Among those questions, what it could mean for 2020. Could some in the president s party be rethinking whether they want to stick with mr. Trump amid the impeachment fight. Well break down all the im kagss of last nights elections results. A significant new twist in the Impeachment Inquiry. Eu Ambassador Gordon Sondland changing his story now, backing up the testimony of several other key witnesses regarding aid to ukraine and the commitment to investigate the 2016 election and the bidens. But why was he allowed to change his testimony . Were going to dig into that in just a moment. Lets go right to the implications of tuesdays elections. For that i want to bring in msnbc National Political correspondent Steve Kornacki. Hes at the big board. Nbc news road war i dont Vaughn Hillyard joins us from louisville, kentucky. Vaughn, its a state that President Trump won by about 30 points in 2016. Here we are just three years later. Looks like there will be a Deck Kr Democrat in the governors mention. Steve, what happened in kentucky in the simplest terms. Democrats needed everything to go right and pretty much everything went right. Three things i quickly draw your attention to. Number one, i had the same thing, louisville ive been saying louisville my whole life. In louisville, the biggest county in the state, biggest city in the state. It wasnt just that beshear won, he got nearly a 100,000vote margin over matt bevin. That was massive democratic support. Last election the democrat by won by about 37,000 votes. That happened in the democratic vote producing area. Right here, the three counties in the northern part of the
state, those are the suburbs of cincinnati, ohio, right across the ohio river. These are densely populated, large, usually republican bastions. Republicans usually run up the numbers. Two of these counties actually flipped and went for beshear, went for the democratic here. The other one, boone county, the red one, went with bevin, but his margin was a lot lower than it was last time he ran. In kentucky, you have these big Suburb Counties moving away from matt bevin. The third one, rural coal country, Eastern Kentucky, rural Eastern Kentucky. You saw numbers here, a Couple Counties where beshear this is a small rural county. Beshear won this 5544. Put that in perspective. How did donald trump do in this county in 2016 . Donald trump won it by almost 40 points. This is a 50point swing youre talking about here for beshear winning by 11. Thats what the numbers look
like. Trump wins this county by 54 points in 2016. Beshear actually won it last night. This is an interesting story. Rural Eastern Kentucky. Nationally these folks vote like republicans, they really like donald trump. Theyre blue collar, culturally conservative. Kentucky is an interesting state in that the Democratic Party still has a presence in places like this locally. So that was the question here. Thats why donald trump in part came to kentucky on the eve of the election. He and republicans were thinking of places like this, counties like this where donald trump absolutely slaughtered Hillary Clinton in 2016. They were trying to get that kind of energy, that kind of support behind matt bevin. Bevin did you can see beshear did a lot better than Hillary Clinton. It was not enough. The republicans were hoping they would get a lot more out of counties like this. For a 5,000vote margin statewide, a bunch of things had
to break beshears way and a bunch of things did. In terms of turnout, steve, in Kentucky Last Night versus the last election. About 1. 4 million, a little over 1. 4 Million People voted last night. Last gubernatorial election, 973,000. I love how i can ask Steve Kornacki just about any question and he can answer it. Thats talent. I want to talk about virginia. Lets go to vaughn here for a moment. As we wait to hear from the apparent winner, andy beshear, whats been the reaction from voters . Whats been the reaction from the campaigns . Reporter i want to play part of andy beshear last night. The current Attorney General in the state. We should note that his father was the former governor of kentucky, the predecessor to matt bevin. Any moment were expected to hear from andy beshear who is the governor elect. Of course, matt bevin has not
announced his own concession to this point. Theres potential he will ask the state to either take part in a recanvas or recount. I want to let you hear from andy beshear. I think last night, his speech in louisville was very much reflective of the type of campaign he ran. Voters in kentucky sent a message loud and clear for everyone to hear. Its a message that says our elections dont have to be about right versus left. They are still about right versus wrong. That what unites us as ken tuckians still unites us stronger than any national divisions. Reporter the campaign focused on local issues, jobs, health care, pension reform. Contrast that with the way matt
bevin ran the campaign. Matt bevin looked to donald trump to help catapult him ultimately to victory. I want to play a Little Exchange yesterday with matt bevin when he decided to nationalize this campaign so much. Why nationalize this race so much and talk about President Trump so much . I dont know do you watch the news . The fact you ask why this is being nationalized and why people are talking about President Trump would indicate to me that you may have sort of come out from under a rock. Here in america, thats pretty topical every night. Reporter so what should we take away from this race, craig . Donald trump, to what extent was he actually annual to help matt bevin. He maybe helped bring out trumpbacking voters that wouldnt otherwise come to the polls. But it clearly was not enough. The campaign of andy beshear, ran a very statebased campaign. There were no 2020 National Candidates here. Matt bevin ran away from the national conversation, ran away
from talk about impeachment. Notice he hasnt been on the National Airwaves today. Its not clear when he anticipates doing so. How is this sort of an operation, has run a state that has even the democratic voters in the state are more conservative. I think this is part of that conversation. How does someone like doug jones in alabama win the reelection. I think those are the conversations that are going to be taking place over the next days ahead. All right. Well go back to louisville, kentucky, in a moment when the apparent governorelect takes to the podium. We should also note that Daniel Cameron made some history there in Kentucky Last Night. Cameron becoming the first africanamerican Attorney General in the history of that state, a republican there in kentucky. Let us turn to the commonwealth for a moment, mr. Kornacki. For the first time, if my math is correct here, the first time in a generation democrats have taken control, not just of the Governors Mansion but both
houses in virginia. Yes, in virginia, right. Democrats already had the governorship, lieutenant governor. Yesterday it was the State Legislature that was up for grabs. You see basically what happened. In the House Of Delegates here, going into yesterday, republican control, it was slight, but republicans have control. Right now a few seats uncounted. Democrats went into yesterday with 48. There was a vacancy where there was a democratic seat that had 49. You see now theyre well over 50, gives them control. Same thing on the senate. Democrats were at 19 coming in. Now at 21. Gives them control. I just think the big significance of this, craig, its a state legislative election. Why are we talking about it . Its because virginia has been transformed politically as a state within the last generation i. Used to be at the president ial level a republican bastian. We didnt talk about it as competitive in president ial elections. Then it became a swing state, 2008, 2012, when barack obama was running, he carried the state. His margin in the state looked
exactly like his national margin. It was a bellwether state. Since 2012, its continued to move in the democratic direction. Hillary clinton did better in virginia than she did nationally in 2016. Democrats control the legislature now. They won the governor ship in 2017. They have the Attorney Generals office, lieutenant governor. Starting to look ahead to 2020. You saw all the polls from big swing states, trump versus the democrats. Virginia wasnt even one of them. I think this is the transformation of virginia. It was cemented here from swing state now to blue state. Its blue, no longer purple. I know its early, just a few hours out from actually getting the Election Results in, so it may be early to try to glean too much from what we saw last night in kentucky and virginia. What do we know at this point about what motivated voters on tuesday . How much of this was a referendum on the president of the United States . Its interesting. You look at virginia. Its a continuation of a story weve been telling in virginia
the last few years. We saw this dynamic in 2017 when democrats were able to win the gore norship. We saw it in 2018, three congressional seats in virginia that flipped from republican to democratic. You see it with the state legislative elections. The story of the suburbs in virginia, richmond and Virginia Beach moving away from the republicans. In kentucky, i think its more complicated for a couple reasons. Yes, you had trump go and in try to propel bevin and he falls short. On the other hand, bevin was a supreme lip unpopular governor. His Approval Rating was 34 . In some ways the fact that that governors race got nationalized to the extent it did, that is probably the only thing that gay bevin a chance. It wasnt enough to lift him to victory. If he was running just on his state record, his reputation in the state, it might have been worse than it was. Steve kornacki breaking it down. Thanks, my friend. Were also keeping a very close eye on washington, d. C. And the
growing Impeachment Battle Between Congress and the white house. Msnbcs Garrett Haake is at his post on capitol hill. Nbcs Peter Alexander is at the white house for us. Mr. Headacaake, well start wit. The first witness testified this week Behind Closed Doors on the hill. Any indication why hes saying yes to meet with investigators, why youve got this long list of other administrative officials who said no . This witness, david hale, the number three person at the State Department fits the pattern thats developed of witnesses that do try to show up and testify. Hes a Career Public official and he works at the State Department. So many of the witnesses who have been more forthcoming fit either one of those two categories and he fits both. Democrats expect hell confirm a lot of testimony released earlier this week about the firing of the now former ambassador to ukraine, Maria Yovanovitch, that was backed up instead by mike mckinley,
another former top pompeo aide. Democrats are layering levels of evidence on top of each other with these witnesses who they expect will tell largely the same story about what was going on within the State Department. Theyre trying to keep the scope of this inquiry narrow, but the actual evidence theyre getting airtight. I think they expect to get much the same from hale today. Lets talk about this major reversal in testimony here for a moment, the president s appointee as ambassador to the european union, Gordon Sondland. He did a full 180, it would seem. Now saying he does remember telling the top aide to the president of ukraine that the country would not receive Military Assistance unless it committed to investigating joe biden in the 2016 election. How is this reversal being received there on the hill . Reporter this is a fairly extraordinary reversal from sondla sondland. It came in the form of an appendix to his testimony that the committee got just the day before they released it
publicly. In his statement he says essentially, not only was there a quid pro quo, but he was the one who delivered it. He says he remembers speaking the mr. Yermak where i said the resumption of u. S. Aid would likely not occur until ukraine provided the public Anti Corruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks. Im not an expert in latin, but that is a quid pro quo. Interestingly enough, republican response has largely been to say gordon who . They pointed to other transcripts that have come out saying they show less than that or they contradict sondland. Lindsey graham told me hes not going to read the Gordon Sondland transcript. He thinks the whole thing is a sham and sondland has problematic issues with his memory in other parts of the transcript. The republicans are trying to dismiss what is thus far the most direct connection to a quid
pro quo and the president that weve seen in a released piece of testimony. Garrett, thank you. Meanwhile, down in louisville, kentucky, im told democratic governor elect andy beshear has taken to the podium. Lets listen in. I have a friend i did not have an opportunity to thank last night and that is mayor greg fisher. He worked incredibly hard in support of this campaign, and mayor, it showed. Last night the election ended. It ended, and its time to move forward with a smooth transition that we are here to do so that we can do the peoples business. A we have got to submit a budget, for instance, to the legislature near the end of january. That budget is going to be absolutely critical in its support of publicing education
and health care. Its time we started taking the steps to put together the cabinet, the administration and the budget thats going to be necessary to move our families forward. So im here this morning to announce that j. Michael brown will serve as my transition chair. I have the utmost confidence in michael. He has served our country in uniform. He currently serves as the Deputy Attorney general. Hes previously served as a District Judge here in Jefferson County and as secretary of the justice cabinet. He has a long track record of exemplary public service. I could not ask for a better person to help lead this transition. Well be announcing more members of our Transition Team in the coming day and in the coming week but now its time to come together and to get to work. There is so much that jacqueline
and i ran on, challenges that are facing our families, from Public Education to pensions to health care to jobs, and to truly make that positive difference for our families, weve got to move and weave got to move quickly. Our budget, which will come out in january, will reflect the priorities of Public Education, health care and rebuilding our infrastructure. So this Isnt About Politics anymore. That ended last night. This is about being the best governor that i can be for the people of kentucky. Its about changing the tone that we have heard in frankfurt for the last four years, about coming together to make sure we can Work Together on the things we agree on and we can still talk to each other civilly on the things we disagree on. At this time id like to turn it over to michael brown. [ applause ] there you have it. Andy beshear, the governor elect
there for the state of kentucky, laying out his priorities, also introducing us to his transition chair. He was, of course, the Attorney General in kentucky but also the son of matt bevins predecessor, the son of steve beshear. It should also be noted here that Governor Bevin has yet to concede. The last time we heard from him he said, quote, this is a close, close race. We are not conceding this race by any stretch. We have not seen or heard from matt bevin since that statement. Lets bring in rick tyler, msnbc political analyst, tiffany cross, Managing Editor of the beat d. C. , and i wanted to bring back in phillip bailey, reporter at louisvilles Courier Journal who joined us to talk about kentucky politics. He joined us yesterday. Phillip, how surprised were you by the results last night . Well, no one was surprised one way or the other. Everyone thought matt bevin had the home court advantage, given the white rural state. President trump came in the day before the election really to give Governor Bevin a boost, but everyone understood that andy beshear, with the name beshear, was kn