or putting on robes on ku kluz klan, that s not a defense that one would want to advance. leland: you put these things together, northam used racism to beat up on ed gallespie but also go after president trump as a number of democrats also have. is this a watershed moment when all of a sudden you have a democratic governor that was elected and your own opposition research, own campaign, et cetera, never uncovered this photograph, is it time to stop and pause before accusing people of racism without really concrete proof? no, i actually think, you know, obviously we have to be thoughtful about this but there are certain images that disqualify an individual and i think unfortunately in this case governor northam has crossed the line. i do think we have to be careful to make sure that when thinking about this, when applying the standard that says we will not
he should resign if this is him but mainly because the standard he held to republicans to, back in 2017, he and the democrats demonized ed gallespie who is a good man and set high bar for racism and he needs to follow through and not be a hypocrite and follow through leland: went after the president on race issues, the ad with ed gallespie with confederate flag in the truck, et cetera, et cetera, the list goes on. this is interesting, though f northam you have justice fairfax who serves 3-year term and be able to run again, he ll he s the lieutenant governor, assistant u.s. attorney. he was tweet from mlk day, interesting, once again to time to rise for better angels of nature, #we rise on mlk day. is he the answer, is he able to sort of heal this wound that
making his making him rather third in line to the presidency after the vice president and the speaker to have house, molly. a little history for us as we look at the present issues of the day, thank you very much. all right, we wait to hear from ralph northam from the governor s mansion in just about an hour. protest outside his house but so far he s saying he s not going to resign. we bring in chief deputy whip of the house democratic caucus, michigan congressman, good to see you, appreciate it. thanks, leland. leland: this was from ralph northam about ed gallespie, then republican candidate for governor back in 2017. va is an exclusive and diverse, meaning virginia, we won t put up with racist rhetoric and fear-mongering, boy, that did not age well. , no it didn t, what it shows is when you have a standard, you to live by it and i think
dignity. virginia constitution is not an impeachable offense. if northam says i m sticking around, there s nothing democrats or republicans or virginians can do about it? basically becomes lame duck. he can do that if he wants to. he s the wrong person to bring the state together right now. leland: all right, where does this go from here politically? as you point out for republicans racism was the end velvet ed gallespie was beat on 2017, does this change the conversation, you have a democratic governor that has to resign because of a photo like, does the conversation need to change that changes of racism need to have much higher bar? i think each individual candidate is going to be judged differently. here is the thing, the democrats set extremely high bar when they use race at political weapon in 2017. they have done this in other
today adopt in democratic primary places them to the left of where they need to be, remember, in order to twin house, the democrats will have to win districts that are at least purple and in some instances red. paul: okay, here is the thing, though, the buggy nerric ballot, there s no question it s tightening. the margin for holding the house according to kevin mccarthy, the majority leader is 6, within 6 the republicans think they can hold the house but this doesn t take into consideration, democratic voter enthusiasm. i ve talked to republicans in some of the special races, ed gallespie told me the democratic didn t turn out entirely in the data on election day because democrats are so fired up that they exceed the polling, what do you think of that? i think that s accurate but a long time between november 2017 virginia governor s race and the november 2018 midterm elections and we have seen this year