Chris Hayes discusses the days top news. We expect those also break democratic enough to erase a 1754 lead . No, but could it be enough to cut into that 754 enough that baldersons advantage which is 0. 9 right now over oconnor if that ends up at 0. 5 or less, state law says guess what, we got to have a a recount here. You could potentially, i wouldnt say its the likeliest scenario but you could see that happening. There are also 5048 what they are calling uncounted absentee ballots, that were mailed out to voters in some cases weeks ago and they havent been mailed back. A lot of them probably arent going to be mailed back. Some of them a small number probably military ballots maybe still making their way. Some of them probably a small number are voters you had to have them postmarked yesterday. If they sent it out yesterday, it still comes in, that vote probably still going to be district, the areas that currentlied to trump, the turnout wasnt as high but the vote, the margins that balderson ran up here were trumplike. Did you not have much democratic support out here. Oconnor didnt make inroads there. Maybe he wanted to. The key was Delaware County. This is the Wealthiest County in ohio. Suburban, it is more almost urban when you get down close to columbus, more clackly suburban. Trump got 55 . Not great for republicans. The question was would balderson do worse . He did 54. He had to be a little lower than that i think. There needed to be more erosion in the Delaware County for him to lose. Doesnt look like quite enough erosion for oconnor to pull this off tonight. Too close to call. Still the chance of a recount. No matter how many days they drag this out now, these two get to do it all over again in november when theyre one of 434 other rays around the country. That is the lay of the land there. Garrett haake it on the ground at oconnor headquarters wes terville, ohio. It looks quiet behind you. What was it like to be out there tonight . Im the last man standing. Theyve turned off the lights. Everybody has gone home. A few hours ago, this was a pretty bumping party. Democrats really felt like they had a shot here tonight. It the last 48 hours of this race, everything seemed to be breaking their way. The republican candidate stumbled into a gaffe about Franklin County The Night Before the election started. Their candidate had been all over the place in national and local media. They felt like they were fighting out the last few days of this campaign on democratic issue turf talking about health care, they were talking about protecting it Social Security. Thats one of the reasons that democrats nationally by the way like what they see here today. They like the issue set that was fought over in this campaign. Theyre also going to like the enthusiasm a lot. You talked about that big Franklin County number, 65 of the vote. You saw that reflected around this district over the last couple days. Core democratic voters were fired up to vote in this race, fired up to volunteer out knocking on doors out in neighborhoods, out making phone calls. I talked to a lot of voter whos said they have never been as engaged in a Congressional Election as they were in this one. Some folks said they were volunteering for the first time. I spent most of my time today with the democrats. I have to say from the Republican Point of view here, if there is a Silver Lining to this narrow what looks like it might be a victory, its that to some degree their formula worked. You talked about running up the score in some of those rural areas. In a lot of places around the country that look like this, that is what republican republicans have to do, they have to juice turnout in their as a areas with donald trump or adds with nancy pelosi, and hold on and hope this democratic Enthusiasm Wave doesnt knock them off their perches. I do think we saw a little bit of a blueprint how it will work. The resources and money and time wont be the same when theres 435 house races happening instead of one on a random tuesdayner i august. A superb election in the dead of the summer. My kind of night here i guess you could say. Garrett, great reporting. Thank you for joining us outside what was the oconnor headquarters outside columbus. Former republican congressman david jolly from you florida, John Pod Or Ritz and kimberly atkins, columnist for the boston herald. David, let me start with you. Im looking at the story from this district. Im seeing three different stories looking at we showed there Franklin County. Clinton won it and tonight you saw the energy was there for democrats. The Support Level for oconnor was higher than it was for clinton by will ten points. Turnout level was higher. Im thinking that story is trouble for republican members of congress, barbara cop stock right outside washington, d. C. From the suburban areas highly educated, trouble for them when you see that. A lot of my former colleagues in congress will have hard conversations with Party Leadership in the next month or two. The party may begin to pull resources from districts. They might be too vulnerable incumbents to hold toes seats. Were also seeing this trend away from republicans almost at large. These are districts that trump won, states trump won. Were seeing a contrast between the trump effect in a General Election which is the special election in ohio is essentially a General Election. Also the influence of trump in primaries like were seeing in kansas, move to washington and youre seeing the negative wins that trump brings to those rays. Au in all, a good night for democrats. Well know in ten days balderson probably wins. The trend is getting away from republicans. Theyre in a lot of trouble when these races are fought in competitive districts in november. The trend we should say. Trump by 11 points in this district tonight, one point if this holds. If i have this number right, so democrats need 23 seats to take control of the house. There were 24 districts. There are 24 Hillary Clinton districts. Up to 25 with that pennsylvania. There are 25 districts republicans are sitting in that hillary won. Okay. And then theres the question whether or not there are other districts like this one where trump wins by 11 where it gets close. If you look at this you say to yourself, the vast majority of those seats that hillary won those guys are in deep deep deep. Youre saying a wave. If i mean, think about this number. So this guy oconnor who is like a nobody out polls hillary in a hillary area. Right . By ten points. So we could be seeing that district after district after district after district. In other words, the democrats could already have pretty close to having the house in their pocket. I think they do. I dont think theres a scenario tonight where we would say republicans can hold the house. Steve, i have republican colleagues of mine friends who have been in the field. Theyre incumbents in the field for a year. Over the last 90 days, seeing the precipitous drop in support for republicans. Thats why you see republicans spend money early. Even in majority republican districts, you now have a lot of vulnerable members. And i have to say when you sit down, you can do examiners sometime or make the map yourself and start flipping districts and you start out with the number 23 and say democrats got to pick off 23 republicans. Maybe republicans are fortified here. It goes fast. Kimberly, look, republicans will say bottom line, we won. It wasnt pretty. Again, its too close to call but certainly youd rather be balderson with the numbers than oconnor. Republicans will say if this holds, we won this thing. Thats all that counts. Thats the story of the special elections besides pennsylvania a couple months ago, there were a lot of close calls but we won. Is there anything besides the bottom line you think they can hang their hats on at all . Thats a tough thing to say. We saw the president calling this a win. It sort reminds me of a regular season game when you know the playoffs are coming and you know that the teams will make a lot of adjustments leading into that. I think youre going to see that here, some of the things you were pointing out like not really growing the republican the suburbanen support for republicans having that slip a little bit. Its just, it may not be enough to overcome those to for even in those areas where you have that really inelastic support for trump in the rural areas if they really are not winning the suburbs and not winning the more urban areas. If the democrats continue to mobilize, they mobilized in the middle of august, think whats going to happen in november. I think its going to be already really bad news for republicans when it comes to playoff time. Okay. So republican political consultant made the point that there is oner in lining for republicans which is to say that Balderson Defeat could have led to a stampede for the exits by not only by voters but by donors by people who have to pony up at the end, gin up enthusiasm. The idea if this had gone the other way, it probably wont, if this didnt look the way it did now, it would have been mass. The psychology of actually losing versus. The other way to look at it is like the first act of The Walking Dead and the zombies come and dont get in then but then in three months, the zombies get into your cave. It may just be staving off the inevitable. Im just former republican congressman, you ran. Having to deal with donald trump a little bit. If you were running right now as a republican just trying to survive, in terms of whats the strategy you try to employ . You cant survive a 5050 district. One of the takeaways from baldersons race is interesting. He was not fully in with donald trump. He occasionally said the right things. I think he wanted to bid the wall. This was an entrenched establishment republican candidate. This was not a make America Great again candidate. Trump would say he should have been more trump. Im a product of special elections. My first race was a special election. To johns point, one of the things the Party Apparatus has to do is convince the high dollar institutional donors they can win these races. I saw it in my election and conversely, i was running during the implementation of obamacare and it provides an opportunity in my case for democrats to message test. At the time it was unpopular. The rollout was a disaster. Republicans were trying to find their footing on obamacare and frankly they couldnt. Republicans rights now are doing exactly the same thing trying to find their footing with donald trump. Where is it . They havent figured it out but they can go back to their donor base and say we at least know how to win. Thats about all they can say tonight. Kimberly, maybe this is sort of a Bigger Picture thing about the state of politics, the american divide. Looking at that map, the one other thing jumps out at me, Democratic Energy in and immediately around columbus, the energy there the support for the democratic candidate there, you go to the rural parts of the district and these are places that obama won one of the keens in the rural part of this district and it went to trump by 30 points in 2016. There was interesting suspense there tonight would there be erosion for republicans in the Trump Country part of this district and there wasnt. This is a turnout might not have been great. Balderson was getting trump level support does make me wonder if thats getting to a Bigger Picture thing where republicans are casting their lot with that america and that sort of the future in the past for democrats. I think it depend how each of these districts look. If you have districts with more Rural Support like that, they will benefit from that inelastic support donald trump has had that weve seen in polling since inauguration day. A lot of these districts are drawn in ways theres a little bit of suburbia other things that come into play some that get closer into urban areas. This might be one way that some of the gerrymandering thats taken place to skim off urban areas to dilute that vote may come back to bite republicans in some ways if we see democrats turning out in those places. So its really going to be interesting to see how that plays out moving forward. Kimberly atkins, thanks for joining us. Coming up, other results and analysis from a bunch that we had ohio, we will kansas, michigan. Other results, other races to tell you about to break down all the numbers and the latest in todays other big political story, the Paul Manafort trial. Ken dilanian and henry lipman will join us. Stay with us. To fight cancer. And never lose sight of the patients were fighting for. Our Cancer Treatment specialists share the same vision. Experts from all over the world, working closely together to deliver truly personalized cancer care. Specialists focused on treating cancer. Using advanced technologies. And more precise treatments than before. Working as hard as we can doing all that we can for everyone who walks through our doors. This is Cancer Treatment centers of america. And these are the specialists were proud to call our own. Treating cancer isnt one thing we do. Its the only thing we do. Expert medicine works here. Learn more at cancercenter. Com Cancer Treatment centers of america. Appointments available now. We have to elect troy. Well, President Donald Trump at a rally on saturday for troy balderson, republican candidate in that special election in ohios 12th District tonight. The race as weve been telling you, we are currently saying too close to call. Balderson leading Democrat Danny Oconnor by less than a percentage point. Voters will not learn the final vote till all the absentee and provisional votes are counted. Maybe the reason we have such suspense, maybe theres a recount as mandate bid state law. The president has already declared victory. Earlier tonight he tweeted when i decided to go to ohio for Troy Badder Son, he was down 6436. That was not good. After my speech on saturday night, there was a big turn for the better. He wins a great victory during a tough type of the year for voting. He will win big in november followed by another Tweeting Congratulations to Troy Badder Son on a great win in ohio. Balderson is not the only candidate trumps endorsement appears to be helping. He tweeted his support for chris kovach in kansass republican primary for governor. Heres the result, kobach leading by 952 votes, jeff colyer, thats the incumbent republican governor, he had been the lieutenant governor, Sam Brownback left colyer takes over sort of an unelected as governor at least, heres the key though to keep in mind. The outstanding vote in kansas is almost all in johnson county. We talk about those more upscale suburbs, college changed all that stuff. We talked about them in ohio right outside kansas city. Colyer leading by 13 points. Certainly on paper you look and say maybe colyer despite being behind but a very close race. Joining me now Jason Johnson, from the root. Com and msbc contributor. John podder ritz and jason. The president will try to find a way to declare victory with any of these. Hes doing it in ohio tonight. Maybe the Republican Party will be happy with that one. In can is if kobach were to win this thing, that is something the republican Establishment Doesnt Want to see. The president is still the biggest loudest voice for the Republican Party. He can claim victories tonight and he has proven he can be successful in moving people in primaries. Apparently trumpism only works for donald trump. People who push that kind of attitude, that kind of behavior, kobach with all the controversies in his background and the corruption and Everything Else like that, being a trumpist works well in a republican primary. It may not be the best thing for you in a jen election. This is really important to understand sort of mathematically as a political scientist. The vast majority of special elections are in gerrymandered districts. Its generally not a situation where in a special election you can beat the incumbent party. Democrats havent won very many federal elections. Theyve been winning at the state level. When you can break down a margin from 10 to 16 points to Single Digits knowing there will be a rematch in two months, every single republican has to be concerned heading into the fall and donald trump cant visit all the districts he needs to visit in order to stave off a blue wave. Its interesting. We talk about the trump effect. The obvious trump effect is the fact we had a competitive race in the 12th Congressional District a Democrat Hadnt Won since 1980. In terms of the result, the president going in on saturday making noise in this one, how do you look at the results in a way the trump effect on this one . The way, trump is causing democratic enthusiasm. Right . This election is ohio election is kind of a joke like its happening in august. They have to run again in november with this recount stuff. September we may have an answer. Who knows when the winner will be sworn in. Hell be for six weeks and run again, right . So the whole thing was a proxy. Whether or not Garrett Haake said they were talking about Social Security and issues and that you will. Nobody was fooled. It was a proxy race. Right . So two things happen. So the democratic enthusiasm was huge and there was a trump effect almost certainly positively pore balderson. So the question i would have for dave jolly in this circumstance is, youre in trouble, youre a republican in trouble even if its a district that looks pretty you know, split, maybe you want trump. Maybe your only hope is ginning it up. Thats the question. The governor there made it sound like balderson maybe didnt want trump. What had you have said in his position . We need to dissect president trumps tweet. Based on electoral science its absurd. Its important to understand early voting is a demographic all to itself. Donald trump did not shift this election. I knew in my first race i was going to lose the early vote because i knew the performance of early voters versus those on election day. This is fascinating because donald trump might say, and we may see the numbers that he created enthusiasm and brought more republicans out. You have to measure how Many Democrats cape out out of concern and anxiety to the oppose donald trump. The reality is, trumps impact on 2018 is obvious. Republicans are losing. Republicans are having to compete where they never have before. Republicans are underperforming by 5 and ten points because of donald trump. The donald trump effect is not winning close races like tonight. Its losing and undermining what has been ten years of successful republican politics. My question is, youve got two weeks to go, barbara cop stock in the virginia suburbs and maybe not the right candidate for this, two weeks to go. Youre down three or four. Your only hope is somehow ginning up republican turnout. Youve got to gin it up. The trump effect may be there. The trump effect is already stimulated the democrats. If youre one these moderate sort of like establishment republicans, thats what im asking, do you want him there last week of october. I dont know. Im just saying. It depends on the district, not the candidates ideology. The best course would be to were silent on donald trump. And just not ask him to come to the district. I was actually a republican who stood on house floor, called for him to drop out of the race and said hes bad for the country, ill never support him. My Republican Base will never let me live that down. Thats fine. I was willing to accept the consequences. If youre barbara cop stock, you cant distance yourself from the president but you dont have to embrace him. From a democrat candidates standpoint, it sounds like the president wants to be very visible this fall. If youre one of those democrats trying to unseat a republican and the president is coming to your district a week or two out, are you saying uhoh, hes going to get the republicans fired up or saying oh, hes going to get the democrats fired up. Youre saying this is going to raise me money and i have a good chance he does as much damage as he does good. You saw this in the 12th District and youve seen this in other places. Donald trump shows up wherever you want to go. You may not be in a position of being able to ask him to show up because a president decides when he wants to show up. Sometimes he names the wrong candidate when he cops to a district. I dont know that if its two weeks in october if you really want to be the person bringing donald trump. He may not show up. He may not stay on record or message and worse, what kinds of messaging sacrifices will you have had to make at the altar of trump in the previous three weeks to make yourself attractive enough hes going to want to make that swing . I probably wouldnt want to bother with him. You work on the fact youve been an incumbent and care about the local community. You dont want to make this a National Race if youre a republican right now. Whatever the ultimate result in ohio 12, there is plenty of reason for democrats when theyre cutting 12 points off trumps margin like this. The Bigger Picture coming up. The nature of a virus is to change. Move. Mutate. Life. To the fullest. With pg e in the sierras. And im an arborist since the onset of the drought, more than 129 Million Trees have died in california. Pg e prunes and removes over a Million Trees every year to ensure that Hazardous Trees cant impact power lines. And since the onset of the drought weve doubled our efforts. I grew up in the forests out in this area and honestly its heartbreaking to see all these trees dying. What guides me is ensuring that the public is going to be safer and that these forests can be sustained and enjoyed by the community in the future. We have been focusing all night on a special election in the 12th District in ohio. Believe it or not, theres a lot more when it comes to elections tonight. A bunch of other big races happening around the country including michigan where the Democratic State Senate Leader Gretchen Whitmer has won the democratic nomination for governor in that state. This according to associated press. Theres been a little bit of chaos in the vote counting out there for the secretary of state site. Those are the numbers you see up on the screen showing you a low apartment in. Whitmer the favorite of the establishment of the party. Youre seeing in the a. P. Count winning with 51 of the vote. She defeats apparently former top Detroit Health official abdul he will syed. He was backed by both Bernie Sanders and alexandria ocasiocortez. They campaigned on his behalf ahead of this race. Joining us is democratic congressman Eric Swalwell of california. Let me just ask you. Good evening. Youre trying to pick off 23 republican seats in november. How do you feel at this moment . Very good. There are 79 sees more competitive than the seats where its still too close to call with Danny Oconnor as our candidate. Michigan, the contest you just referenced more democrats showed up to vote there. People are energized but when you get out of primaries and get to the General Election and independents and Republican Voters can cross over i think were in a better position. Are you looking are you thinking at all that this word wave gets tossed around a lot. Is it a disappointment for democrats if they barely hit that number . Are you starting to think in terms of getting a more robust majority that might have a little bit more clout in power there . Were not taking anything for granted at all. When you look at the Conor Lamb Race or how close it is with Danny Oconnors race, we believe in each of these competitive races it will be 1,000 plus or minus votes. Thats why its so important that our candidates are able to appeal not just to the Democratic Base but to maybe disenchanted Republican Voters independent voters. So we know how important this is and were going to stick to making sure that they understand that their Health Care Costs are going up. Pay collects do not have certainty and that the corruption in washington needs to be addressed. We think that will be the margin of victory. One of the biggest messages from republicans against Danny Oconnor and if they do hang on and win, if balderson does, republicans will say what saved them at the end was running against the idea of speaker nancy pelosi because oconnor had they ran the ad with oconnor on this network saying in the end he would vote with democrats for at the pel. Do you expect nancy at the pel to be the democratic leader after this novembers election . I do. And again, thats the message that shows the bankruptcy of their values that theyre not talking about what theyre for. Theyll have a real problem if Danny Oconnor is coming within 1500 votes right now and theres 79 districts more competitive. Theyd better come up with something more appealing to the values that voters have in their districts. Eric swalwell, thank you for joining us. Our panel is back with us. David jolly, john podhoretz, Jason Johnson johnson. Im interested in the question about nancy pelosi. Weve seen so Many Democrats in districts just like this, ohio 12. Part of that portfolio is saying im not going to vote for nancy pelosi. If democrats get the majority and its slim and 20 or 30 candidates show up in washington pledging not to vote for nancy pelosi, can she be the democratic leader . She can. But heres the other thing. This works both ways. In the ohio district 12, remember, oconnors campaign was saying hey, is balderson going to vote for jim jordan if he runs for a Leadership Position with the controversy going on with ohio state right now. There are lots of Different Things that can come into play. If the democrats win the house by a reasonable margin, nancy pelosi will initially step aside. Dealing with donald trump is not the same thing as george bush. Its not the same thing as barack obama. The democrats need a wartime consigliere, younger more aggressive kind of leadership in order to keep pace with the excitement and enthusiasm of their base. I dont know if nancy pelosi and James Clyburn can continue doing that. You got a name in mind . So i have said for a long time, i think tim ryan will try something. I think swalwell. There are several members of the Congressional Black Caucus thinking about it right now. Im fairly confident the new leadership with the Democratic Party will be a much more diverse leadership than perhaps in the past. Do you expect nancy pelosi to be democratic leader come january . I question whether pelosi is a figure as radioactive as other as other political leaders in congress have been to help the other side. Like shes not newt. Newt was you know, very useful. Shes not dole. Shes not so i think the hope of republicans is that they can somehow threaten republican vote ares to might stay home with the possibility that nancy pelosi will be speaker and a lot of low Information Voters will say whos nancy pelosi. So if im right about that, then she doesnt have to be turned out because she wont be a figure, a Lightning Rod of controversy. Its not clear to me the democrats are responding to pelosi in the way they are because theyre worried she is useful to republicans. Its nor like shes owed, shes been there a long time. Let people that were more simpatico with have the job. I think she was actually a pretty good speaker when she was tem speaker technically speaking. Im not sure you should throw her aside for somebody untested. The whole drama there, joe crowley seemed in position if pelosi were to step aside. Hes not anymore. Jason johnson, david jolly, john, thank you all for staying up late on a very fun election night. Coming up next, good news for democrats hoping for that blue wave in november. Going to break down some of the top tier democratic targets this november. They may be more favorable turf for party than we saw in the 12th District in ohio. That is next. 12 according to the cook political partisan voting index. And there are also 119 less republican districts than that pa1 seat that democrats won back in march. The magic number for democrats to win the house, they need 23 to do that. We thought we would take a look at some of those districts that may be top tier target for democrats. Why dont we look at this. This was the last one, the last special election it started all the way back in april 2017. Since the 2016 election heading into 2018, these are all the special elections for the house. So many great memories. How many nights did we stay up like this. Some of these were very suspenseful. Clearly a pattern emerged. This is around wichita. This was mike pompeos district. Trump won by 27. The republicans did win the seat in the special election but that was a move to the democrats of 20 points there from 27 to 7. You saw it in montana. Entire state, thats the one where the republican Candidate Body slammed the reporter The Night Before the election. Again, he did win that election. He might be in trouble this fall but that was a shift of 14 points for democrats. The one big exception on this list, it was georgia 6. It was the suburbs north of atlanta. Thats the one thing when republicans, boy, if they want to be optimistic they can say hey, somehow thats going to be the rule here and Everything Else will be an outlier. But otherwise, look, Double Digit Gains for democrats utah is a weird one. There was a Third Party Candidate in the president ial race. Trumps margin there. Beak this, coming into tonight, the average gain for democrats versus 2016 was 10 1 2 points. They beak gained 10 1 2 points tonight. If things hold, a little bit less than a point, well call it a point, republicans by a point there. Bottom line, take a look at it this way. We say 23 is the magic number. We talked about where oconnor ran up is the magic number. Hillary clinton won the one county where she won in 2016. He did 10 points better than her and the turnout was through the roof. Who are the most nervous republicans right now . These 25. The republicans here all represent districts that were won by Hillary Clinton. I think these republicans, if they are looking at that Hillary Clinton portion of ohio tonight, they got to be worried. Theres a lot of demographic similarities in some of these districts. The clinton district republicans i think have to be worried when they see a result like this tonight. Coming up, todays other big political story, the trial of Paul Manafort. Doing all that we can for everyone who walks through our doors. This is Cancer Treatment centers of america. And these are the specialists were proud to call our own. Treating cancer isnt one thing we do. Its the only thing we do. Expert medicine works here. Learn more at cancercenter. Com Cancer Treatment centers of america. Appointments available now. Day six of the United States versus Paul Manafort. During his second day of testimony, rick gates who is cooperating the Robert Mueller testified that he falsified tax and Bank Documents at manaforts request. During Cross Examination, manaforts lawyers pressed gates about his lies to the mueller team and the hundreds of thousands he admitted to embezzling from manafort. Though Paul Manafort is facing charges from before his time as Trump Campaign chairman, today in court the Trump Campaign was also discussed. It was a Tale Of Dueling Narratives at the Paul Manafort trial today. The star witness rick gates was on the stand for hours accusing manafort of corruption, of tax evasion, of faking loan documents, of bank fraud. Then gates came under withering Cross Examination by manaforts lawyers. The person for whom this is really bad is donald trump, because these guys were running his campaign and they both from the evidence in the trial, whatever the conviction or acquittal is, they both appear to have been sleaze bags. He parked millions of dollars in Foreign Bank Accounts outside the irs. He has not refuted that at the trial. His only hope is to say it was not intentional and therefore not a felony. Gates has admitted to massive crimes including tax evasion, bank fraud and stealing from Paul Manafort. Today it emerged he had a secret life, a mistress at a crash pad in london. It was an interesting trial, day in court today. Manaforts lawyers did damage gates credibility, but they didnt challenge sort of the overall assertions that he made in the morning, buttressed by documents that the prosecution introduced, some of which were emails from Manafort Clearing showing his involvement in shady behavior. Joining us now harry litman, former federal prosecutor and Deputy Assistant attorney general under president clinton. Ken is saying there it sounds like gatess credibility was damaged by that Cross Examination today, the defense team really going after him. Ultimately, do you think that matters . Well, maybe a little. He did get beat up some, but that was to be expected. The important thing is not whether hes done sleazy or criminal things. Its whether the jury now believes hes telling the truth. And what he said is, look, heres my plea agreement. If i tell a lie, i lose it all. Im incentivized for it. The defense made a textbook error. They said to him, well, if youre done so many lies, should the jury believe you now. He said yes. And they said why . And you learn in trial 101 dont ask a question You Dont Know the answer to. He was prepped for it and he said, because im here to tell the truth, Paul Manafort had the same choice, he chose another path. I think that hit home. The important thing is not what hes done in the past but whether as hes sitting there they have reason to believe him. That is not just his word, but all the corroborating evidence that the government has introduced. So they scratched him up some, but i dont think in any critical way. Im curious too what you make of the judge in this case. Theres been some coverage, some attention to his behavior in the courtroom, some withering criticism really of the defense team, telling one of the lawyers, saying, i see tears in your eyes, essentially saying, maybe i made you cry. What do you make of what the judge is up to here . He actually said that to a prosecutor, a lead prosecutor. Im sorry. I said defense. Thats all right. Ive been in front of him as a prosecutor. He does take a special relish in sort of slapping you around. But hes gone farther here. Theres not only what you just said, which at least was out of earshot of the jury. But within the jurys earshot when gates testified that manafort was on top of everything he did, judge ellis volunteered apropos of nothing, well not everything, obviously, since he didnt know about the money you were stealing, this in front of the jury. Thats really improper. You know, ellis is known for being feisty, but this is the kind of thing that can prejudice the United States. I dont think it will, but if it does, theres no appeal. If theres an acquittal here, the United States cant reverse it because of double jeopardy. If there is a conviction on the other hand in terms of muellers investigation, look, this case is officially its about the Business Practices of Paul Manafort. The Trump Campaign came up today in the court, but this has not primarily been about the Trump Campaign. But in terms of muellers investigation of russian interference in the 2016 election, the Trump Campaign, if he gets a conviction, does it in any way feed into that . Is there a connection there . Is there a next step if he gets this connection . Yeah. So i think in a few ways. First, as you mentioned, it does have a little bit to do with the russia stuff even in the trial. Of course, manafort and gates, as you mentioned at the top, during the campaign in the thick of it, manaforts losing several hundred thousand dollars a month, in fact. But i just think more generally, trump has so invested in the notion this is a rigged phony probe and a decisive win here by mueller just strengthens his hand, strengthened rosensteins hand and weakens trumps commensurately. The drama is going to continue inside that courthouse. Weve got accounts from our reporter and those Court Drawings too we get to put up on the air. Always fun to get to show those. Well be right back