Way on a monday night. And as we start a new week, good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Day 662 of the trump administration. It is already clear the pace of news this week is going to be little different from last. As we come on the air tonight, were going to begin with some breaking news just 21 minutes old. The story has just come out in the past half hour regarding the trump administration. The Washington Post is reporting President Trump has told advisers hes decided to remove Kirstjen Nielsen as Homeland Security secretary, and her departure, according to the post, is likely to occur in the coming weeks. On the phone is one of three bylines who broke this story tonight, our friend flim rucker, the pulitzer prizewinning bureau chief for the warrant warrant. Phil, we know this has been a long time developing. A slow runup, she is an acolyte of general kelly, but what did this, apparently . Well, brian, the president has just decided, according to officials in the white house, that its time for her to go. She is nearing her oneyear mark on the job. That would be december 6th. But the president told aides over the weekend that he wanted her out very soon. He actually had a trip planned with secretary nielsen sometime this week to visit troops at the border in south texas and he decided to cancel that trip, according to officials, and has been grumbling about her for months. Its been previously reported that he berated her at a cabinet meeting. He had spoken poorly about her behind her back, and i think its time to go. Its also worth pointing out, brian, this is a little bit mutual. Nielsen has been frustrated in the job herself and shes been thinking about leaving at some point, although clearly this is going to be the president s decision. Of course, the job could not be more important, among other things, fortifying our electronics grid, fortifying our computers against ongoing and sustained attack from the russians, among others. And so, phil, this will be another Senate Confirmation of another nominee. Reporter it would be. One thing we should point out to the viewers at home, just a caveat, that the president sometimes will tell his advisers hes made a decision and then change his mind once it gets covered in the media. So he could fall back on this. And chief of staff john kelly, who has been secretary nielsens biggest protector in the administration, at this hour is fighting with the president to try to save her job. Hes trying to postpone her dismissal. But we should also point out that kellys own future at the administration is considered shaky with some white house officials saying he may not be long for this world, either. Its tough to see how she will want to say want to stay, rather, looking at some of the language youve reported out from your reporting sources in the story tonight. Phil rucker, again, one of three names on the byline, the Washington Post breaking the story in the last half hour that Kirstjen Nielsen, the president is preparing to remove her as secretary of Homeland Security. Phil, thanks. Back to this unending Midterm Election of 2018. We have more news on that front just out tonight. Nbc news has declared democratic congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema as the apparent winner in the Arizona Senate race, giving her a narrow victory over republican congresswoman martha mcsally. Sinema now makes history as the first woman senator from that state and more history because she has turned jeff flakes Republican Senate seat blue, and sinema reacted a short time ago. It wont be easy, and it wont happen overnight. But we can Work Together to meet the challenges our country faces. We can do this differently for our country, for our future, for senator mccain, and for each other. I think we must. Thank you. Earlier this evening mcsally, flanked by a close friend, posted her own statement, her concession. I just called Kyrsten Sinema and congratulated her on becoming arizonas first female senator after a hardfought battle. I wish her all success as she represents arizona in the senate. Also tonight the state of Florida Racing to complete a recount in the races for governor and senate. These are automatic recounts. Some counties are running machines 24 hours a day, trying to process the more than 8 million votes cast by the thursday deadline. This years florida recount evokes memories of nearly 20 years ago. The at times wrenching, at times comical recount that ended when the u. S. Supreme Court Awarded the presidency to george w. Bush. Now two races are undecided. Rick scott against bill nelson for the senate. Ron desantis against Andrew Gillum for governor. While both races may have been called earlier by news organizations, a reminder, that has no force of law and instead the elections of course need to be certified by the states. Tonight the republicans, scott and desantis, hold narrow leads in their respective races. Today trump, who campaigned for both men, weighed in on social media. And we quote. The florida election should be called in favor of rick scott and ron desantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere and many ballots are missing or forged. An honest vote count is no longer possible. Ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night. A couple of things now. Theres no evidence to support what the president says there. There is zero evidence of voter fraud the president is talking about, and going with an Election Night count of ballots would disenfranchise, for starters, votes sent in from floridians serving in the military stationed overseas on veterans day weekend, no less. While normally candidates dont interfere in recounts, rick scott of florida is trying to. Hes the sitting governor who was attacking the count and his opponent hard because this would make him a u. S. Senator. Bill nelson is clearly a sore loser. He cant stand the fact that hes not going to be elected for the first time in decades. And he wont hes just here to steal this election. Thats what hes done. His lawyer came down here and said, im here to win the election. Im not here to get a free and Fair Election and make sure votes are counted. No, he wants to win the election. Thats his only purpose. The incumbent, the former astronaut and longtime democratic senator bill nelson, has fired back accusing scott of trying to suppress votes. One fact is that rick scott isnt interested in making sure every lawful vote is counted. And the second is that hes using his power as governor to try to undermine the voting process. Hes thrown around words like voter fraud without any proof. He should remove himself from any role in the recount process so the people can have the confidence in the integrity of the election. Again, and for the record, florida Authorities Say there is no evidence of voter fraud, and there is no investigation into possible voter fraud. There are, however, multiple lawsuits being filed over this recount, including one from rick scott to impound Voting Machines and ballots. Today a florida judge ruled against that request and issued his own warning to both sides. Im urging, because of the highly public nature of this case, to ramp down the rhetoric. With all that, lets go back to the big board because the midterms will never end. Our National Political correspondent Steve Kornacki back with us tonight. And steve, i understand since weve been talking we have breaking news on the georgia governor front. Yeah, you got the Florida Senate situation here, but i am going to jump over and tell you what we know in georgia right now. Here is the situation. Brian kemp, the republican, right now hes declared victory, but the question is does that 50. 3 , his share of the vote, does that go under 50 . That would trigger a runoff, that could trigger a recount. The Atlanta Journalconstitution is reporting just in the last few minutes that a federal judge has ordered the state of georgia to delay certifying this gubernatorial election. The state of georgia had been planning to do that tomorrow. All counties were to have their counts finalized, submitted to the state. The state then due to certify it. The Atlanta Journalconstitution, and were trying to get our hands on this ruling to find out more about it, but the Atlanta Journalconstitution is telling us that the federal judge has said this must be delayed now until friday at 5 00 p. M. And the reason for that, again, according to the journal constitution is that the lawsuit deals with provisional ballots that were not accepted, provisional ballots that currently are not part of the count here in georgia. We know the provisional ballots are overwhelmingly favoring stacey abrams. If there is a different standard thats applied here, if there is more latitude given to these counties in terms of trying to verify this voter counted this provisional ballot, that could potentially expand the pool by thousands of provisional ballots that are part of this count. And that could potentially, on top of whatever else was going to be counted between today and tomorrow, that could potentially we dont know, but potentially bring that number down for brian kemp into that range where the abrams camp needs it. Were going to find out more about this. We want to see this ruling, read it exactly for ourselves, but what were being told from the Atlanta Journalconstitution just in the last couple of minutes is that the federal judge has said two more days at least three more days at least before certifying this election and that the reason is these provisional ballots that the abrams camp is trying and hoping to get included potentially in the count. Thats the Significant Development there. You mentioned florida as well. That is where the machine recount is now underway. If the machine recount shows a similar result, then this senate race is going to head to a manual recount. There is one giant issue, i think, looming in this right now. You look at the difference between these candidates. It is 12,562 votes right now for rick scott. Here is that big issue. Its in broward county. Hugely democratic, nelson getting 70 of the vote almost here. 26,000 fewer votes were cast in the senate race than in the governors race here. That is a disparity not seen, not even approached in any other county in the state. Something is up in broward. The Nelson Campaign is saying this is a machine reading issue, that there are tens of thousands of votes that nelsons probably winning disproportionately. A manual recount if thats the case would catch that. But the other possibility here is that the design of the ballot played a role here. The design of this ballot in broward county, you can see the senate race here. Its buried under a long column of instructions. There were parts of the county where there wasnt even a house race under it. The federal agency that advises states on how to design and develop their ballots has specifically told states not to do this because in their test and in their studies, voters would miss sometimes a race located here on the ballot. So if it is a machine error like the nelson camp is talking about, you are talking about a Major Development that could eat significantly, maybe entirely, into that lead that rick scott has right now. If it is a ballot design issue, a very different story. Steve, maybe in time for our grandchildren someday, we will fix elections in this country and in all 50 states. We thank you so very much for starting us off at the big board, Steve Kornacki. Lets bring in our leadoff panel on a monday night into this conversation. Jackie coms is back with us, white house editor for the los angeles times. Annie karni is back with us. White house reporter for politico. Annie, i want to start off with the message of the sinema victory in arizona. There are so many aspects, as you know. Youve got jeff flake who wore facially the weight of the world, the torture he went through during the kavanaugh mess right before agreeing to send it through. And then you have donald trump campaigning in arizona. We had that marauding caravan en route north. One thing that sinemas republican challenger did not do was to raise questions about voter fraud the way other republicans have done in close races. The rnc and the white house pressured her, pressured mcsally to raise these issues, and she wouldnt do it. And there was some frustration with her for not going that route. One reason she might not have wanted to go that route is because there is potentially another Senate Seat Open for her. The replacement for john mccain, kyle may not want to serve out his full term and she could have a seat waiting for her. Thats one thing thats been speculated about her very nice and moderate tone tonight, her unwillingness to go voter fraud route is because she has another chance at this. But this race was different from what were seeing in florida for that reason. So, jackie, if you stick around long enough, you run the risk of people asking you what it was like back then, and you and i are both able to talk about the florida recount almost 20 years ago. One thing we didnt have then was one of the candidates and the president of the United States trying to diminish the integrity of the process. Well, thats right. Bill clinton as president , of course, wanted his Vice President al gore to win. But he was never heard from throughout the long recount in that december of 2000. And, you know, that was and nobody questioned that. He was expected to be quiet and thats what makes you know, this is just yet another norm that donald trump has broken, but its, in fact, one of the biggest norms hes breaking because undermining our democratic process, our elections, is just undermining democracy itself. It really has undercut Peoples Trust in elections. And you dont have to believe me, you can believe that judge in florida that you showed, judge jack tuter, who is, in fact, a republican appointee. He was appointed by jeb bush to that florida court. And he today in his admonishing the parties for the rhetoric what he didnt say, the rhetoric is coming from the republican side when it comes to talking about election fraud. That, you know, he said they are undermining voters trust in the election. Annie, what did we hear from donald trump going back to the start of the campaign . Its rigged, folks, the election is rigged, the system is rigged. He loves talking about voter fraud. He alleged there were 3 million cases of voter fraud in the last campaign. This does, as they say, fit nicely with his narrative. I dont think, knowing what donald trump says shouldnt come as a surprise that he raised these issues. He claimed there was massive voter fraud in new hampshire, a state he lost in 2016. A claim that one of his most loyal soldiers, corey lewandowski, his former campaign manager, came out and said coreys from new hampshire. Said i never saw any of this, its not true. So were seeing a bit of a preview, also, ive heard democrats say, this is very worrisome, because whats it going to look like if trump is trailing in the polls in 2020 . Whats he going to do . Whats he going to claim . What apparatuses of government he now controls will he put into motion to swing the race in his favor . Another thing were seeing with the rhetoric in the florida race is a bit of a do loop. If you track trumps tweets on this, they track very closely with Governor Scotts appearance on Sean Hannitys program on fox news where he started to claim that liberals were trying to steal the election and the tweets came soon after that. You could also say the Governor Scott knows who watches hannity and knew what trump might want to hear and told him what he wanted to hear and he went with it. It is unprecedented for a president to speak like this and to get involved, but when it comes to trump, i dont think there is very much surprise its an issue. He started the voter fraud commission. Its an issue he likes to bring up when the results dont go in his favor. And jackie, here we are perhaps at the expense of arlington or walter reid. The president seems obsessed with the florida race. Yeah. You know, i well, not i alone. A lot of people were shocked that he didnt go to arlington. I cant remember a president who didnt go to Arlington National cemetery on veterans day. And there is no explanation why. It did rain today but it wasnt raining earlier in the morning, and this comes two days after he skipped a visit to the American Cemetery in france that he was scheduled to visit as a commemoration of the end of world war i 100 years ago. So its actually inexplicable considering that donald trump has sort of wrapped himself in the cloak of veterans and bragging about his administrations solicitude toward veterans. Theres really no explanation for it. Jackie coms, annie karni, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Talk of new indoimts in the Mueller Investigation despite growing concerns over the investigations future. And new member of Congress Orientation getting underway in washington as the 115th congress, a model in good governments about to give way to the 116th. The 11th hour just Getting Started on a monday night.