted personal expenses to the trump campaign. He said its possible. Interesting. Mimi rocca, so the prosecution had to do two things today, right . They had to use rick gates as their star witness and show hes the guy telling them connecting all the dots. They also had to hope his credibility withstood Cross Examination. How has the prosecution done with their goal of keeping rick gates a valuable witness . I think theyve done as well as the prosecution can do under these circumstances. Whenever you have a cooperating witness who has committed crimes himself, admittedly lied to the government and who is there because hes a criminal who participated in crimes with the defendant, its going to be bumpy. During Cross Examination many times i literally wanted to crawl under the table until it was over. Youre just kind of holding your breath and hoping that you get
through it with some bumps and bruises but no major crashes. It looks like so far thats whats happening. What you dont want on Cross Examination is for something to come out that you didnt know about. I have seen that happen. I have experienced that. So far it hasnt happened here. It may sound like a pretty low bar. Remember, were going through this in minute detail. At the end of the day, the jury is going to have Closing Arguments from the prosecutors and from the defense, and the prosecutors are going to try in those arguments to refocus the jury on the evidence and make it about the emails. The email that you put up is a really good email. There is a line at the end of it, though, that wasnt in your visual that said, i thought you had this under control. Interesting. If i were the prosecutor, i would hammer that home. It wasnt just i thought you had my tax returns under control. I gave you authority to take
care of my finances. That gives agency that anything gates does is now on manafort. Mimi, somewhat the bar of proof that you think the prosecution has to pass . Meaning, it looks like manaforts defense is crimes may have taken place, but he didnt make it somehow he didnt do it on purpose, or he didnt realize it was happening admitting to something but not really. These are paper crimes. These are i didnt fim out the right forms crimes. First of all, is that what they are . Second, so what . Is that a so what to the jury, or does the prosecution have to prove that this well, he purposely did this . I think it depends which charges were talking about. The bank fraud, for example, i think its easiest to say sort of how its not just a paper crime because you see them
actually falsifying documents and turning income into loans when theyre not. And thats much more sort of active than just signing a tax form thats not true. At the end of the day, i think if the jury convicts him on one, theyre likely to convict him on all. At the end of the day, the government probably doesnt care. As long as hes convicted on some, hes going to have pretty high sentencing exposure. Go ahead. Finish up. The other thing is, i think the judge the jury will get Jury Instructions from the judge, and the judge will do a good job of explaining the law is the law. Even if you think this doesnt seem like an important crime, signing a tax form thats false. If you find the facts that he violated it, thats a crime. You brought up the judge. Pete, i want to ask you, first of all, any dramatic moments between our friends and the prosecution and judge ellis,
they seem to be having quite the back and forth. Yesterdays back and forth read like a humiliation. Did it feel that way when you witnessed it . Reporter no, but judge ellis runs hot and cold on that. Maybe he was chilling out today. Hes still pressing the government to try to get things done as quickly as possible. My colleague, ken dilanian has come out of the courthouse as things were wrapping up. What gates was trying to do is salvage his credibility as manaforts lawyers were bringing out this pattern of lies and fraud that hes committed over the years that hes now admitted to. According to what ken has just told me, he said toward the end, look, i regret what i did, but ive taken responsibility for it, and thats a path that was open to mr. Manafort, meaning i pleaded guilty, he could have pled guilty, too. Of course, one thing we did
learn today is that this was brought out from questioning by the judge, even though under his guilty plea rick gates could face many years in prison, the government has his lawyers intend to ask the judge to give him basically probation. And the government has written a letter saying, if they make that request, the prosecutors will not oppose it. Now, it will still be up to the judge to sentence him. Thats an enormous concession from the government. It just shows how highly they prize him as a wi